The wisest man I ever knew taught me something I never forgot. And although I never forgot it, I never quite memorized it either. So what I'm left with is the memory of having learned something very wise that I can't remember.
When I hear someone talking about political solutions, I know I am not listening to a serious person.
Weyerhauser, a company that makes its money by cutting down trees, calls itself "The tree-growing company."
If a man smiles all the time, he's probably selling something that doesn't work.
Not only do I not know what's going on, I wouldn't know what to do about it if I did.
How likely is it that all the people who are described as missing are living together in a small town somewhere?
We're all screwed. It helps to remember that.
If lobsters looked like puppies, people could never drop them into boiling water while they're still alive. But instead, they look like science fiction monsters, so it's OK. Restaurants that allow patrons to select live lobsters from a tank should be made to paint names on their shells: "Happy," "Baby Doll," "Junior." I defy anyone to drop a living thing called "Happy" in rapidly boiling water.
I've adopted a new lifestyle that doesn't require my presence. In fact, if I don't want to, I don't have to get out of bed at all, and I still get credit for a full day.
The sicker you get, the harder it is to remember if you took your medicine.
If you take corn off the cob, not only do you have corn-off-the-cob, you also have cobs-out-from-inside-the-corn.
I can't bear to go to the children's zoo. I always wonder how their parents can allow them to be kept in those little cages.
Why do foreign soldiers march funny? Do they think we march funny? If we do, how would we know?
If you mail a letter to the post office, who delivers it?
"On the fritz" is a useful expression only if you're talking about a home appliance. You wouldn't say, "The Space Shuttle is on the fritz." You'd never hear it in a hospital. "Doctor, the heart-lung machine is on the fritz."
Some see the glass as half-empty, some see the glass as half-full. I see the glass as too big.
My uncle thought he would clean up in dirt farming, but prices fell, and he took a real bath. Eventually, he washed his hands of the whole thing.
Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers
White people screwed up the blues.
If you love someone, set them free; if they come home, set them on fire.
Whenever I see a large crowd, I always wonder what the most disgusting thing any one of them ever did.
I think they ought to let guys like Jeffery Dahmer off with a warning. They do it with speeding tickets. Sometimes all a guy needs is a good talking to. Why don't they say, "Listen, Jeff. Knock it off! Nobody thinks you're funny. Eat one more guy and we're comin' after ya."
Those nicotine patches seem to work pretty well, but I understand it's kind of hard to keep 'em lit.
In El Salvador, they declared a cease fire after ten years. Why didn't they think of that in the beginning? Anyway, the best thing about El Salvador is that they killed a lot of religious people. How often do you get 10 percent of the body count in clergy?
At one point in my haste to improve myself, I mixed up the telephone numbers of the Shick Center for the Control of Smoking and the Evelyn Woods Speed Reading School. As a result, I can now smoke up to 300 cigarettes a minute, but I gave up reading.
"Preschool teacher": If it's not a school, why do they need a teacher? Don't they need a "preteacher?"
Most people are not particularly good at anything.
How can someone be "armed with a handgun?" Shouldn't he be armed with an "armgun?" Can a handgun really be a sidearm? And shouldn't a hand grenade be an arm grenade? You don't throw it with your hand, you throw it with your arm.
Try explaining Hitler to a kid.
Why do we turn lights "out" when we turn most other things "off?"
The straightest line between a short distance is two points.
Working-class people "look for work." Middle-class people "try to get a job." Upper-middle-class people "seek employment."
There are two pips in a beaut, four beauts in a lulu, eight lulus in a doozy, and sixteen doozies in a humdinger. No one knows how many humdingers there are in a lollapalooza.
An excerpt from "Brain Droppings" by George Carlin. [an error occurred while processing this directive]