There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.
Steven Wright

I was walking down the street wearing glasses when the prescription ran out.
Steven Wright

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.
Steven Wright

I got this powdered water - now I don't know what to add.
Steven Wright

I think God's going to come down and pull civilization over for speeding.
Steven Wright

Doing stand-up is like running across a frozen pond with the ice breaking behind you. I love it because it's dangerous.
Steven Wright

I have all the emotions that everyone has; it just appears that I don't.
Steven Wright

I laugh all the time - at things, people, stuff, whatever. But, I don't laugh onstage because then it's serious business.
Steven Wright

I don't get up, get dressed, go out, and think, 'Okay, I gotta find eight jokes.'
Steven Wright

I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world... perhaps you've seen it.
Steven Wright

If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?
Steven Wright

I poured spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone.
Steven Wright

Why don't they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff.
Steven Wright

If you shoot at mimes, should you use a silencer?
Steven Wright

Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
Steven Wright

The things I talk about and explain couldn't happen - yet, they don't seem impossible - you could say I talk about the world in an abstract perspective. But then, the world is basically insane - and it's trying to pass itself off as being a sane place. I show it for what it is.
Steven Wright

To the audience, it's like I'm changing the subject every five seconds, but to me, my show's almost like a 90-minute song that I know exactly. I wrote every note, and I know exactly where everything is.
Steven Wright

If you can't hear me, it's because I'm in parentheses.
Steven Wright

My neighbor has a circular driveway... he can't get out.
Steven Wright

The other day I... uh, no, that wasn't me.
Steven Wright

I invented the cordless extension cord.
Steven Wright

I wrote a few children's books... not on purpose.
Steven Wright

Childhood was very nice. The only thing wrong was that I was so introverted, everything became a big deal... 'Oh, no, here comes the bus. Where am I gonna sit on the bus?'
Steven Wright

When I was on TV in the '80s, I wasn't thinking, 'There's a 10-year-old kid watching this and in 15 years, he's gonna be doing stuff that was influenced by me.' I was trying to get my five minutes together. So now that those people are comedians and they're influenced by me - it's bizarre.
Steven Wright

I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.
Steven Wright

I went to a general store. They wouldn't let me buy anything specifically.
Steven Wright

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
Steven Wright

Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.
Steven Wright

When I was a kid, I never did funny things to get attention. I was never a funny person. I was never, like, 'Oh, wow. I could say this some day on stage.'
Steven Wright

My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost. It's in the apartment somewhere.
Steven Wright

When I was a kid, I went to the store and asked the guy, Do you have any toy train schedules?
Steven Wright

So, do you live around here often?
Steven Wright

I like George Carlin's jokes. I like his humor. He's one of my heroes, and I like what he did with talking about everyday things.
Steven Wright

I just have a relationship with my imagination. It's like my friend, almost.
Steven Wright

I didn't want to be selling insurance at 40, wondering what would it have been like to do stand-up.
Steven Wright

I got a chain letter by fax. It's very simple. You just fax a dollar bill to everybody on the list.
Steven Wright

I like to talk about lint and coasters, the expansion of the universe and maybe McDonald's. I'm completely turned off by the idea of politics.
Steven Wright

To me, comedy is just twisting reality. It's commenting or observing or twisting life.
Steven Wright

I feel lucky that I can have people laugh solidly for a whole hour by just saying what I think and getting paid for it.
Steven Wright

Very rarely do I talk off the top of my head on stage. I'm not an improv guy. I'm a writer-guy who presents what he's written.
Steven Wright

I haven't changed at all. I'm the same as when I was 11.
Steven Wright

I thought I would be a guy on the radio.
Steven Wright

I was born. When I was 23 I started telling jokes. Then I started going on television and doing films. That's still what I am doing. The end.
Steven Wright

Like other kids wanted to become firemen or astronauts, I wanted to make people laugh.
Steven Wright

Comedians are sociologists. We're pointing out stuff that the general public doesn't even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.
Steven Wright

It's very intense to be in front of a live audience. It's just an amazing experience. It's dangerous. Everything out there is heightened. The bad stuff is extra-worse. The silences are extra-silent. The good stuff is amazing. It's electric when you walk out there. For 90 minutes, you're on this other planet.
Steven Wright

I've been thinking of humorous things since I was... I can't remember when. All the way through elementary school, all the way through junior high, all the way through high school, through college and after college, I was thinking of the same kinds of things that I say in front of an audience now.
Steven Wright

George Carlin's album, 'Class Clown,' came out when I was in high school. I memorized a lot of that album. I'd come home from school, put it on, and listen over and over. I started memorizing it. I don't even know why. I loved it so much I memorized it.
Steven Wright

I paint; I draw and paint - I've been doing that since I was in third grade, drawing realistically and then changing to abstract art. That was my first creative thing before guitar or comedy.
Steven Wright

I'm used to seeing it, but it's weird having an Academy Award. You usually only see one of them on the TV show when they give them out, so it's kind of surreal to have one in your house.
Steven Wright

I always thought Johnny Carson was just brilliant, and I used to watch him and all the comics that would be on the show every night - and I'd dream about it being me.
Steven Wright