“Humor has to surprise us; otherwise, it isn't funny. It's a death knell for a writer to be labeled a humorist because then it's not a surprise anymore.”

“I ran a constant low fever waiting for my ride to come and take me away to something finer. I lay in bed at night, watching the red beacon on top of the water tower, a clear signal to me of the beauty and mystery of a life that waited for me far away, and thought of Housman's poem,"Loveliest of trees, the cherry nowIs hung with bloom upon the bough.It stands among the woodland ride,Wearing white for Eastertide.Now, of my three-score years and ten,Twenty will not come again..."and would have run away to where people would appreciate me, had I known of such a place, had I thought my parents would understand. But if I had said, "Along the woodland I must go to see the cherry hung with snow," they would have said, "Oh,no, you don't. You're going to stay right here and finish up what I told you to do three hours ago. Besides, those aren't cherry trees, those are crab apples.”

“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days.”

“God writes a lot of comedy... the trouble is, he's stuck with so many bad actors who don't know how to play funny.”

“Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”

“The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out of his nose.”

“I was an English major at the University of Minnesota, and I was very shy, which many people misinterpreted as intelligence. On the basis of that wrong impression, I became the editor of the campus literary magazine.”

“I write for a radio show that, no matter what, will go on the air Saturday at five o'clock central time. You learn to write toward that deadline, to let the adrenaline pick you up on Friday morning and carry you through, to cook up a monologue about Lake Wobegon and get to the theater on time.”

“I'm not busy... a woman with three children under the age of 10 wouldn't think my schedule looked so busy.”

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.”

“Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.”