Robin Williams

If women ran the world we wouldn’t have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.

Comedy is acting out optimism.

You can start any Monty Python routine and people finish it for you. Everyone knows it like shorthand.

Carpe per diem – seize the check.

Everyone has these two visions when they hold their child for the first time. The first is your child as an adult saying ‘I want to thank the Nobel Committee for this award.’ The other is ‘You want fries with that?’

Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.

It’s just such a tangled-up issue, the way women present themselves [in comedy]-whether or not they choose to put their thumbs in their panties on the cover of Maxim and judge each other back and forth on it. It’s a complicated issue, and we didn’t go much further on saying anything other than to say, ‘Yeah, it’s a complicated issue and we’re all kind of figuring it out as we go.’

I made my life ambitious and big and crazy, and basically now I am the helmsman of this mad affair, and I need to take stock. I write these songs, and I live and die in the middle of them, but I can’t really tell you the truth about me, cause I don’t know what it is. It’s a f***ing great journey but it doesn’t all smell of roses.

One of my theories is that men love with their eyes; women love with their ears.

Healthcare is like a pair of gym shorts. Even if it covers nearly all it is supposed to, you’re still left with some problematic gaps and terrible things can happen.

There is nothing wrong with a woman welcoming all men’s advances as long as they are in cash.

It was reported that the New York Knicks have won all 12 of the home games attended by magician David Blaine. A spokesman for the Knicks said, ‘if this is what it takes to win, it’s not worth it.’

It’s a sport to me. I never want to get too complacent with my writing or my flow.

In my experience, there was never anything quite like the egos in CSNY.

Someone stole my shoelaces once from my shoes. I still wear them and never put laces in them – they’re like my trademark shoes now!

The Lion King always makes me cry, especially when Simba’s father gets trampled.

All I can do is take influences from where I was raised.

If I could be anyone, I’d choose the lead singer of Arcade Fire, Win Butler.

I’m very outspoken. I will ask a silly question, but I really am deadly serious. I want to know the answer.

When I was a question on Jeopardy!, that’s when I felt famous!

I feel like everyone you mentioned owes an enormous debt to Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, because I think that started this trend of people having talkshows where they have a point of view that they’re not afraid to share.