When I heard that trees grow a new 'ring' for each year they live, I
thought, we humans are kind of like that: we grow a new layer of skin each
year, and after many years we are thick and unwieldy from all our skin
layers.

Every once in a while, everybody has one or two deep thoughts. I happen to
get a lot of them.

In my opinion anyone interested in improving himself should not rule out
becoming pure energy.

I guess I'll never forget her. And maybe I don't want to. Her spirit was
wild, like a wild monkey. Her beauty was like a beautiful horse being
ridden by a wild monkey. I forget her other qualities.

Whenever anybody says he's struggling to become a human being I have to
laugh because the apes beat him to it by about a million years. Struggle
to become a parrot or something.

I bet what happened was they discovered fire and invented the wheel on the
same day. Then that night, they burned the wheel.

If I am ever reincarnated into some type of primitive tribe, and when I am
on the verge of manhood they give me a little spear and tell me I must
spend the next week out in the desert, fending for myself, I am just going
to refuse to go. And if they try to make me go, I will just grip hard onto
the trunk of a small tree with my arms and legs, and if they try to pry me
off, I will just grip tighter and start making weird begging sounds. And
you know what? I'll bet doing that is what makes you pass the test. Hey, I
did pretty good, didn't I?

In my opinion, the world does not need high-speed clowns, running around
so fast that you cannot see their various high jinks.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is just say nothing. But sometimes
the second-smartest thing you can do is just start blabbing away,
blah-blah-blah, just saying anything that comes to mind.

If we ever discover a race of alien beings on another planet, I'll bet it
would be surprising just how many of them are missing part or all of a
tentacle.

I hope I am seen as an unpretentious man, a man whose lack of pretension
is so impressive and intimidating that people are overwhelmed by it.

Sometimes, in making a question, you are actually making a statement. For
instance, you could ask, "What do you think of the fact that Abraham
Lincoln was our 16th president?"

If you're like me, when you see an old man walking down the street with
his dog, you can't stop laughing. What is it about an old man and his dog
that tickles the funny bone in all of us?

Sometimes I think that by trying too hard, I am actually working against
myself. But then I think that if I try REALLY, REALLY hard, so that I'm
sweating and panting and the veins are bulging out on my temples, that's
when things finally start clicking for me.

If you ever have to sign a treaty, just act like an idiot, drooling and
babbling while you sign. Then, later on, when you break the treaty you can
say, "Hey, that was back in my idiot days."

A trampoline made out of logs, suspended by ropes, probably wouldn't be
very comfortable. Also, you wouldn't be able to achieve much "bounce." And
yet, I'm guessing that that is what the children of lumberjacks once had
to make do with. But you know, I'm guessing that they didn't even mind.

I've never heard of anyone actually catching a cannonball after it was
fired, but if it could be done, I have a feeling that the secret to it
would be to try to not catch it. Are you following me, or is this way over
your head, just like the cannonball that you're supposed to catch?

I for one am glad we're not all alike, because then we'd all like the same
things and there wouldn't be enough haggis to go around.

I have always wondered why they always refer to toilet paper as facial
quality. I am not going to use it on my face (although there are some who
think I do anyway!).

Why is it that we will laugh at a man in a clown outfit, but we won't
laugh at a man just walking down the street carrying a clown outfit in one
of those plastic dry-cleaner bags?

I remember we were all horrified to see Grandpa up on the roof with his
Superman cape on. "Get down!" yelled Uncle Lou. "Don't move!" screamed
Grandma. But Grandpa wouldn't listen. He walked to the edge of the roof
and stuck out his arms, like he was going to fly. I forget what happened
after that.

I wish my name was Todd, because then I could say, "Yes, my name's Todd.
Todd Blankenship." Oh, also I wish my last name was Blankenship.

If you're an ant, and you're walking along across the top of a cup of
pudding, you probably have no idea that the only thing between you and
disaster is the strength of that pudding skin.

Just as bees will swarm about to protect their nest, so will I "swarm
about" to protect my nest of chocolate eggs.

One day one of my little nephews came up to me and asked me if the equator
was a real line that went around the Earth, or just an imaginary one. I
had to laugh. Laugh and laugh. Because I didn't know, and I thought that
maybe by laughing he would forget what he asked me.

When you first start wearing a turban, probably the most common mistake is
wrapping it too tight. You have to allow the head to breathe.

When people say that the desert is lifeless, it just makes me want to grab
them by the collar and yell, "Why you stupid, stupid bastard!" Then I
drive them out into the desert to where the circus is, and point out the
many forms of zebra and clown life.

If there was a big gardening convention, and you got up and gave a speech
in favor of fast-motion gardening, I bet you would get booed right off the
stage. They're just not ready.

Instead of raising your hand to ask a question in class, how about
individual push buttons on each desk? That way, when you want to ask a
question, you just push the button and it lights up a corresponding number
on a tote board at the front of the class. Then all the professor has to
do is check the lighted number against a master sheet of names and numbers
to see who is asking the question.

If you're a boxing referee, it's probably illegal to wear a bow tie that
spins or changes colors.

Whether they live in an igloo or a grass shack or a mud hut, people around
the world all want the same thing: a better house!

When Rick told me he was having trouble with his wife, I had to laugh. Not
because of what he said, but because of a joke I thought of. I told him
the joke, but he didn't laugh very much. Some friend he is.

Love is not something that you can put chains on and throw into a lake.
That's called Houdini. Love is liking someone a lot.

I'm not afraid of insects taking over the world, and you know why? It
would take about a billion ants just to *aim* a gun at me, let alone fire
it. And you know what I'm doing while they're aiming it at me? I just sort
of slip off to the side, and then suddenly run up and kick the gun out of
their hands.

If you're a blacksmith, probably the proudest day of your life is when you
get your first anvil.  How innocent you are, little blacksmith.

Of all the warning sounds that animals make, I think the one that's least
effective on me is a kind of clicking noise.

I wish there was a disease where you're afraid of clouds, because I think
I could cure it. First, you sit the patient down and have a long personal
talk.  After that, I'm not sure, but maybe you could throw some water in
his face or something.

As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I
sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking
and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.

I think Superman and Santa Claus are actually the same guy, and I'll tell
you why: Both fly, both wear red, and both have a beard.

Frank knew that no man had ever crossed the desert on foot and lived to
tell about it. So, he decided to get back in his car and keep driving.

The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe.
But the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around
until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go, "Hey, I'm
Vine Man."

I remember how, in college, I got that part-time job as a circus clown,
and how the children would laugh and laugh at me. I vowed, then and there,
that I would get revenge.

If I could be a bird, I think I'd be a penguin, because then I could walk
around on two feet with a lot of other guys like me.

The big, huge meteor headed toward the Earth. Could nothing stop it? Maybe
Bob could. He was suddenly on top of the meteor - through some kind of
space warp or something. "Go, Bob, go!" yelled one of the generals.  "Give
me that!" said the big-guy general as he took the microphone away.
"Listen, Bob," he said. "You've got to steer that meteor away from Earth."
"Yes, but how?" thought Bob. Then he got an idea. Right next to him there
was a steering wheel sticking out of the meteor.

Isn't it funny how whenever we go to a county fair or state fair, the
first thing we do is see if they have some kind of pornography booth.

A QUIZ: If I am my brother's brother, who am I? (Answer: Me.)

To us, it might look like just a rag. But to the brave, embattled men of
the fort, it was more than that. It was a flag of surrender. And after
that, it was torn up and used for shoe-shine rags, so the men would look
nice for the surrender.

There are many stages to a man's life. In the first stage, he is young and
eager, like a beaver. In the second stage, he wants to build things, like
dams, and maybe chew down some trees. In the third stage, he feels
trapped, and then "skinned". I'm not sure what the fourth stage is.

If you're traveling in a time machine, and you're eating corn on the cob,
I don't think it's going to affect things one way or the other. But here's
the point I'm trying to make: Corn on the cob is good, isn't it.

I bet if you were a mummy wrapper in ancient Egypt, one thing you would
constantly find yourself telling people would be, "Be sure, before I
start, you have all the jewelry and so forth on the body, because I am
*not* unwrapping him later."

If I had the time to sit down and write a thank-you note to everyone who
sent me a nice, expensive present, what a wonderful world that would be!

It seemed to me that, somehow, the blue jay was trying to communicate with
me. I would see him fly into the house across the way, pick up the
telephone, and dial. My phone would ring, and it would be him, but it was
just this squawking and cheeping. "What?! What?!" I would yell back, but
he never did speak English.

One thing about my aunt Nadie: She was gruff on the outside, but if you
ever needed anything, like a spanking or a scolding, she'd give it to you.

Why did Tarzan scream so much in the jungle? Did he really think that all
those animals came running to him just because he called? The real reason
they came to him is because he had nachos.

I wish everybody would have to have an electric thing implanted in our
heads that gave us a shock whenever we did something to disobey the
president. Then somehow I get myself elected president.
   
Somebody told me how frightening it was how much topsoil we are losing
each year, but I told that story around the campfire and nobody got
scared.