By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.

I think the warning labels on alcoholic beverages are too bland. They should be more vivid. Here are a few I would suggest: "Alcohol will turn you into the same asshole your father was."; "Drinking will significantly improve your chances of murdering a loved one."; "If you drink long enough, at some point you will vomit up the lining of your stomach."; "Use this product and you may wake up in Morocco wearing a cowboy suit and tongue-kissing a transmission salesman."

If honesty were suddenly introduced into American life, the whole system would collapse.

If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

The bloodiest, most brutal wars fought, all based on religious hatred. Which is fine with me! Any time a bunch of holy people want to go out and kill each other I'm a happy guy!

When you start in the childhood period, when you begin to form a comic sense, it was the radio comedians - from the last days of radio and the first days of television. And Spike Jones. And the Marx Brothers. They represented anarchy. They took things that were nice and decent and proper, and they tore them to shreds. That attracted me.

Looking back, I realize that my life has been a series of incidents where one person has said to another, "Get this asshole outta here!"