Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?

I learned how to make jokes because I wanted to give people as much fun as they did, and I guess I did, too.

I'd rather have written "Cheers" than anything I've written.

I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer.

I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the telephone operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.

Beer, of course, is actually a depressant, but poor people will never stop hoping otherwise.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!