“The trick to writing for people is, you have to be able to turn them on in your head. And know how they’d word something or how they’d inflect it.”

I love my own coincidences and love to hear other peoples’ stories.

I live a sensible life. You know, I don’t take on too much.

Every comic can report a few ‘gift from the gods’ moments.

I don’t think anyone ever gets over the surprise of how differently one audience’s reaction is from another.

I have a long list of things that make me mad.

Comedians are sometimes resentful of their writers. Probably because it’s hard for giant egos to admit you need anyone but yourself to be what you are.

Show people tend to treat their finances like their dentistry. They assume the man handling it knows what he is doing.

I’m not freakishly short. I had, on my show, used shortness as a joke subject; it didn’t really bother me.

I get a kick out of people saying I was funny.

I feel sorry for the poor kids whose parents feel they’re qualified to teach them at home. Of course, some parents are smarter than some teachers, but in the main I see home-schooling as misguided foolishness.

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.

Bull markets go to people’s heads. If you’re a duck on a pond, and it’s rising due to a downpour, you start going up in the world. But you think it’s you, not the pond.

I dream a world… where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my world!

My life is making movies. I like storytelling, and I’ve got a lot of stories that are stored up in my head that I hope to get out before my time is up.

Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.

This is what the heart wants. This is what the head won’t get.

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;!

The head thinks. The heart knows.

I’ll repeat something you might consider tattooing on your forehead: What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.