The reason I don’t worry about society is, nineteen people knocked down two buildings and killed thousands. Hundreds of people ran into those buildings to save them. I’ll take those odds every f*cking day.

America has had to deal with eccentric dictators in the past: Idi Amin, Muammar Qaddafi, Ming the Merciless... but now the security of the world is threatened by Kim Jong-il, a nerdy, pompadoured, platform shoe-wearer who looks like something you'd put on the end of your child's pencil.

Hopefully the process is to spot things that would be grist for the funny mill. In some respects, the heavier subjects are the ones that are most loaded with opportunity because they have the most - you know, the difference between potential and kinetic energy? - they have the most potential energy, so to delve into that gives you the largest combustion, the most interest. I don't mean for the audience. I mean for us. Everyone here is working too hard to do stuff we don't care about.

I want a sandwich named after me.

In 1982 I was playing soccer at William and Mary, and a kid from Randolph-Macon called me a kike. I ran after him. 'I'm not a... well, yes I am.

We have standards. Anybody with the kind of journalism experience and professionalism that you have displayed over these years can not work for my program.

My life was typical. I played a little Little League baseball. I never wanted for food. I always had shoes. I had a room. There were no great tragedies. There were the typical ups and downs but I wouldn' t say it was at all sad. We were Jewish and living in the suburbs so there was a slightly neurotic bent to it, but I can't point to anything where a boy overcame a tragedy to become a comedian. As my grandmother used to say, 'I can't complain.