When I was a young kid I loved Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett and Jackie Vernon.

On some level any appearance on Television can be seen as a product endorsement.

The development of the comedy club industry destroyed the uniqueness and intimacy of the profession but it also created jobs for comics and bred some great performers.

When you actually meet the devil and he offers you a deal most artists eventually negotiate.

I'm not completely sure we aren't all living in a hallucination now.

I think seeing Pryor's first movie, Live In Concert, when I was in high school changed my life. Pryor really put the heart in darkness for me.

For my next trick I will make everyone understand me.

The bile makes it better. I am an information wasting machine - 100s of words a day.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you look up and realize that you're one of those people you see on the train talking to themselves?

The Internet has usurped the collective unconscious and access to cosmic consciousness has become difficult and almost primitive.

I think that standup has always been an acquired taste and there was always only a handful of performers that were really inspired.

Surveillance induced morality: relics of cultural retardation.

I didn't know that people compared Bill Hicks and I but certainly I'm flattered if they do. I knew Bill a bit. We had dinner a couple of times and played guitar together once. I really tried to keep my distance from him professionally.

In the sixties and seventies you could probably name all the great comics. It was still special.

Comedy is obviously a matter of personal taste and the world always needs a clown and some people have no taste at all and any clown will do.

When I was a young kid I loved Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett and Jackie Vernon.

The next evolutionary step is into the screen.

Jerusalem Syndrome is actually a rare psychological condition that occurs to some visitors to the Middle East. They get to Israel and just snap.

The demand for standup in the eighties was created by how easy it was to exploit 'comedians' and create very cheap television programming.

As a performer you are being used to keep people watching so the commercial endorsements that support the network can be seen by as many people as possible.

We need the children of Indonesia and the Philippines to manufacture our freedom of choice.

When I was a bit older I had all of the George Carlin records, all of the Steve Martin records, all of the Cheech and Chong records and all of the Richard Pryor records.

Left wing, right wing, I am wingless and tired of trying to fly. Here comes the ground.

There are also always those burnt, hard kernels at the bottom that don't pop. You know why they don't pop? They don't pop because they have integrity.

I was also a big Woody Allen fan. When I got into college I listened to Lenny Bruce but it's taken me years to put him into context historically and really get what he did.

It's easy to maintain your integrity when no one is offering to buy it out.

Is it hard to make a living in show business? Yeah.

I'm sad to see the passing of the great drug warriors. I certainly did my part in that battle and I don't regret any of it.

It seems people are more willing to let other people control their minds now and recreational drug use doesn't seem to have that same renegade sense of adventure that it once did.

Hopefully standup will become special again.

It may have lost its special-ness forever and the clubs might not being doing well but I think standup is in the best shape it has been in a long time.

Show business is one of the few businesses that the devil will actually agree to own just a portion of your soul because he knows if you have a performer's ego you were probably working for him all along.

Art is supposed to punch you in the brain, and it's supposed to stay punched.

The brain constantly assures us, reassures us, that we are in control. But the closer you look, the more questions you have about it.

So much of television is incredibly predictable. You watch the first five minutes and you know where it's going to go. If you can just create an element of surprise in both the storytelling and tone of a show, you're going to be way ahead of the pack.

I think in general I've never dared compose in Spanish. First of all, it is such an intricate language.

I have spoken to Donald Trump about this. He understands the dramatic budget cuts our military has faced.

I already have enough apparel businesses that are either doing well or not really doing anything at all, and I'm looking to broaden my portfolio.

Public office must not be a means to profit or become rich.

Civilizations are not remembered by their business people, their bankers or lawyers. They're remembered by the arts.

Men will often admit other women are oppressed but not you.

I've thought for the last decade or so, the only actual place raw truth was seeping through in newspapers was on the Comics Pages. They were able to pull off intelligent social comment, pure truths not found elsewhere in the news pages, and had the ability to make it all funny, entertaining, and pertinent.

One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.

Say a piece of pottery is broken, and it's fixed, and they use gold in the adhesive and in the sealant. It becomes more precious than it was before it was broken in the first place.

I know that war is very cruel and that life is harder when you aren't able to live in the place you called home.

Gossip, jealousy, suspicion, and resentment are the most destructive ways that we look at each other; such negativity only serves to fracture our personal power.

Being able to dedicate 100 per cent of my time to impacting more businesses without being operational, it just gives me a bigger platform.

There's no reason that just because you're a celebrity you can't write.

It was really great to be part of the Philip Roth story as a woman in a very complete way.