“Anyone who thinks impressions of old movie actors is funny absolutely cannot be trusted. I think it's like a law of nature.”

“A dimwit thinks nothing is funny unless it's mean.”

“It's like the old pie-in-the-face routine: it stops being funny when it starts being you.”

“Oh, I suppose all men of intelligence know how fragile such things as Law and Justice and Civilization really are, but it's not a thing they think of willingly, because it disturbs one's rest and plays hob with one's appetite.”

“Those are the only to verbalizations usually that we make in movies—either to scream or to laugh—because those two reactions are rather close. Most things we laugh at are things that are really horrible, when you think about them. It’s funny and you don’t scream, as long as it’s not you. If it’s somebody else you can laugh.”

“We're like drunks in a barroom. No one's listening because everyone is too busy thinking about what they're going to say next, and absolutely prove that the current speaker is so full of shit he squeaks.”

“Cats were the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there. There were a great many of them who never grew old by the fire.”