History is not reassuring on the subject of the longevity of seemingly lasting great nations, is it?
— Dick Cavett
The emotions in all true anxiety dreams are next to unbearable.
There were several things a Yale freshman was supposed to be able to do. You had to demonstrate in the Olympic-size Yale pool that you could swim 50 yards or be inducted into swimming class.
Teaching is an art and a profession requiring years of training.
You have to be on TV a surprisingly long time before you're stopped on the street. Then, when you are, you get a lot of, 'Hey, you're great! What's your name again?'
There are online forms you can fill out to send to your lawmakers, demanding that nothing - nothing at all or in any way - be done about any guns whatever, anywhere.
When I was a kid in Nebraska, a cantankerous farmer, known for plinking with his '22 at passing cars in which he perceived enemies, ingeniously rigged up a shotgun in his house, trained on the inside of his front door so as to widely distribute any intruder.
It takes a certain amount of guts to go to your class reunions.
I am always shocked that there are still a handful of defenders of the dubious practice of abstinence, surely the worst idea since chocolate-covered ants.
Why are people afraid of ghosts? 'Ooh, no, I wouldn't want to see one! I'd be too scared' - accompanied by a tremolo of fear in the voice - is the common reaction. This puzzles me. I'd think anyone would welcome he opportunity. I've never heard of a ghost hurting anybody.
When I'm doing an appearance somewhere and taking questions from the audience, I can always count on: 'Tell about the guy who died on your show!'
Commercials are not the only exposure that obesity gets on TV. It is by no means a rarity on the wonderful Judge Judy's show when both plaintiff and accused all but literally fill the screen.
It was at a vividly bad time in Norman Mailer's life that I met him, and a sort of water-treading time in mine. He had stabbed his wife, and I was a copy boy at Time magazine.
If I were running a campaign, I'd urge taking the mountain of money reportedly squandered on pizza, coffee and bagels and spending it more wisely - on a talented young comedy writer.
I did standup while still working for Johnny Carson in the mid-'60s, thus gaining the advantage of at least getting laughs from him about how I hadn't the night before.
Every time I nostalgically try to regain my liking of John McCain, he reaches into his sleaze bag and pulls out something malodorous.
Electronic devices dislike me. There is never a day when something isn't ailing.
Does anything show the complexity of the miraculous brain more than that weird curiosity, the sleep-protection dream?
Anyone working in the media can tell you that there seems to be an always-ready-to-explode segment of the populace for whom offense is a fate worse than anything imaginable. You'd think offense is one of the most calamitous things that could happen to a human being; right up there with the loss of a limb, or just missing a parking space.
To call New York's traffic at holiday time a nightmare is to understate.
I feel sorry for the poor kids whose parents feel they're qualified to teach them at home. Of course, some parents are smarter than some teachers, but in the main I see home-schooling as misguided foolishness.
Japanese is sort of a hobby of mine, and I can get around Japan with ease.
There is something about a Luger that separates it from all other handguns, and Luger devotees and Luger society members speak of it in romantic terms that must sound plain nuts to those who consider themselves level-headed.
I'm sure I've all but lost friends by maintaining that, despite their love for it, I always saw Stanley Kramer's 'It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World' as more of an exercise in anti-comedy than humor.
A grown man, weeping, is a tough thing to see.
I confess, I do have to remind myself almost daily that there are people on this earth capable of reading, writing, eating and dressing themselves who believe their lives are ruled from billions of miles away, by the stars - and, of course, the planets.
In the main, ghosts are said to be forlorn and generally miserable, if not downright depressed. The jolly ghost is rare.
The brain process that results in a joke materializing where no joke was before remains a mystery. I'm not aware of any scholarly, scientific or neurological studies on the subject.
Anything seen on TV is, in a subtle and sinister sense, thereby endorsed.
The very phrase 'Oscar night' used to accelerate my pulse. For one thing - dating myself - it meant Bob Hope. He always had good, strong jokes, that faultless delivery, and always a new joke about his own films' failure - once again - to be honored.
Perhaps the saddest irony of depression is that suicide happens when the patient gets a little better and can again function sufficiently.
Coming up through the ranks of any calling can be rough, but that battered soul who survives the early years of courting the comic muse comes close to knowing what only the soldier knows: What combat is like.
I have a long list of things that make me mad.
Comedians are sometimes resentful of their writers. Probably because it's hard for giant egos to admit you need anyone but yourself to be what you are.
It's fun for me to go on other folks' talk shows. When you've endured the ups and downs and tensions and pitfalls of hosting, being a guest is a piece of angel food.
In relative youth, we assume we'll remember everything. Someone should urge the young to think otherwise.
Home schooling as an idea is on a par with home dentistry.
Statistically, I'd say comedy writers are perhaps the sanest category of show people. And why not? They make big money, and although it's not an easy trade - particularly when you're at your galley oar five days a week - it's easier on the nerves and the psyche than living with the brain-squeezing pressure and cares of being the Star.
Nobody is going to try to confiscate guns, although some Web sites know better: President Obama, they are certain, wants to.
I know what it feels like to be a gun lover.
Greatly talented performers don't know - often spectacularly - what's best for them, don't know what their talents really are, and don't know what's just plain wrong for them.
The sudden death at 51 of James Gandolfini is intolerable.
I have never been converted to or even had much interest in spiritualism, occultism, Swedenborgianism or any particular religion. And I never, except occasionally for a laugh, visit the quacks who call themselves psychics.
Lawyers work hard and, like us, they're human, many of them.
I have yet to see one of those Comedy Central shows with multiple standup comics that doesn't include someone the size of the Hindenburg.
I have a disturbing problem with losing things. My vulnerability to loss-distress could properly be labeled not only inordinate, but neurotic.
William F. Buckley was a man who had a great capacity for fun and for amusing himself by amazing others.
Every comic can report a few 'gift from the gods' moments.
Obviously those who burn to be professional jesters mean that they want to be successful comedians. And those are always an elite, microscopic portion of the population. But oh, how they try.
Unpleasant reading on the subject of anger tells us that there's not really anything wrong with it. In limited amounts. It can even be a good thing. A pressure valve.
