“Prayers never bring anything, They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy – but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas.”

Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.

It’s a funny old world. A man’s lucky if he gets out of it alive.

Never give a sucker an even break.

Now don’t say you can’t swear off drinking; it’s easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.

I don’t believe in dining on an empty stomach.

The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves.

When doctors and undertakers meet, they wink at each other.

During one of my treks through Afghanistan, we lost our corkscrew. We were compelled to live on food and water for several days.

Comedy is merely tragedy happening to someone else.

My illness is due to my doctor’s insistence that I drink milk, a whitish fluid they force down helpless babies.

I have been advised by the best medical authority, at my age, not to attempt to give up alcohol.

If it does not work the first time, try, try again. Then quit. No need to be an idiot.

I don’t drink anymore, on the other hand I don’t drink any less either.

Try till you succeed, if you don’t succeed once, then destroy all evidence of the fact that you tried!

If I had to live my life over, I’d live over a saloon.

The only thing a lawyer won’t question is the legitimacy of his mother.

We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place–or not to bother

Beauty is a fragile gift.

We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place.

You left me with nothing. But the gift to write the most beautiful sad poems.

I am the poet of the poor, because I was poor when I loved; since I could not give gifts, I gave words.

We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

But the Christian also knows that he not only cannot and dare not be anxious, but that there is no need for him to be so. Neither anxiety now work can secure his daily bread, for bread is the gift of the Father.