“Years have passed since I have set foot in a comedy club. If the comic is doing badly it’s painful, and if the comic is doing brilliantly, it’s extremely painful.”

Home schooling as an idea is on a par with home dentistry.

It was well after college that I learned about depression. I got my first job for Jack Paar. I realized I was sleeping 14 hours a day and just living for the Paar show.

Every time I nostalgically try to regain my liking of John McCain, he reaches into his sleaze bag and pulls out something malodorous.

My IQ is somewhere between Spiro Agnew’s and Albert Einstein’s.

To call New York’s traffic at holiday time a nightmare is to understate.

There were several things a Yale freshman was supposed to be able to do. You had to demonstrate in the Olympic-size Yale pool that you could swim 50 yards or be inducted into swimming class.

History is not reassuring on the subject of the longevity of seemingly lasting great nations, is it?

I eat at this German-Chinese restaurant and the food is delicious. The only problem is that an hour later you’re hungry for power.

If your parents never had children, chances are neither will you.

I confess, I do have to remind myself almost daily that there are people on this earth capable of reading, writing, eating and dressing themselves who believe their lives are ruled from billions of miles away, by the stars – and, of course, the planets.

I think I’d be pretty easy to write for.

Lawyers work hard and, like us, they’re human, many of them.

When I’m doing an appearance somewhere and taking questions from the audience, I can always count on: ‘Tell about the guy who died on your show!’

The emotions in all true anxiety dreams are next to unbearable.

Every so often, there is an article saying the old kind of talk show isn’t possible now. In the oldest kind of talk show, you only had the choice of that or two other channels!

I’ll be happy if I can just stay out of Nebraska.

Cage Warriors is a brilliant organisation. They’re doing great things for European MMA, and they’re giving the platform for guys like me who came through. They’re vital. I’m forever grateful for the opportunities I got.

She is alone, and oh how brilliantly she shines.

She is alone, and oh how brilliantly she burns.

I wept upon reading this story. The Book of Negroes is courageous, breathtaking, simply brilliant.

A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it’s all you’ve got, unless you’re brilliant and can write totally in the now.

Drawing Dead is a brilliant noir from one of Australia’s most exciting new novelists.

We don’t have to be brilliant.

Most of what you encounter when you meet a man is a facade, an elaborate fig leaf, a brilliant disguise.