“Everybody I know is a joke writer.”

There are two kinds of comics; there are the ones who build bridges, and then there are the people who walk across the bridges as though they built them. The bridge builders are few and far between.

It went from Bob Newhart to Flip Wilson to Bill Cosby to Richard Pryor to George Carlin to Cheech and Chong. I had all these records.

It never dawned on me that I had the option of becoming a comedian. I come from a little dirt street town in northwest Texas, and they really don’t talk about the arts there much on career day.

There were years when I was a beer and tequila guy, then I got real fat. And then I found that you could actually go on a diet and drink scotch. Then I got hooked on scotch, and if you get hooked on scotch, then everything else just tastes wrong.

I always found that the closer I got to who I really am, on stage, the more they responded to it.

My uncle was a preacher, and I used to go watch him preach. He was also funny, so I’m very ‘preacher-ish’ on stage, not by intent but because that’s where I learned to talk in front of people.

I’m set up where I make a lot of money doing stand-up, and it’s easy.

I started selling out comedy clubs before I got to town with no advertising. I was selling out theaters just on the rumor that I was going to be there.

Here’s how I operate. When I see something I like, 20 years later, I ask her brother for her phone number. She don’t even see me coming.

I’m not willing to drag my fans down a road I don’t believe in. That’s just my one little principle. I’ve only got one, and that’s it.

There have been times when I played more than others, but I’ve been a road comic for a quarter of a century, so I’ve always played golf on the road because you have a lot of time to kill.

My biggest pet peeve, I guess, is other comedians criticizing Larry the Cable Guy.

I want my fans to feel like we’re always in touch. Because without ’em, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this.

Pace, rhythm and timing. Pace, rhythm and timing is what it’s about. The content’s got to be great, but then it’s got to be delivered. It’s a tricky thing to do, and it takes a lot of work.

You can’t fix stupid.

I don’t do talk shows or go on Dr. Phil’s show. He’s a friend of mine, and, no, he doesn’t give me any advice. He doesn’t give solicited advice.

I think everybody deserves freedom. Freedom is such an abstract word, but it’s all we need.

Ataturk saw where history was going. He really did in Turkey what we are all hoping somebody will do in [Islamic] countries where fundamentalists thrive, that they get somebody today that has the vision that Ataturk had in 1915.

Already, Islamic State has broad support in many cities there. And when they get there, it will once again come as a great surprise to everybody.

Everybody thinks some times that science is done as a master plan and that somebody like me came from Mars and figured out everything and so on, but that’s really not the way it worked.

No one stays for you. Everybody stays depending on their need for you.

Everybody is free to be as they are. Until the whole world is free to agree with you or disagree with you, until you have given the freedom to everyone to like you or not like you, to love you or hate you,

Everybody is now so busy teaching that nobody has any time to learn.

Everybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.