Humor is a terrific tool for explaining things, especially when what you're explaining is frightening or dull and complicated.

The Democrats planned to fiddle while Rome burned. The Republicans were going to burn Rome, then fiddle.

You start out with Mad magazine, and you go right through the sort of black humor of Lenny Bruce, Lord Buckley, Mort Sahl, Paul Krassner... If you put Lenny together with Mad magazine and run it through the brain of a college student, you get National Lampoon.

I don't even know which end of a computer one is supposed to gaze into. I've never used a computer.

There aren't many political humorists. Dave Barry is excellent, but he doesn't do it much.

The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know.

I have a 10 year old at home, and she is always saying, 'That's not fair.' When she says that, I say, "Honey, you're cute; that's not fair. Your family is pretty well off; that's not fair. You were born in America; that's not fair. Honey, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you.