Steven Wright Quotes

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.

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

At one point he decided enough was enough.

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.’

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.

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

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.

When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, ‘Did you sleep good?’ I said ‘No, I made a few mistakes.’

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

I wrote a few children’s books… not on purpose.

I’m going to get an MRI to find out whether I have claustrophobia.

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

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

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.

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.

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

I’m addicted to placebos.

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.

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

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

I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing ‘Happy Birthday.’

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

Hermits have no peer pressure.

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.

If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?

Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks?

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

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

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.

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.

I went to a general store but they wouldn’t let me buy anything specific.

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.

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.’

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

I don’t like politicians, and I don’t like politics. I definitely don’t want to be associated with any of them.

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

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.

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.

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

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?’

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

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

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

Someone asked me, if I were stranded on a desert island what book would I bring… ‘How to Build a Boat.’

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.’

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.

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

I have all the emotions that everyone has; it just appears that I don’t.

I invented the cordless extension cord.

If I ever had twins, I’d use one for parts.

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.

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.

If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I got this powdered water – now I don’t know what to add.

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

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.

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

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

My act is an exaggeration of a part of me. I’m much more expressive off stage.

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

My neighbor has a circular driveway… he can’t get out.

I think God’s going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding.

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

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

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