Norm Macdonald Quotes

“A capacity for hating the object of desire is, perhaps, the best cure for love in cases of disappointment.”

“A suspicious person is the rival of him that deceives, both seem to practice a knowledge of cunning device, and equable sense of disengenuous merit.”

“All my life's about is cracking up people and them cracking me up and trying not to think about dying. That doesn't cost very much money.”

“Chastity is oftener owing to diffidence and shame, than to fortitude of reason or virtue.”

“Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.”

“Compared to politics, I think sports is funnier, because it's inconsequential. And politics can be real important and all that. The more pointless something is, the funnier it is, you know?”

“During misfortunes, nothing aggravates our condition more, than to be esteemed deserving of them.”

“Education makes some men wiser, others more ridiculous and foolish!”

“Enjoyment inflames love in some men, and extinguishes it in others: the wind that assists large vessels, upsets small ones.”

“Few people love with the violence they hate.”

“I always told everybody the perfect joke would be where the setup and punch line were identical.”

“I don't know the difference between a hippie and a hipster but, it's fun to watch either one of them get beat up.”

“I don't like sports where it's like, you watch a guy on a motorcycle flip or something, then another guy does it, it looks exactly the same, and then at the end one guy gets higher points! It seems so arbitrary; I don't know who's ahead ever.”

“I don't really like doing big stand-up. Whenever I do theaters, I don't like 'em. I don't think they're right for stand-up. I've seen people in theaters, and it just doesn't work, because you're talking to the guy next to you the whole time.”

“I don't really like politics that much. And I like the order and simplicity of sports. They have an ending. You can argue with your friends about it, but in the end you still like sports. I almost love the fantasy world of sports more than the real world.”

“I think clever people think that poor people are stupid.”

“I'll admit that I'm deeply closeted, but I'll never admit that I'm gay.”

“I'm not gay, so I don't know much about Broadway musicals.”

“In love, first please the eye, then win the heart.”

“In math, you could get 100 percent. It was very fair. That’s what I liked about math. You could figure it out, and the teacher couldn’t have a stupid opinion about it.”

“It is necessary to be tolerant, in order to be tolerated.”

“My dad had this thing – everyone in Canada wants to play hockey; that's all they want to do. So when I was a kid, whenever we skated my dad would not let us on the ice without hockey sticks, because of this insane fear we would become figure skaters!”

“Never raise expectations in others that you cannot realize: promise is less pleasing than disappointment is vexatious.”

“As Adolf Hitler once said: all publicity is good publicity.”

“As long as the red dice are in the air, the gambler has hope. And hope is a wonderful thing to be addicted to.”

“Death is a funny thing. Not funny haha, like a Woody Allen movie, but funny strange, like a Woody Allen marriage.”

“Earlier this week, Marlon Brando met with Jewish leaders to apologize for comments he made on Larry King Live, among them that 'Hollywood is run by Jews'. The Jewish leaders accepted the actor’s apology and announced that Brando is now free to work again.”

“I hate when people say 'touché' after you say something funny. I don’t know what it means, but I know that I hate it.”

“I remember a psychiatrist once telling me that I gamble in order to escape the reality of life, and I told him that’s why everyone does everything.”

“I understood then that it takes a powerful imagination to see a thing for what it really is.”