Steven Wright Quotes

1. “What's another word for Thesaurus?”

2. “Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories.”

3. “A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths.”

4. “If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.”

5. “Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.”

6. “There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.”

7. “I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time'. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.”

8. “Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.”

9. “It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.”

10. “I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.”

11. “Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time… I think I've forgotten this before.”

12. “I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, 'Hey, the sign says you're open 24 hours.' He said, 'Yes, but not in a row.'”

13. “I intend to live forever. So far, so good.”

14. “If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?”

15. “Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.”

16. “You can't have everything. Where would you put it?”

17. “I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world… perhaps you've seen it.”

18. “If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.”

19. “I bought some instant water one time but I didn't know what to add to it.”

20. “I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”

21. “I think it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly.”

22. “Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen.”

23. “Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff.”

24. “I installed a skylight in my apartment… the people who live above me are furious!”

25. “I was walking down the street wearing glasses when the prescription ran out.”

26. “I poured spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone.”

27. “I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place.”

28. “I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing 'Happy Birthday.'”

29. “I kept a diary right after I was born. Day 1: Tired from the move. Day 2: Everyone thinks I'm an idiot.”

30. “I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.”

31. “Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island what book would I bring… 'How to Build a Boat.'”

32. “Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.”

33. “All those who believe in psychokinesis - raise my hand.”

34. “For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier… I put them in the same room and let them fight it out.”

35. “Be nice to your children. After all, they are going to choose your nursing home.”

36. “A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.”

37. “OK, so what's the speed of dark?”

38. “It's like the Wild West, the Internet. There are no rules.”

39. “I went to a general store but they wouldn't let me buy anything specific.”

40. “I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.”

41. “If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?”

42. “When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child… eventually.”

43. “I was a peripheral visionary. I could see the future, but only way off to the side.”

44. “If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?”

45. “Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see them at the beach… it pisses me off! I'll go over to a little baby and say 'What are you doing here? You haven't worked a day in your life!'”

46. “If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?”

47. “I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it.”

48. “If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny.”

49. “They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic.”

50. “I bought some batteries, but they weren't included.”

51. “I live on a one-way street that's also a dead end. I'm not sure how I got there.”

52. “I'm going to get an MRI to find out whether I have claustrophobia.”

53. “I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.”

54. “I had a friend who was a clown. When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car.”

55. “How young can you die of old age?”

56. “What a nice night for an evening.”

57. “I had to stop driving my car for a while… the tires got dizzy.”

58. “When I die, I'm leaving my body to science fiction.”

59. “In Vegas, I got into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I considered to be an odd number.”

60. “I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.”

61. “When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, 'Did you sleep good?' I said 'No, I made a few mistakes.'”

62. “I like to reminisce with people I don't know.”

63. “Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.”

64. “I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.”

65. “My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.”

66. “I'm used to seeing it, but it's weird having an Academy Award. You usually only see one of them on the TV show when they give them out, so it's kind of surreal to have one in your house.”

67. “If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?”

68. “Sometimes I wish my first word was 'quote,' so that on my death bed, my last words could be 'end quote.'”

69. “There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.”

70. “If you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?”

71. “I look like a casual, laid-back guy, but it's like a circus in my head.”

72. “I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed-reading accident. I hit a bookmark.”

73. “My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost. It's in the apartment somewhere.”

74. “There's something about being in front of a live audience that's fun. It's a really interesting, very electric, very alive, and intense experience, and you can't get it anywhere else. And I've been doing it since I was 23, so it's part of my being - it's part of my fabric as a person.”

75. “I saw a bank that said '24 Hour Banking', but I don't have that much time.”

76. “On the other hand, you have different fingers.”

77. “I got this powdered water - now I don't know what to add.”

78. “I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window.”

79. “If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?”

80. “I have an answering machine in my car. It says, I'm home now. But leave a message and I'll call when I'm out.”

81. “The other day I… uh, no, that wasn't me.”

82. “I think God's going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding.”

83. “I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second.”

84. “If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?”

85. “I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking that if they left earlier they wouldn't have to go so fast.”

86. “If you can't hear me, it's because I'm in parentheses.”

87. “It doesn't matter what temperature the room is, it's always room temperature.”

88. “Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter?”

89. “If God dropped acid, would he see people?”

90. “My neighbor has a circular driveway… he can't get out.”

91. “I invented the cordless extension cord.”

92. “I hooked up my accelerator pedal in my car to my brake lights. I hit the gas, people behind me stop, and I'm gone.”

93. “The Bermuda Triangle got tired of warm weather. It moved to Alaska. Now Santa Claus is missing.”

94. “It's very intense to be in front of a live audience. It's just an amazing experience. It's dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It's electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you're on this other planet.”

95. “I haven't changed at all. I'm the same as when I was 11.”

96. “I'm addicted to placebos.”

97. “I went to a general store. They wouldn't let me buy anything specifically.”

98. “George is a radio announcer, and when he walks under a bridge… you can't hear him talk.”

99. “My doctor told me I shouldn't work out until I'm in better shape. I told him, 'All right; don't send me a bill until I pay you.'”

100. “Ever notice how irons have a setting for permanent press? I don't get it.”

101. “Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country.”

102. “Childhood was very nice. The only thing wrong was that I was so introverted, everything became a big deal… 'Oh, no, here comes the bus. Where am I gonna sit on the bus?'”

103. “I like George Carlin's jokes. I like his humor. He's one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.”

104. “I have two pairs of reading glasses. One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction. I've read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it's the same.”

105. “I just have a relationship with my imagination. It's like my friend, almost.”

106. “Comedians are sociologists. We're pointing out stuff that the general public doesn't even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.”

107. “I paint; I draw and paint - I've been doing that since I was in third grade, drawing realistically and then changing to abstract art. That was my first creative thing before guitar or comedy.”

108. “When I was 16… I worked in a pet store. And they fired me because… they had three snakes in there, and one day I braided them.”

109. “I've always had to conquer fear when I'm on stage. Basically, I was and still am a very shy person. It's absolutely in conflict with what I do. But once I deliver the first joke I'm okay. It's like I'm out there all by myself just delivering my lines to nobody in particular without ever trying to notice the audience in front of me.”

110. “George Carlin's album, 'Class Clown,' came out when I was in high school. I memorized a lot of that album. I'd come home from school, put it on, and listen over and over. I started memorizing it. I don't even know why. I loved it so much I memorized it.”

111. “So, do you live around here often?”

112. “I need one of those baby monitors from my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I'm really thinking about.”

113. “What I like about the jokes, to me it's a lot of logic, no matter how crazy they are. It has to make absolute sense, or it won't be funny.”

114. “I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.”

115. “I've been doing comedy longer than I haven't been doing comedy, as I was performing for three years before I even got on 'The Tonight Show.' There's truly nothing like it; it's intense and exhilarating, even though it looks so casual.”

116. “I stayed in a really old hotel last night. They sent me a wake-up letter.”

117. “Hermits have no peer pressure.”

118. “When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, 'Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.'”

119. “I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, 'What for?' I said, 'I'm going to buy some sugar.'”

120. “I'm writing an unauthorized autobiography.”

121. “Honestly, I just go to restaurants to eat so I won't die. If there was a pill I could take in January and then I wouldn't have to eat again for the rest of the year, I would take it. Of course, I wouldn't want to sacrifice my chocolate cake and ice cream.”

122. “Is it weird in here, or is it just me?”

123. “I liked school, but I used to dread those moments when the teacher would call me up to give an oral report. I forced myself to deal with it and not dwell on the class in front of me - to keep a straight face, give the report and concentrate on getting it right. That's normally how I perform. That's how I am.”

124. “I had some eyeglasses. I was walking down the street when suddenly the prescription ran out.”

125. “Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks?”

126. “When I was a kid, I went to the store and asked the guy, Do you have any toy train schedules?”

127. “When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, 'Well, what do you need?'”

128. “My friend has a baby. I'm recording all the noises he makes so later I can ask him what he meant.”

129. “If I ever had twins, I'd use one for parts.”

130. “I don't like politicians, and I don't like politics. I definitely don't want to be associated with any of them.”

131. “When I die, I'm gonna leave my body to science fiction.”

132. “I'm standing behind a wall of jokes. You don't know about my personal life, my girlfriends, or what I do when I'm not on the road. There's this guy, this comedian, and this is how he thinks, but people really don't know anything about me.”

133. “It usually helps me write by reading - somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.”

134. “At one point he decided enough was enough.”

135. “You know those things that you throw the twigs into and it spits them out? That's what I do. The branches are like life, and I throw them into my head and some of it comes out as humor.”

136. “My mother is from another time - the funniest person to her is Lucille Ball; that's what she loves. A lot of times she tells me she doesn't know what I'm talking about. I know if I wasn't her son and she was flipping through the TV and saw me, she would just keep going.”

137. “I have all the emotions that everyone has; it just appears that I don't.”

138. “It doesn't make a difference what temperature a room is, it's always room temperature.”

139. “My secret to staying young… Having no sense of time.”

140. “Real life? Well, I just hope mine isn't investigated. They might find that I don't really exist - that I'm just a hologram.”

141. “My act is an exaggeration of a part of me. I'm much more expressive off stage.”

142. “When I was on TV in the '80s, I wasn't thinking, 'There's a 10-year-old kid watching this and in 15 years, he's gonna be doing stuff that was influenced by me.' I was trying to get my five minutes together. So now that those people are comedians and they're influenced by me - it's bizarre.”

143. “I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights, so it looks like I'm the only one moving.”

144. “I'm seeing the world partially through the eyes of a kid. Not all the time. There's no black and white to it. But sometimes I'm seeing it like I'm 4.”

145. “I was arrested for lip-syncing karaoke.”

146. “In a lot of ways, success is much harder than I thought it would be. I figured that you'd get here and then everything would be happily ever after. But, it's hard work, almost harder once you're successful because you've got to maintain it.”

147. “I love eating chocolate cake and ice cream after a show. I almost justify it in my mind as, 'You were a good boy onstage and you did your show, so now you can have some cake and ice cream.'”

148. “Good jokes are gems. A good idea is hard to come by. I couldn't give them to someone else, even for money. It just wouldn't seem right.”

149. “I've been thinking of humorous things since I was… I can't remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.”

150. “It seems like we wake up and it's a race until you get to bed. It gets to you after a while and you think, 'What the hell am I doing?'”

151. “I wear a hat on stage so that people won't be blinded by the reflection from my head. Also, if I don't wear a hat, there's no way that the hat can be at that level by itself on the stage.”

152. “To the audience, it's like I'm changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show's almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.”

153. “Doing stand-up is like running across a frozen pond with the ice breaking behind you. I love it because it's dangerous.”

154. “My favorite book is anything by Kurt Vonnegut - he's my literary hero. I got to meet him several times, which was a great thrill for me. I don't really remember what we talked about.”

155. “I like to talk about lint and coasters, the expansion of the universe and maybe McDonald's. I'm completely turned off by the idea of politics.”

156. “I thought I would be a guy on the radio.”

157. “I don't get up, get dressed, go out, and think, 'Okay, I gotta find eight jokes.'”

158. “Only one in four jokes ever works, and I still can't predict what people will laugh at.”

159. “I feel lucky that I can have people laugh solidly for a whole hour by just saying what I think and getting paid for it.”

160. “I wrote a few children's books… not on purpose.”

161. “Very rarely do I talk off the top of my head on stage. I'm not an improv guy. I'm a writer-guy who presents what he's written.”

162. “When I'm on stage, it's really intense. My mind is going a million miles an hour, trying to remember my act, trying to say it all the right way. It's funny how different it looks and how it's happening. There are three Fellini circuses in my head, and outwardly it looks like I'm going to get a bagel.”

163. “I feel very lucky to make a living from my imagination; I'm very grateful for that. I like that what I do is create. I'm feeling very lucky to have had the career I had. It's gone much longer and bigger than I ever thought it would be.”

164. “To me, comedy is just twisting reality. It's commenting or observing or twisting life.”

165. “It's very interesting, the joke comes first and then the wording comes within five seconds, maybe ten seconds. My thing is to get the joke across in as few words as possible. However, sometimes a word that's not really needed does help the rhythm of it. It's a gut feeling.”

166. “I was always making my friends laugh, but I never wanted the attention of the whole classroom.”

167. “I got a chain letter by fax. It's very simple. You just fax a dollar bill to everybody on the list.”

168. “The things I talk about and explain couldn't happen - yet, they don't seem impossible - you could say I talk about the world in an abstract perspective. But then, the world is basically insane - and it's trying to pass itself off as being a sane place. I show it for what it is.”

169. “I never even thought of myself as deadpan until someone wrote an article about me about a year after I was doing comedy. There was a paper called the 'Boston Phoenix,' and someone wrote a description of what I was doing and that's where I first saw 'deadpan.'”

170. “I don't go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it's contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.”

171. “I didn't tell any of my friends that I wanted to be a comedian, because I was superstitious. I thought if I told people, it wouldn't happen. So I kept it all in my head for years and years.”

172. “If you shoot at mimes, should you use a silencer?”

173. “I don't feel that I'm explaining the world or teaching people anything. And I'm not trying to be a mirror, showing them what's really going on the world. All I'm trying to do is think of stuff that's funny, just like when I'm kidding around with my friends.”

174. “Like other kids wanted to become firemen or astronauts, I wanted to make people laugh.”

175. “One day a guy tried to rob me on the street, and I had no money. So I charged him.”

176. “Don't you hate when your hand falls asleep and you know it will be up all night.”

177. “People may think I'm trying something new by telling stories, but they're just jokes connected to give the illusion of stories. But really, I just continue using my imagination and creating. That's what I do.”

178. “I laugh all the time - at things, people, stuff, whatever. But, I don't laugh onstage because then it's serious business.”

179. “I was born. When I was 23 I started telling jokes. Then I started going on television and doing films. That's still what I am doing. The end.”

180. “I didn't want to be selling insurance at 40, wondering what would it have been like to do stand-up.”

181. “I always thought Johnny Carson was just brilliant, and I used to watch him and all the comics that would be on the show every night - and I'd dream about it being me.”