Humor helps ease the tension of race and the differences in society. If there wasn't comedy I don't know if Obama could have ever become president.

There are just certain things that turn my head. It may be a girl's sense of humor it may be her wit or her belief system it could be a lot of different things.

I could not tread these perilous paths in safety if I did not keep a saving sense of humor.

My father could be very witty even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

If you could choose one characteristic that would get you through life choose a sense of humor.

I tried to use words that were dealing with the emotional quality that any human being could recognize in the way that they felt about their country. It's to do with the world we live in. That world is a brutal one and full of war. It's also full of many wonderful things and love and hope.

You travel with the hope that something unexpected will happen. It has to do with enjoying being lost and figuring it out and the satisfaction. I always get a little disappointed when I know too well where I'm going or when I've lived in a place so long that there's no chance I could possibly get lost.

We're in an emergency situation. The United States has become an absolutely terrifying country and I would hope that I could participate in some way in stopping the horror and the brutality.

There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.

I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.

I really feel confident about my dancing now so I hope there could be a place for me in the West End or on Broadway - maybe a musical maybe my own show.

Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.

Well Judy I would hope in the new year we could start thinking about politics not like it was the Super Bowl where you always have to have one team that wins and the other team has to be a loser.

I know the world is filled with troubles and many injustices. But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly. I think it is just as important to sing about beautiful mornings as it is to talk about slums. I just couldn't write anything without hope in it.

I do not at all have the mind of a bully... in my mind bullies are intolerant of contrary opinion domineering and rather cowardly. I would hope that none of those terms could be fairly used in describing me.

Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.

When things are bad we take comfort in the thought that they could always get worse. And when they are we find hope in the thought that things are so bad they have to get better.

I've tried to reduce profanity but I reduced so much profanity when writing the book that I'm afraid not much could come out. Perhaps we will have to consider it simply as a profane book and hope that the next book will be less profane or perhaps more sacred.

I wish I could know everything ever like that would be my wish - that's what I hope heaven is that they tell you who shot JFK and all that stuff.

Imagine if you had baseball cards that showed all the performance stats for your people: batting averages home runs errors ERAs win/loss records. You could see what they did well and poorly and call on the right people to play the right positions in a very transparent way.

I support workplace clean air. But a federal ban on smoking would mean that you couldn't smoke in your own home. I don't care what people do in their home.

I spend plenty of time in London and it doesn't scare me but it's a lonely place even if you've got friends there. My job takes me all around the world meeting lots of interesting people. But I think if I couldn't get home if I couldn't get back to what I consider my real life I'd be frightened.

About 15 years ago I went though a period of a year or so when I just couldn't find anything good. My wife noticed I was having trouble reading menus. I bought some cheap reading glasses in a drug store. I got home and suddenly all these books that weren't good were good.