Just because we're fictional characters doesn't mean you can pick us up and move us anywhere you want.--the people of Lake Woebegon

A girl in a bikini is like having a loaded pistol on your coffee table - There's nothing wrong with them, but it's hard to stop thinking about it.

I think the most un-American thing you can say is, 'You can't say that.'

The audience is invisible and that's good. Somewhere my voice is drifting through a swine barn and the sound of it seems to perk up the sows' appetite. Or a lady is listening on headphones as she jogs along a beach, running to my cadence. Or a dog sits in front of the radio, head cocked, and the sibilants excite him in some mysterious way. A dog's humorist, that's me.

There was a price to be paid for being interested in fiction and in writing, pushing my family away. Books and authors became my family.

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

Roy Blount's stuff makes me laugh so hard, sometimes I have to go sit in a room and shut the door