Paula Poundstone Quotes

I don't have a bank account because I don't know my mother's maiden name and apparently that's the key to the whole thing right there. I go in every few weeks and guess.

I've decided that perhaps I'm bulimic and just keep forgetting to purge.

I have short-term memory loss, though I'd like to think of it as Persidential eligibility.

I'm thankful that my memory is good because my vision is going.

I'm really more prolific than most stand-ups. My act changes. I do fold in new experiences, new observations, whatever you want to call it.

My act is sort of improvisational. I have a skeleton in my head, but no fat or skin on it.

It's funny that we think of libraries as quiet demure places where we are shushed by dusty, bun-balancing, bespectacled women. The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. Librarians have stood up to the Patriot Act, sat down with noisy toddlers and reached out to illiterate adults. Libraries can never be shushed.

There are really only so many foods and so many ways you can prepare them.

The pleasure of the mulch pile is incomprehensible. I wouldn't care if they just hauled the mulch to the landfill somewhere. Obviously, grass clippings are biodegradable, but when they're bunched together at the landfill, they become badly influenced by other garbage.

I happen to be a devout atheist. I don't believe in God. I still go to church -- I'm not a heathen. I go to an atheist church. We have crippled guys who stand up and testify that they were crippled, and they still are.

I was court-ordered to Alcoholics Anonymous on television. Pretty much blows the hell out of the second A, wouldn't you say?

I'm the only person I know of who's ever been pulled over for attempted speeding.

I like to work on New Year's Eve. It has a nice spirit; a nice feel about it. If you are all about the 'year-end' thing at all, then laughing with fellow human beings is a great way to start the new year.

I don't have a bank account because I don't know my mother's maiden name.

I don’t believe for a second that weightlifting is a sport. They pick up a heavy thing and put it down again. To me, that’s indecision.

I'm thankful for the three ounce Ziploc bag, so that I have somewhere to put my savings.

President Obama could keep a big map with push pins on it to keep track of how many countries hate us, and when we get down to only half, let's have a ball. I'll blow up the balloons myself.

I’m an atheist. The good news about atheists is that we have no mandate to convert anyone. So you’ll never find me on your doorstep on a Saturday morning with a big smile saying ‘Just stopped by to tell you there is no word. I brought along this little blank book I was hoping you could take a look at.’

I was diagnosed a number of years ago with obsessive-compulsive disorder - which everyone has, to some degree - and I have this really annoying trait where in conversation, I always steer it back to something that happened to me.

The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling.

I'm thankful for Sarah Palin's vice presidential bid, which taught us that Alaska is not in a box off the coast of California.

The mistakes that I made I made because I drank too much. I don't think that's going to happen any more. Am I going to make mistakes as a parent? Sadly, every day. I'm looking around for the perfect parent and I haven't seen one yet.

I don't need a holiday or a feast to feel grateful for my children, the sun, the moon, the roof over my head, music, and laughter, but I like to take this time to take the path of thanks less traveled.

You know, in politics when you come in third, it's a win.

Speaking of happy successes, after years of struggling to lose those few extra pounds every mother puts on during adoption, particularly when the doctor orders bed rest, in 2004 I sent my assistant to the Gap in dark glasses with a fake ID to purchase my first pair of Easy Fit jeans.

When we save the rain forest, the polar bear, and Al Gore, we should party so hard that Canada calls the cops on us for noise.

I have terrible short-term memory loss, which I like to think of as Presidential eligibility.

I'll probably never have children because I don't believe in touching people for any reason.

When a woman extends her hand for you to shake it, then you shake her hand. You do not turn it up and kiss it. And it is just so creepy. Because, you know, I handed it at this angle. I handed it at the handshake angle and so I'm not giving it to you to do whatever you want with it. I'm not loaning it to you. It's like if somebody borrowed your lawnmower and you're assuming they're going to use it to mow their lawn. You don't want to find out later they put it in the ocean!

I have jokes I've told before and will tell again, but my favorite part of the night is talking to the crowd.

When we live up to our Constitution, let's form a Conga line around the Capitol and bungee jump off the dome.

Remember when you were considered an environmentalist when you didn't throw junk out the car window? I sure do miss that simpler, happier time.

I used to watch 'The Waltons' and sob because my family was nothing like that. We had a cruel sense of humor in my family.

When every high school graduate can spell the word, 'inauguration,' let's put lampshades on our heads and listen to his speeches until Obama's voice gives out.

My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim.'

My mom is one of those really angry moms who gets mad at absolutely everything. Once when I was a little kid, I accidentally knocked a Flintstones glass off the kitchen table. She said, 'Well, dammit, we can't have nice things.'

I get the first flight out from anywhere I am because I have to come home to my kids.

I confess that when I first read that smog is particularly hazardous to children, senior citizens, and physically active people, for a brief moment I thought, “I’m in the clear for at least 10 more years.”

My parents got carried away with the letter P when they were naming the kids in our family. There's me, Paula, my sisters Peggy and Patty, and my brother Pjimmy, spelled with a silent P.

I hate it when my hair is engaged in unauthorized activities.

I love talking to the audience, and I must be the luckiest performer in the world. I always land something or somebody that just takes off.

I also like a great Caesar salad with anchovies, although I don't know why some places say 'with anchovies.' If you're making a proper Caesar salad, it's going to have anchovies.

My problem, I try to teach my kids to eat healthy food. But you get a cantaloupe, and you don't know when it's going to come of age. You have no idea - that period between when it's like, hard as a rock to when it's smushy inside, is about ten minutes.

I've always thought that if my death was imminent, I would read. When I can't focus on a book, I tend to keep reading the same page. My guess is, I would've read, like the first page of Nicholas Nickleby over and over again.

Once I was gone for a month and I was just miserable, so I flew back from Florida for two hours just to be home and see my cats.

I was the youngest in my family. When the other kids went to school, my mother would make them breakfast and then she would go back to bed for an hour, so I was sort of babysat by television.

Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas

I can make things, but I don't cook them, exactly. Like salmon, I can stick that in a pan. Or the other day I made noodles, but they were hard. It never occurred to me to check them; I just stopped cooking them when I felt they were ready. Really, I'm too absentminded.