RETURN
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DEEP THOUGHTS
Jack Handy, Saturday Night
Live
- 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.
- I hope they never find out that
lightning has a lot of vitamins in it, because do you hide from
it or not?
- Maybe in order to understand
mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Mankind. Basically,
it's made up of two separate words: "mank" and "ind".
What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is
mankind.
- If you were a pirate, you know
what would be the one thing that would really make you mad? Treasure
chests with no handles. How the hell are you supposed to carry
it?!
- Probably the earliest flyswatters
were nothing more than some sort of striking surface attached
to the end of a long stick.
- 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'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.
- I wish I had a dollar for every
time I spent a dollar, because then, yahoo! I'd have all my money
back.
- I think a good novel would be
where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They
look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you
know why they never find him? It doesn't say. The book leaves
it up to you, the reader, to decide. Then, at the very end, there's
a page you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid.
- Probably to a shark, about the
funniest thing there is is a wounded seal, trying to swim to
shore, because WHERE DOES HE THINK HE'S GOING?!
- We tend to scoff at the beliefs
of the ancients. But we can't scoff at them personally, to their
faces, and this is what annoys me.
- I'm telling you, just attach
a big parachute TO THE PLANE ITSELF! Is anyone listening to me?!
- Sometimes I wonder if I'm patriotic
enough. Yes, I want to kill people, but on both sides.
- If you were an ancient barbarian,
I bet a real embarrassing thing would be if you were sacking
Rome and your cape got caught on something and you couldn't get
it unhooked, and you had to ask another barbarian to unhook it
for you.
- It makes me mad when people
say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit. Maybe it was like
an angry rabbit, who was going to fight in another fight, away
from the first fight.
- If you make ships in a bottle,
I bet the thing that really makes your heart sink is when you
look in, and there at the wheel is Captain Termite.
- If aliens from outer space ever
come and we show them our civilization and they make fun of it,
we should say we were just kidding, that this isn't really our
civilization, but a gag we hoped they would like. Then we tell
them to come back in twenty years to see our REAL civilization.
After that, we start a crash program of coming up with an impressive
new civilization. Either that, or just shoot down the aliens
as they're waving good-bye.
;
- For mad scientists who keep
brains in jars, here's a tip: Why not add a slice of lemon to
each jar, for freshness.
- After I die, wherever my spirit
goes, I'm going to try to get back and visit my skeleton at least
once a year, because, "Hey, old buddy, how's it going?"
- When the age of the Vikings
came to a close, they must have sensed it. Probably, they gathered
together one evening, slapped each other on the back and said,
"Hey, good job."
- I hope that someday we will
be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at
people.
- I'd like to see a nature film
where an eagle swoops down and pulls a fish out of a lake, and
then maybe he's flying along, low to the ground, and the fish
pulls a worm out of the ground. Now that's a documentary!
- I wish I lived on a planet that
had two suns: regular sun and "rogue" sun. That way,
when somebody asked me what time it was, I'd say, "Regular
time?" And they'd say, "Yeah." And I'd say, "Sorry,
all I have is rogue time." It'd be fun to be a stuck-up
rogue-time guy.
- If you think a weakness can
be turned into a strength, I hate to tell you this, but that's
another weakness.
- If you ever fall off the Sears
Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy
and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy.
- I think the mistake a lot of
us make is thinking the state-appointed psychiatrist is our "friend."
- Dad always thought laughter
was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died
of tuberculosis.
- You know what would be the most
terrifying thing that could ever happen to a flea? Getting caught
inside a watch somehow. You don't even care, do you.
- Why do the caterpillar and the
ant have to be enemies? One eats leaves, and the other eats caterpillars.
Oh, I see now.
- If a kid asks where rain comes
from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying."
And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell
him is "Probably because of something you did."
- If someone told me it wasn't
"fashionable" to talk about freedom, I think I'd just
have to look him square in the eye and say, "Okay, YOU TELL
ME what's 'fashionable'." But he won't. And you know why?
Because you can't ask someone what's fashionable in a smart-alecky
way like that. You have to be friendly and say, "By the
way, what's fashionable?"
- Here's a good gag if you go
swimming in a swamp and when you come out you're all covered
with leeches. Just say, "Hey, has anybody seen my raisins?"
(Because leeches kind of look like big raisins.)
- 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.
- I think somebody should come
up with a way to breed a very large shrimp. That way, you could
ride him, then after you camped at night, you could eat him.
How about it, science?
- 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.
- In weightlifting, I don't think
sudden, uncontrolled urination should automatically disqualify
you.
- I bet a funny thing about driving
a car off a cliff is, while you're in midair, you still hit those
brakes! Hey, better try the emergency brake!
- You know what's probably a good
thing to hang on your porch in the summertime, to keep mosquitoes
away from you and your guests? Just a big bag of blood.
- I wish scientists would come
up with a way to make dogs a lot bigger, but with a smaller head.
That way, they'd still be good as watchdogs, but they wouldn't
eat so much.
- When you die, if you go somewhere
where they ask you a bunch of questions about your life and what
you learned and all, I think a good way to get out of it is just
to say, "No speaka English."
- The first thing was, I learned
to forgive myself. Then, I told myself, "Go ahead and do
whatever you want, it's okay by me."
- Whenever someone asks me to
define love, I usually think for a minute, then I spin around
and pin the guy's arm behind his back. NOW who's asking the questions?
- 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.
- I remember how my Great Uncle
Jerry would sit on the porch and whittle all day long. Once he
whittled me a toy boat out of a larger toy boat I had. It was
almost as good as the first one, except now it had bumpy whittle
marks all over it. And no paint, because he had whittled off
the paint.
- If any man says he hates war
more than I do, he better have a knife, that's all I have to
say.
- Somebody told me it was frightening
how much topsoil we are losing each year, but I told that story
around the campfire and nobody got scared.
- When you go to a party at somebody's
house, don't automatically assume that the drinks are free. Ask,
and ask often.
- Here's a good tip for when you
go to the beach: A sand dollar may look like a nice cracker that
someone left, but trust me, they don't taste like it.
- You can't tell me that cowboys,
when they're branding cattle, don't sort of "accidentally"
brand each other every once in a while. It's their way of letting
off stress.
- If you're an archeologist, I
bet it's real embarrassing to put together a skull from a bunch
of ancient bone fragments, but then it turns out it's not a skull
but just an old dried-out potato.
- If you're ever selling your
house, and some people come by, and a big rat comes out and he's
dragging the rattrap because it didn't quite kill him, just tell
the people he's your pet and that's a trick you taught him.
- If I ever get real rich, I hope
I'm not real mean to poor people, like I am now.
- Children need encouragement.
So if a kid gets an answer right, tell him it was a lucky guess.
That way, he develops a good, lucky feeling.
- How come the dove gets to be
the peace symbol? How about the pillow? It has more feathers
than the dove, and it doesn't have that dangerous beak.
- When you go ice-skating, try
not to swing your arms too much, because that really annoys me.
- I hope that after I die, people
will say of me: "That guy sure owed me a lot of money."
- Here's a good joke to do during
an earthquake: straddle a big crack in the ground, and if it
opened wider, go "Whoa! Whoa!" and flail your arms
around, like you're going to fall in.
- To me, truth is not some vague,
foggy notion. Truth is real. And, at the same time, unreal. Fiction
and fact and everything in between, plus some things I can't
remember, all rolled into one big "thing". This is
truth, to me.
- I hope life isn't a big joke,
because I don't get it.
- If the Vikings were around today,
they would probably be amazed at how much glow-in-the-dark stuff
we have, and how we take so much of it for granted.v
- If you go parachuting, and your
parachute doesn't open, and your friends are all watching you
fall, I think a funny gag would be to pretend you were swimming.
- Instead of trying to build newer
and bigger weapons of destruction, we should be thinking about
getting more use out of the ones we already have.
- Sometimes I think the world
has gone completely mad. And then I think, "Aw, who cares?"
And then I think, "Hey, what's for supper?"
- I can't stand cheap people.
It makes me real mad when someone says something like, "Hey,
when are you going to pay me that $100 you owe me?" or "Do
you have that $50 you borrowed?" Man, quit being so cheap!
- If you're in a war, instead
of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small
pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think how stupid war is,
and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at
them.
- As we were driving, we saw a
sign that said "Watch for Rocks." Martha said it should
read "Watch for Pretty Rocks." I told her she should
write in her suggestion to the highway department, but she started
saying it was a joke - just to get out of writing a simple letter!
And I thought I was lazy!
- Sometimes when I feel like killing
someone, I do a little trick to calm myself down. I'll go over
to the persons house and ring the doorbell. When the person comes
to the door, I'm gone, but you know what I've left on the porch?
A jack-o-lantern with a knife stuck in the side of it's head
with a note that says "You." After that I usually feel
a lot better, and no harm done.
- It makes me mad when I go to
all the trouble of having Martha cook up about a hundred drumsticks,
then the guy at the Marineland says, "You can't throw chicken
to the dolphins. They eat fish." Sure they eat fish, if
that's all you give them. Man, wise up.
- I bet the main reason the police
keep people away from a plane crash is they don't want anybody
walking in and lying down in the crash stuff, then, when somebody
comes up, act like they just woke up and go, "What was THAT?!"
- I bet when the Neanderthal kids
would make a snowman, someone would always end up saying, "Don't
forget the thick, heavy brows." Then they would all get
embarrassed because they remembered they had the big hunky brows
too, and they'd get mad and eat the snowman.
- It's easy to sit there and say
you'd like to have more money. And I guess that's what I like
about it. It's easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth,
wanting that money.
- I can picture in my mind a world
without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking
that world, because they'd never expect it.
- Anytime I see something screech
across a room and latch onto someones neck, and the guy screams
and tries to get it off, I have to laugh, because what is that
thing.
- One thing kids like is to be
tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to
Disneyland, but instead I drove him to an old burned-out warehouse.
"Oh, no," I said, "Disneyland burned down."
He cried and cried, but I think that deep down he thought it
was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland,
but it was getting pretty late.
- Sometimes I think you have to
march right in and demand your rights, even if you don't know
what your rights are, or who the person is you're talking to.
Then on the way out, slam the door.
- If you ever drop your keys into
a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
- To me, it's a good idea to always
carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way,
if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?" - you
can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."
- What is it about a beautiful
sunny afternoon, with the birds singing and the wind rustling
through the leaves, that makes you want to get drunk? And after
you're real drunk, maybe go down to the public park and stagger
around and ask people for money, and then lay down and go to
sleep.
- Instead of a trap door, what
about a trap window? The guy looks out it, and if he leans too
far, he falls out. Wait. I guess that's like a regular window.
- Most of the time in the Middle
Ages it was probably real bad being stuck down in a dungeon.
But some days, when there was a bad storm outside, you'd look
out your little window and think, "Boy, I'm glad I'm not
out in that."
- When I found the skull in the
woods, the first thing I did was call the police. But then I
got curious about it. I picked it up, and started wondering who
this person was, and why he had deer horns.
- The memories of my family outings
are still a source of strength to me. I remember we'd all pile
into the car - I forget what kind it was - and drive and drive.
I'm not sure where we'd go, but I think there were some trees
there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played
whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called
"Dad." We'd eat some stuff, or not, and then I think
we went home. I guess some things never leave you.
- I think a good gift for the
President would be a chocolate revolver. And since he's so busy,
you'd probably have to run up to him real quick and hand it to
him.
- I wish I would have a real tragic
love affair and get so bummed out that I'd just quit my job and
become a bum for a few years, because I was thinking about doing
that anyway.
- To me, boxing is like a ballet,
except there's no music, no choreography and the dancers hit
each other.
- When I was a kid my favorite
relative was Uncle Caveman. After school we'd all go play in
his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It
wasn't until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a
bear.
- Too bad you can't just grab
a tree by the very tiptop and bend it clear over the ground and
then let her fly, because I bet you'd be amazed at all the stuff
that comes flying out.
- Once when I was in Hawaii, on
the island of Kauai, I met a mysterious old stranger. He said
he was about to die and wanted to tell someone about the treasure.
I said, "Okay, as long as it's not a long story. Some of
us have a plane to catch, you know." He started telling
his story, about the treasure and his life and all, and I thought:
"This story isn't too long." But then, he kept going,
and I started thinking, "Uh-oh, this story is getting long."
But then the story was over, and I said to myself: "You
know, that story wasn't too long after all." I forget what
the story was about, but there was a good movie on the plane.
It was a little long, though.
- If you ever crawl inside an
old hollow log and go to sleep, and while you're in there some
guys come and seal up both ends and then put it on a truck and
take it to another city, boy, I don't know what to tell you.
- If trees could scream, would
we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they
screamed all the time, for no good reason.
- I can see why it would be prohibited
to throw most things off the top of the Empire State Building,
but what's wrong with little bits of cheese? They probably break
down into their various gases before they even hit.
- 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 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.
- If you see an animal and you
can't tell if it's a skunk or a cat, here's a good saying to
help: "Black-and-white, stinks all right. Tabby-colored,
likes a fella."
- I don't pretend to have all
the answers. I don't pretend to even know what the questions
are. Hey, where am I?
- If I was the head of a country
that lost a war, and I had to sign a peace treaty, just as I
was signing I'd glance over the treaty and then suddenly act
surprised. "Wait a minute! I thought WE won!"
- Whether they ever find life
there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet.
- To me, clowns aren't funny.
In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where this started,
and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and
a clown killed my dad.
- Instead of a Seeing Eye dog,
what about a gun? It's cheaper than a dog, plus if you walk around
shooting all the time people are going to get out of the way.
Cars, too!
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