“Language is the most elementary aspect to our humanness, probably. In addition to that, it's the embodiment, it's the apotheosis of the human experience, it's the way we summarize ourselves.”

“If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten.”

“Leftovers make you feel good twice. First, when you put it away, you feel thrifty and intelligent: 'I'm saving food!' Then a month later when blue hair is growing out of the ham, and you throw it away, you feel really intelligent: 'I'm saving my life!'”

“Writing books isn't a drastic departure from writing for the stage. I've always written in the long format, five, eight, 10-minute pieces rather than one-liners, so since writing books, the process hasn't changed much. A piece in my live routine can end up as part of one of my HBO specials, and it can also end up in one of the books.”

“Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard”

“I never had a drink in my life. I don't smoke or anything.”

“After I quit drinking, I realized I am the same asshole I always was; I just have fewer dents in my car.”

“I stopped drinking when I had children because I wanted to be awake and aware. I did not want to be going, you know, daddy loves you and then drop my head on the table. I do not want to miss anything that they do or say. It is important to me.”

“See what it is you would like to attract into your life. See how you would like your business to go, your relationships to go, and even your body to go in terms of overcoming addictions and dealing with weight and health issues.”

“In reality, it's much easier not to smoke or eat chocolate than to do so. It's your mind that convinces you otherwise.”

“Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.”

“More matter with less art.”

“In good writing, words become one with things.”

“Genius seems to consistent merely in trueness of sight.”

“QUINCE Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. FLUTE Here, Peter Quince. QUINCE Flute, you must take Thisby on you. FLUTE What is Thisby? a wandering knight? QUINCE It is the lady that Pyramus must love. FLUTE Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard coming.”

“A comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious.”

“The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.”

“Assume a virtue if you have it not.”

“Best men oft are moulded out of faults.”

“Mend when thou canst; be better at thy leisure.”

“Now, my masters, happy man be his dole, say I; every man to his business.”

“No profit grows where no pleasure is taken.”

“Why, universal plodding poisons up The nimble spirits in the arteries, As motion and long-during action tires The sinewy vigor of the traveller.”