Roy Blount, who is the funniest person I know, journeys deep into the dark heart of humor and brings back a wonderfully insightful, superbly crafted song of the soul that had me laughing and crying too

The bad news was that the yard contained a dog. A very, very large dog, wide and hairy, like a cross between a rottweiler and a Goodyear blimp.

If for some reason you are unsure where to go, all you have to do is stand there looking lost, and within seconds a helpful New Yorker will approach to see if you have any "spare" change.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people try their hand at this demanding profession (humor columnist). After a few months, almost all of them have given up and gone back to the ninth grade.

Seriously? You won’t help me?” “Help yourself get killed? No, I won’t.

You can, legally, possibly hit and kill a fellow golfer with a ball, and there will not be a lot of trouble because the other golfers will refuse to stop and be witnesses because they will want to keep playing.

Note that both of these papers [the New York Post and the New York Daily News] are big sellers in a city whose residents like to go around saying they'd never live anyplace else on account of they'd miss the opera.