A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

A friend of mine is into Voodoo Acupuncture.  You don't have to go.

You'll just be walking down the street and...  Ooohh, that's much better.

        -- Steven Wright

%

A large spider in an old house built a beautiful web in which to catch flies.

Every time a fly landed on the web and was entangled in it the spider devoured

him, so that when another fly came along he would think the web was a safe and

quiet place in which to rest.  One day a fairly intelligent fly buzzed around

above the web so long without lighting that the spider appeared and said,

"Come on down."  But the fly was too clever for him and said, "I never light

where I don't see other flies and I don't see any other flies in your house."

So he flew away until he came to a place where there were a great many other

flies.  He was about to settle down among them when a bee buzzed up and said,

"Hold it, stupid, that's flypaper.  All those flies are trapped."  "Don't be

silly," said the fly, "they're dancing."  So he settled down and became stuck

to the flypaper with all the other flies.

Moral:  There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

        -- James Thurber, "The Fairly Intelligent Fly"

%

A lot of people are afraid of heights.  Not me.  I'm afraid of widths.

        -- Steven Wright

%

    A MODERN FABLE

Aesop's fables and other traditional children's stories involve allegory

far too subtle for the youth of today.  Children need an updated message

with contemporary circumstance and plot line, and short enough to suit

today's minute attention span.

    The Troubled Aardvark

Once upon a time, there was an aardvark whose only pleasure in life was

driving from his suburban bungalow to his job at a large brokerage house

in his brand new 4x4.  He hated his manipulative boss, his conniving and

unethical co-workers, his greedy wife, and his snivelling, spoiled

children.  One day, the aardvark reflected on the meaning of his life and

his career and on the unchecked, catastrophic decline of his nation, its

pathetic excuse for leadership, and the complete ineffectiveness of any

personal effort he could make to change the status quo.  Overcome by a

wave of utter depression and self-doubt, he decided to take the only

course of action that would bring him greater comfort and happiness: he

drove to the mall and bought imported consumer electronics goods.

MORAL OF THE STORY:  Invest in foreign consumer electronics manufacturers.

        -- Tom Annau

%

A possum must be himself, and being himself he is honest.

        -- Walt Kelly

%

"A power so great, it can only be used for Good or Evil!"

        -- Firesign Theatre, "The Giant Rat of Summatra"

%

        Accidents cause History.

If Sigismund Unbuckle had taken a walk in 1426 and met Wat Tyler, the

Peasant's Revolt would never have happened and the motor car would not

have been invented until 2026, which would have meant that all the oil

could have been used for lamps, thus saving the electric light bulb and

the whale, and nobody would have caught Moby Dick or Billy Budd.

        -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"

%

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.

        -- Woody Allen

%

All of the people in my building are insane.  The guy above me designs

synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats.  The lady across the hall tried to

rob a department store... with a pricing gun...  She said, "Give me all

of the money in the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store."

        -- Steven Wright

%

And now for something completely different.

%

And now for something completely the same.

%

    "Are you sure you're not an encyclopedia salesman?"

    No, Ma'am.  Just a burglar, come to ransack the flat."

        -- Monty Python

%

As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's

so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.

        -- Woody Allen

%

Being Ymor's right-hand man was like being gently flogged to death with

scented bootlaces.

        -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic"

%

Bernard Shaw is an excellent man; he has not an enemy in the world, and

none of his friends like him either.

        -- Oscar Wilde

%

"Boy, life takes a long time to live."

        -- Steven Wright

%

Bozo is the Brotherhood of Zips and Others.  Bozos are people who band

together for fun and profit.  They have no jobs.  Anybody who goes on a

tour is a Bozo. Why does a Bozo cross the street?  Because there's a Bozo

on the other side. It comes from the phrase vos otros, meaning others.

They're the huge, fat, middle waist.  The archetype is an Irish drunk

clown with red hair and nose, and pale skin.  Fields, William Bendix.

Everybody tends to drift toward Bozoness.  It has Oz in it.  They mean

well.  They're straight-looking except they've got inflatable shoes.  They

like their comforts.  The Bozos have learned to enjoy their free time,

which is all the time.

        -- Firesign Theatre, "If Bees Lived Inside Your Head"

%

But I always fired into the nearest hill or, failing that, into blackness.

I meant no harm;  I just liked the explosions.  And I was careful never to

kill more than I could eat.

        -- Raoul Duke

%

"But I don't like Spam!!!!"

%

    "But I don't want to go on the cart..."

    "Oh, don't be such a baby!"

    "But I'm feeling much better..."

    "No you're not... in a moment you'll be stone dead!"

        -- Monty Python, "The Holy Grail"

%

Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to

point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very

fast.  People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are

often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people

from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B

that so many people from point A are so keen to get _____there.  They often

wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell

they wanted to be.

        -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

%

Comedy, like Medicine, was never meant to be practiced by the general public.

%

Death didn't answer.  He was looking at Spold in the same way as a dog looks

at a bone, only in this case things were more or less the other way around.

        -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic"

%

Decorate your home.  It gives the illusion that your life is more

interesting than it really is.

        -- C. Schulz

%

Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he

just whipped out a quarter?

        -- Steven Wright

%

"Don't come back until you have him", the Tick-Tock Man said quietly,

sincerely, extremely dangerously.

They used dogs.  They used probes.  They used cardio plate crossoffs.

They used teepers.  They used bribery.  They used stick tites.  They used

intimidation.  They used torment.  They used torture.  They used finks.

They used cops.  They used search and seizure.  They used fallaron.  They

used betterment incentives.  They used finger prints.  They used the

bertillion system.  They used cunning.  They used guile.  They used treachery.

They used Raoul-Mitgong but he wasn't much help.  They used applied physics.

They used techniques of criminology.  And what the hell, they caught him.

        -- Harlan Ellison, "Repent, Harlequin, said the Tick-Tock Man"

%

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent.

        -- Walt Kelly

%

Don't worry about the world coming to an end today.  It's already tomorrow

in Australia.

        -- Charles Schulz

%

Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead.

        -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"

%

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

        -- Woody Allen

%

Eternity is a terrible thought.  I mean, where's it going to end?

        -- Tom Stoppard

%

Ever since prehistoric times, wise men have tried to understand what,

exactly, make people laugh.  That's why they were called "wise men." All the

other prehistoric people were out puncturing each other with spears, and the

wise men were back in the cave saying: "How about: Would you please take my

wife?  No.  How about: Here is my wife, please take her right now.  No How

about: Would you like to take something? My wife is available.  No.  How

about ..."

        -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"

%

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the

Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an

utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life

forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches

are a pretty neat idea ...

        -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

%

Faster, faster, you fool, you fool!

        -- Bill Cosby

%

First, a few words about tools.

Basically, a tool is an object that enables you to take advantage of the

laws of physics and mechanics in such a way that you can seriously injure

yourself.  Today, people tend to take tools for granted.  If you're ever

walking down the street and you notice some people who look particularly

smug, the odds are that they are taking tools for granted.  If I were you,

I'd walk right up and smack them in the face.

        -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

%

For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier...  I put them in

the same room and let them fight it out.

        -- Steven Wright

%

From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed

with laughter.  Some day I intend reading it.

        -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"

%

God is a comic playing to an audience that's afraid to laugh.

%

He asked me if I knew what time it was -- I said yes, but not right now.

        -- Steven Wright

%

"Here's something to think about:  How come you never see a headline like

`Psychic Wins Lottery'?"

        -- Jay Leno

%

Hey, what do you expect from a culture that *drives* on *parkways* and

*parks* on *driveways*?

        -- Gallagher

%

High Priest:    Armaments Chapter One, verses nine through twenty-seven:

Bro. Maynard:    And Saint Attila raised the Holy Hand Grenade up on high

    saying, "Oh Lord, Bless us this Holy Hand Grenade, and with it

    smash our enemies to tiny bits."  And the Lord did grin, and the

    people did feast upon the lambs, and stoats, and orangutans, and

    breakfast cereals, and lima bean-

High Priest:    Skip a bit, brother.

Bro. Maynard:    And then the Lord spake, saying: "First, shalt thou take

    out the holy pin.  Then shalt thou count to three.  No more, no less.

    *Three* shall be the number of the counting, and the number of the

    counting shall be three.  *Four* shalt thou not count, and neither

    count thou two, excepting that thou then goest on to three.  Five is

    RIGHT OUT.  Once the number three, being the third number be reached,

    then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade towards thy foe, who, being

    naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.  Amen.

All:    Amen.

        -- Monty Python, "The Holy Hand Grenade"

%

"Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse."

        -- William Gilbert

%

Humorists always sit at the children's table.

        -- Woody Allen

%

I am a conscientious man, when I throw rocks at seabirds I leave no tern

unstoned.

        -- Ogden Nash, "Everybody's Mind to Me a Kingdom Is"

%

I am getting into abstract painting.  Real abstract -- no brush, no canvas,

I just think about it.  I just went to an art museum where all of the art

was done by children.  All the paintings were hung on refrigerators.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I am two with nature.

        -- Woody Allen

%

I argue very well.  Ask any of my remaining friends.  I can win an argument on

any topic, against any opponent.  People know this, and steer clear of me at

parties.  Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.

        -- Dave Barry

%

    "I assure you the thought never even crossed my mind, lord."

    "Indeed?  Then if I were you I'd sue my face for slander."

        -- Terry Pratchett, "The Colour of Magic"

%

I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.

        -- Gilda Radner

%

I bought some used paint. It was in the shape of a house.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar.

What a crock.  I could easily overemphasize the importance of good

grammar.  For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause

of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the

United States would have lost World War II."

        -- Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar"

%

"I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights instead! Now

when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is standing still ..."

        -- Steven Wright

%

I could dance with you till the cows come home.  On second thought, I'd rather

dance with the cows till you come home.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that

either.

        -- Jack Benny

%

I don't get no respect.

%

I don't kill flies, but I like to mess with their minds.  I hold them above

globes.  They freak out and yell "Whooa, I'm *way* too high."

        -- Bruce Baum

%

I don't want to live on in my work, I want to live on in my apartment.

        -- Woody Allen

%

I finally went to the eye doctor.  I got contacts.  I only need them to

read, so I got flip-ups.

        -- Steven Wright

%

"I got into an elevator at work and this man followed in after me... I

pushed '1' and he just stood there... I said 'Hi, where you going?'  He

said, 'Phoenix.'  So I pushed Phoenix.  A few seconds later the doors

opened, two tumbleweeds blew in... we were in downtown Phoenix.  I looked

at him and said 'You know, you're the kind of guy I want to hang around

with.'  We got into his car and drove out to his shack in the desert.

Then the phone rang.  He said 'You get it.'  I picked it up and said

'Hello?'... the other side said 'Is this Steven Wright?'... I said 'Yes...'

The guy said 'Hi, I'm Mr. Jones, the student loan director from your bank...

It seems you have missed your last 17 payments, and the university you

attended said that they received none of the $17,000 we loaned you... we

would just like to know what happened to the money?'  I said, 'Mr. Jones,

I'll give it to you straight.  I gave all of the money to my friend Slick,

and with it he built a nuclear weapon... and I would appreciate it if you never

called me again."

        -- Steven Wright

%

I got my driver's license photo taken out of focus on purpose.  Now

when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and

farther, trying to see it clearly)...  and says, "Here, you can go."

        -- Steven Wright

%

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

        -- Steven Wright

%

I got tired of listening to the recording on the phone at the movie

theater.  So I bought the album.  I got kicked out of a theater the

other day for bringing my own food in.  I argued that the concession

stand prices were outrageous.  Besides, I hadn't had a barbecue in a

long time.  I went to the theater and the sign said adults $5 children

$2.50.  I told them I wanted 2 boys and a girl.  I once took a cab to

a drive-in movie.  The movie cost me $95.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I had no shoes and I pitied myself.  Then I met a man who had no feet,

so I took his shoes.

        -- Dave Barry

%

I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means

it's going to be up all night.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I have a box of telephone rings under my bed.  Whenever I get lonely, I

open it up a little bit, and I get a phone call.  One day I dropped the

box all over the floor.  The phone wouldn't stop ringing.  I had to get

it disconnected.  So I got a new phone.  I didn't have much money, so I

had to get an irregular.  It doesn't have a five.  I ran into a friend

of mine on the street the other day.  He said why don't you give me a

call.  I told him I can't call everybody I want to anymore, my phone

doesn't have a five.  He asked how long had it been that way.  I said I

didn't know -- my calendar doesn't have any sevens.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I have a dog; I named him Stay.  So when I'd go to call him, I'd say, "Here,

Stay, here..." but he got wise to that.  Now when I call him he ignores me

and just keeps on typing.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I have a friend whose a billionaire.  He invented Cliff's notes.  When

I asked him how he got such a great idea he said, "Well first I...

I just... to make a long story short..."

        -- Steven Wright

%

I have a hobby.  I have the world's largest collection of sea shells.  I keep

it scattered on beaches all over the world.  Maybe you've seen some of it.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I have a map of the United States.  It's actual size.  I spent last summer

folding it.  People ask me where I live, and I say, "E6".

        -- Steven Wright

%

I have a rock garden.  Last week three of them died.

        -- Richard Diran

%

I have a switch in my apartment that doesn't do anything.  Every once

in a while I turn it on and off.  On and off.  On and off.  One day I

got a call from a woman in France who said "Cut it out!"

        -- Steven Wright

%

I have an existential map.  It has "You are here" written all over it.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I just got out of the hospital after a speed reading accident.

I hit a bookmark.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I know the answer!  The answer lies within the heart of all mankind!

The answer is twelve?  I think I'm in the wrong building.

        -- Charles Schulz

%

I look at life as being cruise director on the Titanic.  I may not get

there, but I'm going first class.

        -- Art Buchwald

%

"I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour!  This is what

entertainment is all about ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils."

        -- Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson

%

I met my latest girl friend in a department store.  She was looking at

clothes, and I was putting Slinkys on the escalators.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

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

        -- Steven Wright

%

I put contact lenses in my dog's eyes.  They had little pictures of cats

on them.  Then I took one out and he ran around in circles.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I put instant coffee in a microwave and almost went back in time.

        -- Steven Wright

%

    "I said I hope it is a good party," said Galder, loudly.

    "AT THE MOMENT IT IS," said Death levelly.  "I THINK IT MIGHT GO

DOWNHILL VERY QUICKLY AT MIDNIGHT."

    "Why?"

    "THAT'S WHEN THEY THINK I'LL BE TAKING MY MASK OFF."

        -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"

%

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

        -- Steven Wright

%

I should have been a country-western singer.  After all, I'm older than

most western countries.

        -- George Burns

%

I sold my memoirs of my love life to Parker Brothers -- they're going

to make a game out of it.

        -- Woody Allen

%

I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards.  I got a full

house and four people died.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I suggest you locate your hot tub outside your house, so it won't do too

much damage if it catches fire or explodes.  First you decide which

direction your hot tub should face for maximum solar energy.  After much

trial and error, I have found that the best direction for a hot tub to face

is up.

        -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

%

I tell ya, gambling never agreed with me.  Last week I went to the track

and they shot my horse with the opening gun.

Well, just last week I was at a Chinese restaurant and when I opened my

fortune cookie I found the guy's check sitting at the next table.  I said,

"Hey, buddy, I got your check", he said, "Thanks."

        -- Rodney Dangerfield

%

I think we're all Bozos on this bus.

        -- Firesign Theatre

%

I thought there was something fishy about the butler.  Probably a Pisces,

working for scale.

        -- Firesign Theatre, "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger"

%

I took a course in speed reading and was able to read War and Peace in

twenty minutes.

It's about Russia.

        -- Woody Allen

%

I turned my air conditioner the other way around, and it got cold out.

The weatherman said "I don't understand it.  I was supposed to be 80

degrees today," and I said "Oops."

In my house on the ceilings I have paintings of the rooms above... so

I never have to go upstairs.

I just bought a microwave fireplace... You can spend an evening in

front of it in only eight minutes.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I used to live in a house by the freeway.  When I went anywhere, I had

to be going 65 MPH by the end of my driveway.

I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights.  Now it looks

like I'm the only one moving.

I was pulled over for speeding today.  The officer said, "Don't you know

the speed limit is 55 miles an hour?"  And I said, "Yes, but I wasn't going

to be out that long."

I put a new engine in my car, but didn't take the old one out.  Now

my car goes 500 miles an hour.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I used to work in a fire hydrant factory.  You couldn't park anywhere near

the place.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I was at this restaurant.  The sign said "Breakfast Anytime."  So I

ordered French Toast in the Rennaissance.

        -- Steven Wright

%

"I was drunk last night, crawled home across the lawn.  By accident I

put the car key in the door lock.  The house started up.  So I figured

what the hell, and drove it around the block a few times.  I thought I

should go park it in the middle of the freeway and yell at everyone to

get off my driveway."

        -- Steven Wright

%

I was in a bar and I walked up to a beautiful woman and said, "Do you live

around here often?"  She said, "You're wearing two different-color socks."

I said, "Yes, but to me they're the same because I go by thickness."

She said, "How do you feel?" And I said, "You know when you're sitting on a

chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs and you lean too far so

you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself?  I feel like

that all the time..."

        -- Steven Wright, "Gentlemen's Quarterly"

%

I was in Vegas last week. I was at the roulette table, having a lengthy

argument about what I considered an Odd number.

        -- Steven Wright

%

I was the best I ever had.

        -- Woody Allen

%

"I went into a general store, and they wouldn't sell me anything specific".

        -- Steven Wright

%

"I went to a job interview the other day, the guy asked me if I had any

questions , I said yes, just one, if you're in a car traveling at the

speed of light and you turn your headlights on, does anything happen?

He said he couldn't answer that, I told him sorry, but I couldn't work

for him then.

        -- Steven Wright

%

"I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the

statues that are in all the other museums."

        -- Steven Wright

%

I woke up this morning and discovered that everything in my apartment

had been stolen and replaced with an exact replica.  I told my roommate,

"Isn't this amazing?  Everything in the apartment has been stolen and

replaced with an exact replica."  He said, "Do I know you?"

        -- Steven Wright

%

I worked in a health food store once.  A guy came in and asked me,

"If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?"

        -- Steven Wright

%

I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

I'D LIKE TO BE BURIED INDIAN-STYLE, where they put you up on a high rack,

above the ground.  That way, you could get hit by meteorites and not even

feel it.

        -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.

%

I'd never join any club that would have the likes of me as a member.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

I'll be comfortable on the couch.  Famous last words.

        -- Lenny Bruce

%

I'm going to Boston to see my doctor.  He's a very sick man.

        -- Fred Allen

%

I'm going to give my psychoanalyst one more year, then I'm going to Lourdes.

        -- Woody Allen

%

I'm going to live forever, or die trying!

        -- Spider Robinson

%

I'm not afraid of death -- I just don't want to be there when it happens.

        -- Woody Allen

%

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening.  But this wasn't it.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would

have made them cute and furry.

        -- Dave Barry

%

If only Dionysus were alive!  Where would he eat?

        -- Woody Allen

%

If only God would give me some clear sign!  Like making a large deposit

in my name at a Swiss bank.

        -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"

%

If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few

people die past the age of a hundred.

        -- George Burns

%

If you throw a New Year's Party, the worst thing that you can do would be

to throw the kind of party where your guests wake up today, and call you to

say they had a nice time.  Now you'll be be expected to throw another party

next year.

    What you should do is throw the kind of party where your guest wake

up several days from now and call their lawyers to find out if they've been

indicted for anything.  You want your guests to be so anxious to avoid a

recurrence of your party that they immediately start planning parties of their

own, a year in advance, just to prevent you from having another one ...

    If your party is successful, the police will knock on your door,

unless your party is very successful in which case they will lob tear gas

through your living room window.  As host, your job is to make sure that

they don't arrest anybody.  Or if they're dead set on arresting someone,

your job is to make sure it isn't you ...

        -- Dave Barry

%

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

        -- Woody Allen

%

If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it

off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe?

        -- Douglas Adams, "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe"

%

In America today ... we have Woody Allen, whose humor has become so

sophisticated that nobody gets it any more except Mia Farrow.  All those who

think Mia Farrow should go back to making movies where the devil gets her

pregnant and Woody Allen should go back to dressing up as a human sperm,

please raise your hands.  Thank you.

        -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"

%

In like a dimwit, out like a light.

        -- Pogo

%

Is it weird in here, or is it just me?

        -- Steven Wright

%

It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what

they seem.  For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed

that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so

much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins

had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time.  But

conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more

intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons.

Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending

destruction of the of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to

alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were

misinterpreted ...

        -- Douglas Adams "The Hitchhikers' Guide To The Galaxy"

%

It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.

        -- Woody Allen

%

It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be

unhappy.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

It looked like something resembling white marble, which was

probably what it was: something resembling white marble.

        -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"

%

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

        -- Steven Wright

%

It's hard to get ivory in Africa, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.

        -- Woody Allen

%

Last night the power went out.  Good thing my camera had a flash....

The neighbors thought it was lightning in my house, so they called the cops.

        -- Steven Wright

%

Last year we drove across the country...  We switched on the driving...

every half mile.  We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip.

I don't remember what it was.

        -- Steven Wright

%

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

        -- Woody Allen, "Annie Hall"

%

Life is wasted on the living.

        -- The Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe.

%

Like you,  I am frequently haunted by profound questions related to man's

place in the Scheme of Things.  Here are just a few:

    Q -- Is there life after death?

    A -- Definitely.  I speak from personal experience here.  On New

Year's Eve, 1970, I drank a full pitcher of a drink called "Black Russian",

then crawled out on the lawn and died within a matter of minutes, which was

fine with me because I had come to realize that if I had lived I would have

spent the rest of my life in the grip of the most excruciatingly painful

headache.  Thanks to the miracle of modern orange juice, I was brought back

to life several days later, but in the interim I was definitely dead.  I

guess my main impression of the afterlife is that it isn't so bad as long

as you keep the television turned down and don't try to eat any solid foods.

        -- Dave Barry

%

Man 1:    Ask me the what the most important thing about telling a good joke is.

Man 2:    OK, what is the most impo --

Man 1:    ______TIMING!

%

    "Many have seen Topaxci, God of the Red Mushroom, and they earn the

name of shaman," he said.  Some have seen Skelde, spirit of the smoke, and

they are called sorcerers.  A few have been privileged to see Umcherrel, the

soul of the forest, and they are known as spirit masters.  But none have

seen a box with hundreds of legs that looked at them without eyes, and they

are known as idio--"

    The interruption was caused by a sudden screaming noise and a flurry

of snow and sparks that blew the fire across the dark hut; there was a brief

blurred vision and then the opposite wall was blasted aside and the

apparition vanished.

    There was a long silence.  Then a slightly shorter silence.  Then

the old shaman said carefully, "You didn't just see two men go through

upside down on a broomstick, shouting and screaming at each other, did you?"

    The boy looked at him levelly.  "Certainly not," he said.

    The old man heaved a sigh of relief.  "Thank goodness for that," he

said.  "Neither did I."

        -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"

%

Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon,

there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he

was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how

completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday....

        -- Walt Kelly

%

My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo

of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here".

        -- Steven Wright

%

My friend has a baby.  I'm writing down all the noises he makes so

later I can ask him what he meant.

        -- Steven Wright

%

    My friends, I am here to tell you of the wonderous continent known as

Africa.  Well we left New York drunk and early on the morning of February 31.

We were 15 days on the water, and 3 on the boat when we finally arrived in

Africa.  Upon our arrival we immediately set up a rigorous schedule:  Up at

6:00, breakfast, and back in bed by 7:00.  Pretty soon we were back in bed by

6:30.  Now Africa is full of big game.  The first day I shot two bucks.  That

was the biggest game we had.  Africa is primerally inhabited by Elks, Moose

and Knights of Pithiests.

    The elks live up in the mountains and come down once a year for their

annual conventions.  And you should see them gathered around the water hole,

which they leave immediately when they discover it's full of water.  They

weren't looking for a water hole.  They were looking for an alck hole.

    One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got in my

pajamas, I don't know.  Then we tried to remove the tusks.  That's a tough

word to say, tusks.  As I said we tried to remove the tusks, but they were

imbedded so firmly we couldn't get them out.  But in Alabama the Tuscaloosa,

but that is totally irrelephant to what I was saying.

    We took some pictures of the native girls, but they weren't developed.

So we're going back in a few years...

        -- Julius H. Marx [Groucho]

%

Nietzsche says that we will live the same life, over and over again.

God -- I'll have to sit through the Ice Capades again.

        -- Woody Allen, "Hannah and Her Sisters"

%

Nirvana?  That's the place where the powers that be and their friends hang out.

        -- Zonker Harris

%

NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

%

Now is the time for all good men to come to.

        -- Walt Kelly

%

    Obviously the subject of death was in the air, but more as something

to be avoided than harped upon.

    Possibly the horror that Zaphod experienced at the prospect of being

reunited with his deceased relatives led on to the thought that they might

just feel the same way about him and, what's more, be able to do something

about helping to postpone this reunion.

        -- Douglas Adams

%

One doesn't have a sense of humor.  It has you.

        -- Larry Gelbart

%

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.  Inside a dog it's too

dark to read.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves to

spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to

indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest

person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you

are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other

passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they

have plenty of food and water.

        -- Dave Barry, "Why Humor is Funny"

%

"Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time."

        -- Steven Wright

%

Rincewind formed a mental picture of some strange entity living in a castle

made of teeth.  It was the kind of mental picture you tried to forget.

Unsuccessfully.

        -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"

%

Romeo wasn't bilked in a day.

        -- Walt Kelly, "Ten Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Years With Pogo"

%

Sharks are as tough as those football fans who take their shirts off

during games in Chicago in January, only more intelligent.

        -- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every

           Teen Should Know"

%

Showing up is 80% of life.

        -- Woody Allen

%

Some of you ... may have decided that, this year, you're going to celebrate

it the old-fashioned way, with your family sitting around stringing

cranberries and exchanging humble, handmade gifts, like on "The Waltons".

Well, you can forget it.  If everybody pulled that kind of subversive stunt,

the economy would collapse overnight.  The government would have to

intervene: it would form a cabinet-level Department of Holiday Gift-Giving,

which would spend billions and billions of tax dollars to buy Barbie dolls

and electronic games, which it would drop on the populace from Air Force

jets, killing and maiming thousands.  So, for the good of the nation, you

should go along with the Holiday Program.  This means you should get a large

sum of money and go to a mall.

        -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"

%

SOMETIMES THE BEAUTY OF THE WORLD is so overwhelming, I just want to throw

back my head and gargle.  Just gargle and gargle and I don't care who hears

me because I am beautiful.

        -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.

%

Thank goodness modern convenience is a thing of the remote future.

        -- Pogo, by Walt Kelly

%

The basic idea behind malls is that they are more convenient than cities.

Cities contain streets, which are dangerous and crowded and difficult to

park in.  Malls, on the other hand, have parking lots, which are also

dangerous and crowded and difficult to park in, but -- here is the big

difference -- in mall parking lots, THERE ARE NO RULES.  You're allowed to

do anything.  You can drive as fast as you want in any direction you want.

I was once driving in a mall parking lot when my car was struck by a pickup

truck being driven backward by a squat man with a tattoo that said "Charlie"

on his forearm, who got out and explained to me, in great detail, why the

accident was my fault, his reasoning being that he was violent and muscular,

whereas I was neither.  This kind of reasoning is legally valid in mall

parking lots.

        -- Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"

%

The best cure for insomnia is to get a  lot of sleep.

        -- W. C. Fields

%

The best way to make a fire with two sticks is to make sure one of them

is a match.

        -- Will Rogers

%

The buffalo isn't as dangerous as everyone makes him out to be.

Statistics prove that in the United States more Americans are killed in

automobile accidents than are killed by buffalo.

        -- Art Buchwald

%

The grand leap of the whale up the Fall of Niagara is esteemed, by all

who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature.

        -- Benjamin Franklin.

%

    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a few things to say on

the subject of towels.

    Most importantly, a towel has immense psychological value.  For

some reason, if a non-hitchhiker discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel

with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a

toothbrush, washcloth, flask, gnat spray, space suit, etc., etc.  Furthermore,

the non-hitchhiker will then happily lend the hitchhiker any of these or

a dozen other items that he may have "lost".  After all, any man who can

hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, struggle against terrible odds,

win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be

reckoned with.

        -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

%

The other day I... uh, no, that wasn't me.

        -- Steven Wright

%

    "The pyramid is opening!"

    "Which one?"

    "The one with the ever-widening hole in it!"

        -- Firesign Theater, "How Can You Be In Two Places At

           Once When You're Not Anywhere At All"

%

        The Three Major Kind of Tools

* Tools for hittings things to make them loose or to tighten them up or

jar their many complex, sophisticated electrical parts in such a

manner that they function perfectly.  (These are your hammers, maces,

bludgeons, and truncheons.)

* Tools that, if dropped properly, can penetrate your foot.  (Awls)

* Tools that nobody should ever use because the potential danger is far

greater than the value of any project that could possibly result.

(Power saws, power drills, power staplers, any kind of tool that uses

any kind of power more advanced than flashlight batteries.)

        -- Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

%

There comes a time in the affairs of a man when he has to take the bull

by the tail and face the situation.

        -- W. C. Fields

%

There's no easy quick way out, we're gonna have to live through our

whole lives, win, lose, or draw.

        -- Walt Kelly

%

There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is

becoming an endangered synthetic.

        -- Lily Tomlin

%

Things will get better despite our efforts to improve them.

        -- Will Rogers

%

This land is full of trousers!

this land is full of mausers!

    And pussycats to eat them when the sun goes down!

        -- Firesign Theater

%

Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.

        -- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

%

TOO BAD YOU CAN'T BUY a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin

real fast and freak everybody out.

        -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.

%

Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing.

        -- Walt Kelly

%

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

        -- Walt Kelly

%

We is confronted with insurmountable opportunities.

        -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo"

%

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists?  In that case, I

definitely overpaid for my carpet.

        -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"

%

What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream?  Or what's worse,

what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?

        -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers"

%

What is comedy?  Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making

them puke.

        -- Steve Martin

%

    "What shall we do?" said Twoflower.

    "Panic?" said Rincewind hopefully.  He always held that panic was

the best means of survival; back in the olden days, his theory went, people

faced with hungry sabretoothed tigers could be divided very simply into

those who panicked and those who stood there saying "What a magnificent

brute!" and "Here, pussy."

        -- Terry Pratchett, "The Light Fantastic"

%

What's another word for "thesaurus"?

        -- Steven Wright

%

When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if

I had any firearms with me.  I said, "Well, what do you need?"

        -- Steven Wright

%

When I was little, I went into a pet shop and they asked how big I'd get.

        -- Rodney Dangerfield

%

When I woke up this morning, my girlfriend asked if I had slept well.

I said, "No, I made a few mistakes."

        -- Steven Wright

%

Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what

is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will.

        -- John Kenneth Galbraith

%

Why is the alphabet in that order?  Is it because of that song?

        -- Steven Wright

%

Will Rogers never met you.

%

Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity...

If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your

head... if you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick...

        -- Steven Wright

%

Would you *______really* want to get on a non-stop flight?

        -- George Carlin

%

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

        -- Steven Wright

%

    "You know, it's at times like this when I'm trapped in a Vogon

airlock with a man from Betelgeuse and about to die of asphyxiation in

deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me

when I was young!"

    "Why, what did she tell you?"

    "I don't know, I didn't listen."

        -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

%

You may already be a loser.

        -- Form letter received by Rodney Dangerfield.

%

You'd better beat it.  You can leave in a taxi.  If you can't get a taxi, you

can leave in a huff.  If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff.

        -- Groucho Marx

%

You're a good example of why some animals eat their young.

        -- Jim Samuels to a heckler

Ah, yes.  I remember my first beer.

        -- Steve Martin to a heckler

When your IQ rises to 28, sell.

        -- Professor Irwin Corey to a heckler

%

FORTUNE'S RANDOM QUOTES FROM MATCH GAME 75, NO. 1:

 Gene Rayburn: We'd like to close with a thought for the day, friends ---

               something ...

      Someone: (interrupting) Uh-oh

 Gene Rayburn: ...pithy, full of wisdom --- and we call on the Poet

               Laureate, Lipsy Russell

Lipsy Russell: The young people are very different today, and there is

               one sure way to know: Kids to use to ask where they came

               from, now they'll tell you where you can go.

          All: (laughter)

%