JACKIE MASON

I have enough money to last me the rest of my life unless I buy something.

Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe.

My comedy doesn't come from any calculations and studies.

It's no longer a question of staying healthy. It's a question of finding a sickness you like.

If an Englishman gets run down by a truck he apologizes to the truck.

I don't believe that anybody has come to a conclusion on why something is funny. It's funny because it's ridiculous and it's ridiculous for different reasons at different times.

I've been watching politics for 35 or 40 years and you just never know. You can have one person win the Iowa caucus and then the whole picture changes ten minutes later. The same thing can happen again after New Hampshire. I have no idea what's going to happen with our country in the future.

It is more profitable for your congressman to support the tobacco industry than your life.

I can't pretend that I'm a great student of the art of comedy because anybody that becomes philosophical about humour doesn't know what he's talking about.

I can't predict the future and I don't have respect for people who try to.

I have nothing but love in my heart and everything I say is just an instrument for laughs.

Predictions are preposterous.

My material is as new as anything on the dinner table. What difference does it make if I'm 70 or if I'm 20? The audience knows they aren't getting any old stories from me.

Did you ever hear of a kid playing accountant - even if they wanted to be one?

In friendships, you expect total trust; in business you expect some dishonesty. But in politics, you not only expect distortion as a way of life but accept it with pleasure.

The great crime of the politicians is not just the corrosion of their own morality but the corruption they've caused to the American spirit.

The purpose is to give me a choice between two positions. If one party includes both positions, you have eliminated my right to choose .... In your determination to win everyone's vote, you could destroy the purpose of voting at all.

The trees are fantastic in Washington. If you're a tree, it's a great town. If you're a person, there's nothing to do.

You're proving you're a dope who has been duped if you do vote. Hardly a word of truth seems to come from either Presidential candidate, and they want me to confirm their opinion of me as an idiot by helping either of them get elected.

I have a great identification with Judaism as a religion and as a culture, and all the values that created such a great history, and the Jewish contribution to the betterment of all humanity.

If you wanted to hear politics, you'd go to Henry Kissinger; you wouldn't go to hear Jackie Mason. The reason I speak about politics is because I know I can get a laugh out of it.

The Republican Party stinks because all of the Republicans have accomplished nothing, and they talk about all of these issues and do nothing about it for a whole lifetime.

If I'm a busboy in Philadelphia, then I have to be careful about what I say. But if I'm a public tycoon like Jerry Seinfeld, and I got a billion dollars in my pocket, he's got to be nuts to wonder or worry about what people are going to think.

Every comedian feels out an audience. As you're telling jokes, if they're not laughing at this, you change the subject.

I used to hear on the radio people like Jack Benny or Bob Hope, but I never had any interest in their type of humor. I thought that I could do something more substantially meaningful with significant, thoughtful, analytical reflections on real life situations.