My dad had this rock hard body and would work 12- to 13-hour days. The guys he worked with were scrap-iron guys. Nobody on that road crew had read a book in 10 years, but there was something about the way they lived I really admired.

I’ve always known that there’s more going on inside me than finds its way into the world, but this is probably true of everyone. Who doesn’t regret that he isn’t more fully understood?

I can be glib and truthful all at once.

If you work at comedy too laboriously, you can kill what's funny in the joke.

Stories worked much the same way . . . A false note at the beginning was much more costly than one nearer the end because early errors were part of the foundation.

They stayed, many of them, because staying was easier and less scary than leaving.

People often ask me how I make things funny. I don't make things funny.