Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking to it that one overcomes it; often it is by working on the one next to it. Some things and some people have to be approached obliquely, at an angle.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

A lot of people have experimented with hidden cameras and magic before. What I do, which I think is different from any other style of prank or hidden camera, is that it's all fun. It's back to that kind of fun that 'Candid Camera' was. It's not mean-spirited at all. It's a joyful kind of play with people.

Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.

Rather than have joy, I would rather be absent of pain.

If you became a comedian in the '80s, you had to work the circuit and make people laugh. Canned laughter is cheating.