Johnny Carson
Married men live longer than single men. But married men are a lot more willing to die.Collection: Men
Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.Collection: Work
Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.Collection: Christmas
For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.Collection: Death
People thought I was funny, so I kind of took entertaining for granted... it was inevitable that I'd start giving little performances.Collection: Funny
I know a man who gave up smoking, drinking, sex, and rich food. He was healthy right up to the day he killed himself.Collection: Food
The only thing money gives you is the freedom of not worrying about money.Collection: Money
If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still be eating frozen radio dinners.Collection: Funny
Talent alone won't make you a success. Neither will being in the right place at the right time, unless you are ready. The most important question is: 'Are your ready?'Collection: Success
If variety is the spice of life, marriage is the big can of leftover Spam.Collection: Marriage
I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.Collection: Funny
Happiness is your dentist telling you it won't hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.Collection: Happiness
People will pay more to be entertained than educated.
If life was fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.
Anytime four New Yorkers get into a cab together without arguing, a bank robbery has just taken place.
Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be vice president.
New York is an exciting town where something is happening all the time, most unsolved.
My success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day.
I am one of the lucky people in the world: I found something I always wanted to do, and I have enjoyed every single minute of it.
When turkeys mate they think of swans.
Never use a big word when a little filthy one will do.
We're more effective than birth control pills.
I know you've been married to the same woman for 69 years. That is marvelous. It must be very inexpensive.
I was going to hang it up on the twenty-fifth year of this show. I don't know why. Maybe twenty-five years is enough. And I found out that I was having so much fun doing the show that we decided to stick around for a while.
There comes a time or a moment when you know in which direction you're going to go. I know it happened to me when I was quite young.
The mind starts to do things that you didn't even realize it could do. I suppose it's the manipulation. I suppose it's the sense of power, the center of attention, and the me-ism. And performers have to have that.
To be an entertainer, you gotta be a little gutsy, a little egotistical, so you have to pull back sometimes when people say, 'Well, he's stuck-up.' 'Stuck-up' is only another word for self-conscious.
I hated my last boss. He asked, Why are you two hours late? I said, I fell downstairs. He said, That doesn't take two hours.Collection: Two
Some sad news from Australia... the inventor of the boomerang grenade died today.Collection: Funny
Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often.Collection: Thanksgiving
When a comic becomes enamored with his own views and foists them off on the public in a polemic way, he loses not only his sense of humor but his value as a humorist.Collection: Views
Happiness is being stuck in an elevator and discovering the ravishing blonde with you is a liquor salesman with a case of samples.Collection: Happiness
Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead.Collection: People
May you have the income of a Republican and the sex life of a Democrat!Collection: Sex
An oxymoron? What's that? A moron who studies at Oxford?Collection: Oxford
I'm often asked, "What is your favorite moment during the 30 years you hosted [The Tonight Show]?" I really don't have just one. The times I enjoyed the most were the spontaneous, unplanned segments that just happened, like Ed Ames' infamous "Tomahawk Toss" that produced one of the longest laughs in television history. When these lucky moments happen, you just go with them and enjoy the experience and high of the moment.Collection: Years
The closest thing to Roseanne Barr's singing the national anthem was my cat being neutered.Collection: Cat
According to statistics, it's a lot easier to get hit by lightning than to win a Lotto jackpot. The good side: you don't hear from your relatives.Collection: Winning
I hear that whenever someone in the White House tells a lie, Nixon gets a royalty.Collection: Lying
Despite the fact that computer speeds are measured in nanoseconds and picoseconds - one billionth and one trillionth of a second, respectively - the smallest interval of time known to man is that which occurs in Manhattan between the traffic signal turning green and the taxi driver behind you blowing his horn.Collection: Travel
Did you know Richard Nixon is the only president whose formal portrait was painted by a police sketch artist?Collection: Artist
There are very few Japanese Jews. As a result, there is no Japanese word for Alan King.Collection: Kings
It's the lack of this kind of open and honest education about sex that causes so many kids to grow up with sexual hang-ups.Collection: Sex
I can't say I ever wanted to become an entertainer. I already was one, sort of-around the house, at school, doing my magic tricks, throwing my voice and doing Popeye impersonations. People thought I was funny; so I kind of took entertaining for granted It was inevitable that I'd start giving little performances.Collection: School
Maybe we should hold the next [Olympic] games in Afghanistan and hope the Soviets pull out of that one too.Collection: Peace
Like their parents, kids flock to see James Bond and Derek Flint movies - outrageously antiheroic heroes who break all the taboos, making attractive the very things the kids are told they shouldn't do themselves.Collection: Hero
That would have been a great ticket, Reagan and Ford - an actor and a stuntman.Collection: Actors
I play my life straight - the way I see it. I'm grateful to audiences for watching me and for enjoying what I do - but I'm not one of those who believe that a successful entertainer is made by the public, as is so often said.Collection: Believe
I'm an entertainer; I try to give the public what it wants while I'm on the screen, and I'm completely sincere about it. If I don't happen to be a laughing boy off the screen, that doesn't make me a hypocrite or a phony.Collection: Hypocrite
Egyptian President Sadat had a belly dancer entertain President Nixon at a state dinner. Mr. Nixon was really impressed. He hadn't seen contortions like that since Rose Mary Woods.Collection: Rose