I was the first woman to burn my bra – it took the fire department four days to put it out.

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.

Each daughter of God is of infinite worth because of her divine mission.

I don’t write material. Funny things happen to me in the course of a day, and I just make notes.

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

A gender line… helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

Woman begins by resisting a man’s advances and ends by blocking his retreat.

We do not need the empire to give us anything.

I’m a meathead, man. You’ve got smart people, and you’ve got dumb people. I just happen to be dumb.

Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people.

In 1969, I gave up women and alcohol – it was the worst 20 minutes of my life.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.

Of all the subjects on this planet, I think my parents would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

In too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like My Brother’s Keeper, I’m personally committed to changing both perception and reality.

The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of women within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

I was terrible at straight items. When I wrote obituaries, my mother said the only thing I ever got them to do was die in alphabetical order.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.

The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.

The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper is that your guests are so pleased to feel how very much better they are.

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.

Politics is applesauce.

In the ’50s, too many women, even though they were very smart, they tried to make the man feel that he was brainier. It was a sad thing.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels.

People get a kick out of my stupidity.

I must have read every issue of ‚Punch‘ published in the 20th century, and I think in the process I picked up the true voice of English humour – that amiable, fairly liberal, laconic voice which you find in something like ‚Three Men in a Boat.‘

I think that feminists have definitely underestimated the role that women have had historically. I think I would be insecure if I were to be a man; there’s so much pressure on you.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men.

I think it’s funny to be delicate with subjects that are explosive.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.

I’ve just had eighteen straight whiskies. I think that’s the record.

When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.

There used to be an old bad joke. I hope it’s not so much a good joke anymore. ‚Everybody’s from Scranton; no one’s in Scranton.‘

When I say to you, there is nobody like me, and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.

To be a successful father… there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.

Obama’s not Jesus. He can’t walk on water.

If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner.

I encourage people not to be passive consumers of music and of culture in general. And feeling like, yeah, you can enjoy the products of professionals, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to completely give up the reins and give up every connection to music or whatever it happens to be.

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.

I hate to be smart.

If you want to cut your own throat, don’t come to me for a bandage.

Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.

Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.

We were at a beach one summer, and I had a bathing suit on. My wife looked at me and said: ‚Boy, you are skinny, aren’t you?‘ I said: ‚Honey, I’d like to remind you that it was minor defects like this that kept me from getting a better wife.‘

I’m so old, I don’t buy green bananas any more.

You can’t trample infidels when you’re a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.

‚Born this Way‘ is about being yourself, and loving who you are and being proud.

We don’t have to let extremists define us.

Gentle dullness ever loves a joke.

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

A man without a vote is man without protection.