Joke Quotations

When I listen to the complaints that follow just about every presidential debate, I'm reminded of the well-worn joke about the Jewish mother who buys her son two shirts. When he shows up at dinner wearing one, she says: 'What's the matter? You didn't like the other one?'

I think female solitude is a mental condition as well as a physical state. You can be married and a spinster. I think spinster is an identity every woman can claim, if she will... I feel like a lot of women, or a lot of feminists, joke about taking to the sea or living alone in a cottage as this kind of fun freedom.

I always laugh the hardest at the stuff you see in day-to-day life. It's great when somebody can tell a joke that really makes you laugh hard, but to see some kind of personal interaction that no one could write is so good. Those are always the things that make me laugh.

My parents wanted their daughters to reach their full potential. I joke that they said, 'We left our homeland so you could pursue your dreams - as long as you're a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer.'

Slavery is nothing to joke about. The history of this nation's involvement with slavery is nothing to pass off in a joke.

One question about a joke is, how well is the strangeness of the situation resolved? At 'The New Yorker', we retain a lot of incongruity, tapping the playful part of the mind - Monty Python-type stuff. We also try to use humor as a vehicle for communicating ideas. Not editorial comment, but observation.

I have some bad feet. But really, my main fault would probably be my personality. A lot of times, I am not serious enough. I joke around too much sometimes.

It's like that Simpsons joke - they're filming a cow in a movie and they go, 'OK, we'll tape a bunch of cats together to make a cow', and it's like, 'Why don't you just use a cow?'. For some reason that is novel - like, 'Oh, my guitar sounds like a piano and now if I can just get my piano to sound like my guitar'.

In my mid-20s, I was directing episodes of 'Alfred Hitchcock' and 'Peter Gunn.' I was pretty much on course and - as I sometimes joke - was prepared to devote my life to become the second best film director in my family.

I was writing this really long joke about the smell of poop, and I was like, 'What am I doing with my life?' I started to think about why I was a comedian, and then I came up with a reason for existence, which is: inserting absurdity or stupidity into strangers' lives in order to make the world a better place.

For the amount of talent I had - and I couldn't dance, act, or tell a joke - I enjoyed a tremendous career.

I'm a happy guy. I like to joke around. I'm irreverent. I love my family; I love my son. I was very happy with and proud of the birth of my son. I grew up a lot after he was born. I'm just an easy and happy guy.

My mom eventually told me if I wanted to be in the music industry, I should start writing my own songs. At that time, I was in junior high and had no idea where to start - I was writing joke rap songs with friends. Eventually ,I wrote my first song in high school, and my mom took me to go record it with one of her band member friends at his house.

Death seems to be a long way off. Is this not shallow thinking? It is worthless and is only a joke within a dream. It will not do to think in such a way and be negligent. Insofar as death is always at one's door, one should make sufficient effort and act quickly.

The rationale for tenure is still valid. But the system has turned the academy into one of the most conservative and costly institutions in the country. Yes, conservative: Economists joke that their discipline advances one funeral at a time, but many fields must wait for wholesale generational turnover before new approaches take hold.

Someone said to me at a party once, 'Oh, yeah, you're a comedian? Then how come you're not funny now?' And I just wanted to say, 'Well, I'm just going to take this conversation we're having and then repeat that to strangers, and then that's the joke. You're the joke later.'

Every joke in 'The Office' was unexpected. I cringed; I could hardly look. I cried with laughter.

As Asian-Americans, the charge that is often lobbed against us is sort of the least original: the idea that somehow we're perpetual foreigners, that we can't be trusted, and that even my father, who was patriotic to the point that it was kind of a joke among his children, would be accused of being disloyal to America.

I feel like until you're with the person, the person you end up marrying, you don't ever really know what you're looking for. I'm just into a girl with a really good personality, something that goes beyond looks. I want to be able to joke around, be respectful of each other... there are a lot of things that go into compatibility.

Last Friday night, I Twitted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle. Once I realized I posted to Twitter I panicked, I took it down and said that I had been hacked. I then continued with that story, to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake.

So, whenever Scooter was the Pilot, he never had a chance to fly the orbiter. So, the joke is: I'm going to have a chance to fly it first and hand it over to him.

My comedy notebooks are filled with random journal entries. It's all the same. I can look back on old joke notebooks, and know exactly what was going on in my life.

I have had every hair color. I joke with my hair colorist. She keeps sheets of paper on every hair color that I've had, so she has records of it all. She's done my hair since I was 15, and I guess I have a thick folder going because I've had so many different hair colors.

I've been in situations where, in the midst of really hardcore events in my life, I made some ridiculous off-color joke that was in horrible taste, but made people laugh.

When you're in the editing room, the dangerous thing is that it becomes like telling a joke again and again and again. Eventually, the joke starts to not be funny. So you have to be careful that you're not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I got so much out of 'The To-Do List.' This is a joke that I say about myself sometimes, in terms of my film career: I feel like I'm always playing the kid in serious adult movies. So, for me, it was so wonderful to suddenly be working with other people my age who were doing this on film.

Every bad joke, every endorsement deal, all of the things that a typical host would normally get creamed for, people don't mind, because they know I don't cheat when it comes to the work I actually try. I'm a lab rat. I'm a perpetual apprentice. The joke is on me if there is one.

My joke is that my father was a minister and my mother was an English teacher, so I'm trained to see the world in terms of symbols, which is hard when you just want to make toast.

I rarely joke unless I'm in front of a camera. It's not what I am in real life. It's what I do for a living.

I'm the joke of the family with cooking because I've never done it - primarily because I've been surrounded by people who are so good at it. Mum's brilliant. Boyfriends have always been good at it. I'm waiting for my inner chef to be released.

I joke to people in the press that I realize I'm not black, I'm actually white. But I've got these roots in black American music. I love it.

A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself.

Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and I were the first female headliners, where we would book our own opening acts. Before that, it was a standing joke that it was more like we had 'pretty little girl singers' opening for a male headliner.

The joke I wanted to put into one of the promos for this new season, was to have a guy come up to me and say, Hey! Tony! I love your show, I've watched you every night since you started! And then I'd say, Ah! You're the one!

I have this famous joke that I use: Why was God able to create Heaven and Earth in seven days and seven nights? Because he didn't have installed customers and legacy technology to worry about.

For me, it's a purity thing about the joke itself. It's a test of a joke whether or not you do it completely clean and it works. If it does, then that's a legitimate item you have there. For me, it's nothing to do with finding those words offensive. It's just not what I'm in search of. Do it clean, and you are really earning that laugh.

I believe in three-act structure. When I say that to novel people, or people in the world of books, they go, 'Well, that's a film thing.' However, even a good joke has three acts.

You learn what can become a good joke and can be repeatable. You have a shorthand about how to introduce a joke to someone.

I watch children a great deal; their idea is that rules are always negotiable, whereas you absolutely cannot joke at the airport about your toothpaste, and you cannot rollerblade in Grand Central Station. I keep running up against these things.

'Community' is a comedy show, and one of the characters happens to be a Christian. I do think they have been very careful to make sure everyone is the butt of the joke for various reasons.

It has always seemed a cruel joke to me that the very word 'stutter' is difficult for many stutterers to pronounce. It is onomatopoeic, an imitation of the halting, repetitive sound made by people with this speech dysfunction.

I like the rhythm of comedy in dramas, if that makes sense. In other words, I don't want to write setup, punch, setup, punch, where the joke dictates the scene; I want to find comedy in which the drama is actually driving the moment in the scene.

I remember being a kid, and if you had to pee, well, you had to hold it until the commercial break. Then you rushed, and hopefully, if you're going to the kitchen for a snack, you'll be back before so you don't miss a line. If your sister sneezed or was talking over a line, there was no way of knowing what that line was or what the joke was.

You learn timing on the road. You learn structure and how to read an audience. You learn so much about the business of laughter that you can't learn on a set, because it's all on you. Sometimes you bomb, and you know not to tell that joke again... You just hope people find the humor in the awkwardness.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

Written by the ancient Chinese philosopher of the same name, the 'Zhuangzi' is one long perplexing puzzle of a rambling collection of enigmatic short stories. It's a strange feeling to laugh at a joke written by someone in the 4th century B.C.

People come up to me on the street and make some little joke - like they'll say, 'Excuse me, sir, what time is it?' And I'll say, you know, '5:15,' and they'll say, 'Hey! Made you talk!' And that's merely a way of saying, 'I know your work and I like you.'

I love people with strong convictions, because we are living in a very PC world. You can't crack a joke without it being in the headlines.

We all have, in my family, what we call the 'Vorderman bottom' - a sticky out, bigger-than-normal, signature, of the rear variety. It's been a family joke all our lives - even my lovely brother has one. I know the lines to all the good singalong big bum songs.

One of the things I'm proudest of is, on my record 'That Was the Year that Was' in 1965, I made a joke about spending $20 billion sending some clown to the moon. I was against the manned space program then, and I'm even more against it now, that whole waste of money.

At university level, I had an economics lecturer who used to joke that I was the only student who handed in essays on British Airways notepaper.

In the India I was growing up in, history wasn't really a wise career option. People would joke and say, 'History's okay, but what's your actual job?' I didn't come from a privileged background and couldn't afford to be irresponsible, so I did the pragmatic thing and did a MBA.

I guess my feeling is is that if you're going to make a joke, that's fine, but you should also sort of stand behind it, you know? A joke should be more than a joke, it should be a point that you're trying to make.

I even get tired performing standup, which is normally a low-impact exercise in futility but looks hard the way I do it. That's why I take a lot of breaks, often stopping in the middle of a joke to catch my breath, or blame the crowd for not laughing before the punchline.

Richard Lewis is the master at taking a joke that he's told a million times in a row in the past year, on the road, and making it look like he's pulling it out of thin air.

The one thing I think I've noticed about shows that are supposed to be funny on television is that they've sort of become routinized, so there's an awful lot of mannerisms and joke lines that are sort of there to trigger laughter, rather than give actors a chance to play a moment.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a joke - the fact that Madonna is in before Rush and Kiss. Those two bands have influenced so many groups and people other than in metal.

I learned a long time ago from when I did 'Seinfeld' never to take anything seriously, and to be part of the joke is the best way to show what a good sport I was.

Homework's hard. Especially math. My kids joke with me. They tell me they have homework. I say, 'Okay.' And then I sit down and they say, 'It's math.' 'No! Not math! English, history, anything!'

I have a great pic of my father and Rev. Graham laughing hysterically at some joke with George Pratt Shultz looking on back in 1972 or so.

If I'm getting on an airplane or anywhere, really, I have a lunch box and stuff. It's a running joke with my friends and family - everyone gives me lunch boxes for Christmas.

Basically, we used to have a rule at 'Saturday Night Live' that you're not allowed to bring up 'The Simpsons' at the rewrite table, because 'The Simpsons' has done every joke there is. Every week there would be guys going, 'The Simpsons did that.' I go, 'C'mon.' And 'South Park,' too.

I haven't had television since 1991, and it definitely influences me. As a child of the 1970s, I couldn't hold a narrative in my head; I was lucky if I could hold a joke in my head, because every time you turn on television or radio, it wipes the slate clean - at least in my case.

We are a very united group. We like to have fun, we like to joke around.

We've become a joke to much of the thinking world.

When we got there we were given the TV treatment. They put the shine-proof makeup on us, and during the breaks we would joke around and pretend we were news anchors.

U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next.

We're just good friends. We joke around here in the clubhouse, but if we see each other outside, we're friends. We joke, try to have fun.

We know we'll hear a good joke from you when we meet again someday.

Writing comedy is an exposing thing because you're putting yourself on the line with every joke you write, and although you can't second-guess an audience, if you want to be successful, you have to write stuff people like.

We were trying to joke around as much as possible. Well, as much as you could in that . . . eventually it got really not funny.

We were trendsetters, ... But people would joke 'Here comes the ice cream truck.' Now it's not unusual to see white limos at a funeral home.

We are all one team. We are always picking each other up during the games, and when we aren't playing we all laugh and joke around together.

We always joke around. We've got a good relationship.

We always joke around. It's business, but it's still fun at the same time.

We treat them like athletes; we don't treat them like girls. They understand that. The girls who have grown up in our program have seen Jessica or know that she was a captain one year. They don't get any special treatment outside of a separate locker room or the occasional joke about having the nicest hair on the team.

We reached the conclusion that if we didn't change our approach and go after them seriously, they would continue to make a joke out of us.

The reality is that the behavior is inappropriate, especially for a school climate. Just as if we go in an airport, it's inappropriate to joke about bombs and weapons.

When I'm writing the book I'm laughing at just how overblown the characters seemed. How full of himself he seems. But I didn't get far enough in the series to really drive the joke of it home.

We used to joke that more stories were written about reverse mortgages than loans originated.

We used to joke that if you go into labor we'll drag you out to the sidewalk.

We used to joke about Jerry Bailey's rail pass. He was an inside rider. That's where the fearless riders go. It's the shortest way around the race track - and the most dangerous.

When the Mets were on their run in the 1980s, Gary Carter was often seen hugging somebody. It was easy to joke about that. The best hug of all was with Jesse Orosco at the end of the 1986 World Series.

When you become fluent with language, it means you can write an entry in your journal or tell a joke to someone or write a letter to a friend. And it's similar with new technologies.

She's always whistling. We joke that she should do it professionally, and she's very good at it. At times, it gets annoying. All the time in the room, she's in there whistling.

Most teams going into something like this would be uptight. We're just trying to stay relaxed. We joke during warm-ups ... stay loose.

Most of us don't think forwarding a racist joke or speaking in an insulting 'comedic' accent is appropriate at the workplace. Unfortunately, for those raised in the toxic culture of conservatism, the sort of mentality that leads government employees to do those things is widespread.

Most people are used to the T.V. comedy method of one joke every 18 seconds. And that's why it's not funny... There's no time for anything to develop.

Mike is such a great player, such a clutch player. I joke with him, because he doesn't jump very high and he's not very fast, yet he's still one of the most effective guys in the NBA because he's so intelligent. He knows the game, and he knows what it takes to get it done.

Me and Tony Banks, we joke around a lot. In practice and even on scout teams last year, we'd hook up a lot with passes like that. Afterward I just said to him, 'It's about time we got one in a game. Show people what we can do.' It was good.

My friends joke around with me and say that they put off the race just for me last year because I wasn't able to do it. I didn't want to lose my streak. But really I'm pretty fortunate.

My first manager, he had left Germany when he was five, but he would joke about the Nazis. And I'd laugh, but I'd look at him, and he was the first one who told me, 'You know, funny is a powerful thing; it's a wonderful weapon.'

One, you can do anything to them and not worry about anyone being offended. Humor always gets attention in TV commercials, but the problem with it is that usually someone's got to be the target. And in today's PC world, that means someone's going to be offended. Dummies and other mascots easily solve that problem. You can make fun of them, bash them over the head, kick them in the crotch, and they just stand there with their frozen grins, which makes the joke even funnier - not to mention creepier.

One weekend I was bored and as a sort of a joke I made this Web site,

More than 1,000 adults and countless children visit the show annually. We always joke that a lot of kids come to this show and some of them even bring children.

Morris Chestnut helped me learn that. In Brothers he said, Stay away from the funny man. Because for every joke you have, they've got a hundred more.

My family and I have a little joke that if I'm feeling particularly blue, and nobody cares about me, I should just go to the airport! That is where I am most recognized.

My family would tell me when I had too much on. They would joke with me about it.

Only in the mystery novel are we delivered final and unquestionable solutions. The joke to me is that fiction gives you a truth that reality can't deliver.

I got to know this one season ticket-holder who came to the park with a new joke every day. So every day I brought a new joke for him.