The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.

In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

The difference between school and life? In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.

You can make a new friend but you can't make an old one.

Americans are generally very self-sufficient and I think generally averse to pretension, just as I am.

Could the garment and appliance industries be in cahoots together, creating an artificial sock demand to keep us buying?

Did you ever notice that nobody you see on television looks like anyone you know?

For some people, you know, Garrison Keillor, Rush Limbaugh, really the stars, they've got a passion. They eat, drink and breathe radio, and I'm not like that. I used to think I wanted to be. But I need to be away from it, too, and that's the difference, I think.

I come from very common stock, and I've always been uncomfortable with pretension and all the forms it can take, including disingenuous broadcasting.

I know how to make adults laugh pretty well. I don't know if kids think I'm that funny.

I originated my own cliches, but I'm finding that's not working for me anymore.

I went to Alaska as a young man just looking for adventure. And like so many of us in the '70s, we found it.

I'm happy to report you still get nothing you don't need at Motel 6, and, therefore, you don't have to pay for it. I don't need valet parking. If I can drive the old crate 300 miles to the hotel all by myself, I can certainly handle the last nine feet to the parking space.

I'm not an impersonator. I've only got one voice and only do one guy and his first-person essays.

I'm real. I believe what I'm saying. If Motel 6 wasn't the type of operation they say it is - and I stay at them when I travel - I wouldn't do their commercials. That comes through on the radio, and that's what it's all about.

It's not like Alaska isn't wilderness - it mostly is. But most Alaskans don't live in the wild. They live on the edge of the wild in towns with schools and cable TV and stores and dentists and roller rinks sometimes. It's just like anyplace else, only with mountains and moose.

John Muir, the famous naturalist, wrote in his journal that you should never go to Alaska as a young man because you'll never be satisfied with any other place as long as you live. And there's a lot of truth to that.

Kids in Alaska don't know they're growing up on the Last Frontier. It's just what they see on the license plates, and it's something tourists like to say a lot because they've never been around so many mountains and moose before.

Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.

My work is still very much light-hearted, positive outlook, laugh at yourself. But it isn't going to be the laugh-a-minute kind of thing that my early work was.

People feel vulnerable when they travel. Nobody wants to be taken advantage of or talked into something they don't want. Staying at Motel 6 makes you feel smarter. In fact, I think it actually means you are smarter, but I have no hard data to support that.

Professor Al Drake encouraged me to just write the way I talk. I decided if that's what I needed to do, I didn't need to be in school to do it.

Somebody says, 'Do a Tom Bodett, a folksy kind of thing,' and it sounds like something out of 'Hee Haw,' very insulting. They turn wry humor into disparaging sarcasm, and you get what amounts to insulting advertising.

There's a lot of people around Alaska now who are actually running the place who claim to just have gone there for the summer once 30 years ago. And that seems to be what happens.

Tom Kizzia hasn't just observed and written about Alaska for three-plus decades, he's lived it. 'Pilgrim's Wilderness' is a story that needed to be told by the only man who could tell it.

What you hear is southern Michigan, not a drawl, but a halting kind of speech where you leave spaces when there shouldn't be any. We take a breath anywhere.

Be where the acting is. I live in Houston. Dallas is 4 1/2 hours away. I let them know there's no difference.

Well concerning the world records that I did, I think it helps a lot to me, yeah. I think it's a very individual thing because I heard some people say, like, oh I don't like it at all. But I definitely, for me it really made a big difference.

There are many experiments and a great deal of research that can be performed on the station that make a difference in our lives and we are committed to supporting this important vocation.

We started filming in 1993 which was only four years after the fall of communism. The difference in Budapest over the last five years has been remarkable.

The difference between talking on your cell phone while driving and speaking with a passenger is huge. The person on the other end of the cell phone is chattering away, oblivious.

What the hell difference does it make, left or right? There were good men lost on both sides.

The difference between a bad artist and a good one is: the bad artist seems to copy a great deal; the good one really does.

I was grateful for the opportunity to make a difference. The political violence really started in 1970-1971. The political difficulties start a little bit beyond that.

I think the human body is beautiful, and I don't really have a huge problem in dealing with it, but it's the context, the environment and what I feel about it that that makes the difference for me.

From my very first day in the Mayor's office, I have worked closely with the Council members who share our vision of a city hall that really protects taxpayers and cares... yes... about the little things that make a big difference in people's lives.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

All this is applicable to the intellectual faculties of man. There is a considerable difference between one person and another as regards these faculties, as is well known to philosophers.

I love those hockey moms. You know what they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is? Lipstick.

The difference between style and fashion is quality.

I used to think that it didn't make any difference how far you ran if you had a good, strong musculoskeletal system and no underlying cardiovascular problems.

The difference between relief pitching when I did it today is simple, there is too much of it. It's one of those cases where more is not necessarily better.

It makes no difference if I burn my bridges behind me - I never retreat.

It is important to nurture any new ideas and initiatives which can make a difference for Africa.

The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.

Do not confuse beauty with beautiful. Beautiful is a human judgment. Beauty is All. The difference is everything.

We must remember that one determined person can make a significant difference, and that a small group of determined people can change the course of history.