Paula Poundstone Quotes

I was the youngest in my family. When the other kids went to school, my mother would make them breakfast and then she would go back to bed for an hour, so I was sort of babysat by television.

I'm thankful for Sarah Palin's vice presidential bid, which taught us that Alaska is not in a box off the coast of California.

I used to watch 'The Waltons' and sob because my family was nothing like that. We had a cruel sense of humor in my family.

I got my dog three years ago because I was drunk in a pet store. We had nine cats at the time. The cats started hiding the alcohol after that.

I was court-ordered to Alcoholics Anonymous on television. Pretty much blows the hell out of the second A, wouldn't you say?

I'm thankful for the three ounce Ziploc bag, so that I have somewhere to put my savings.

When a woman extends her hand for you to shake it, then you shake her hand. You do not turn it up and kiss it. And it is just so creepy. Because, you know, I handed it at this angle. I handed it at the handshake angle and so I'm not giving it to you to do whatever you want with it. I'm not loaning it to you. It's like if somebody borrowed your lawnmower and you're assuming they're going to use it to mow their lawn. You don't want to find out later they put it in the ocean!

Speaking of happy successes, after years of struggling to lose those few extra pounds every mother puts on during adoption, particularly when the doctor orders bed rest, in 2004 I sent my assistant to the Gap in dark glasses with a fake ID to purchase my first pair of Easy Fit jeans.

People need each other. Our well-being is tightly tethered to the well-being of people we do not know, most of whom look nothing like ourselves. Happiness, I realized right there in breathing class, requires engagement.

I like to work on New Year's Eve. It has a nice spirit; a nice feel about it. If you are all about the 'year-end' thing at all, then laughing with fellow human beings is a great way to start the new year.

I confess that when I first read that smog is particularly hazardous to children, senior citizens, and physically active people, for a brief moment I thought, I'm in the clear for at least ten years.

I have a very silly sense of humor. I've never laughed harder in my entire life than seeing someone with toilet paper stuck on the bottom of their shoe.

When we save the rain forest, the polar bear, and Al Gore, we should party so hard that Canada calls the cops on us for noise.

I don't believe for a second that weightlifting is a sport. They pick up a heavy thing and put it down again. To me, that's indecision.

It is the best part of the night. The classic interactive lines are 'Where are you from? What do you do for a living?' I almost always get something interesting.

The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community.

I only do two things in my life, and that's take care of my kids and work. Fortunately, these are my favorite things to do, so it works out.

I was diagnosed a number of years ago with obsessive-compulsive disorder - which everyone has, to some degree - and I have this really annoying trait where in conversation, I always steer it back to something that happened to me.

I talk to a lot of librarians, and there's always a steady drumbeat of how libraries are places of community. But a lot of them have also recently - and just in the nick of time - refurbished, because during this economic downturn, people have a tendency to borrow instead of buy.

I mean, I do love clever and witty, but I think that the 'Three Stooges' were geniuses. They'd have to be for their appeal to have lasted this long.

I've decided that perhaps I'm bulimic and just keep forgetting to purge.

I hate it when my hair is engaged in unauthorized activities.

I was one of the first people to almost actually vomit over hearing the use of the phrase "family values" and I pride myself on never having fallen for the idea that Barbara Bush was sweet and grandmotherly. I met Barbara Bush and, as I expected, she was a tank with eyes, not a nice person at all and why should that blow anybody away?

I get the first flight out from anywhere I am because I have to come home to my kids.

It's funny that we think of libraries as quiet demure places where we are shushed by dusty, bun-balancing, bespectacled women. The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. Librarians have stood up to the Patriot Act, sat down with noisy toddlers and reached out to illiterate adults. Libraries can never be shushed.

It is my wish to die of unique causes, perhaps in a high-speed tricycle crash, a bizarre stapling incient, or as a result of inadvertently sucking my brains out through my ear while trying to untwist the vacuum hose.

How do you come back? It's one step at a time. I'm optimistic because I don't know what else to be.

Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up 'cause they're looking for ideas.

I love talking to the audience, and I must be the luckiest performer in the world. I always land something or somebody that just takes off.

I have short-term memory loss, though I'd like to think of it as Persidential eligibility.

The definition of adulthood is that you want to sleep.

The problem with cats is that they get the same exact look whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer.

You know, in politics when you come in third, it's a win.

The mistakes that I made I made because I drank too much. I don't think that's going to happen any more. Am I going to make mistakes as a parent? Sadly, every day. I'm looking around for the perfect parent and I haven't seen one yet.

I'm really more prolific than most stand-ups. My act changes. I do fold in new experiences, new observations, whatever you want to call it.

I have terrible short-term memory loss, which I like to think of as Presidential eligibility.

The wages of sin are death, but by the time taxes are taken out, it's just sort of a tired feeling.

I have a horrible memory and I used to consider that a liability, but I've learned along the way that talking to people is really a beautiful thing.

My parents got carried away with the letter P when they were naming the kids in our family. There's me, Paula, my sisters Peggy and Patty, and my brother Pjimmy, spelled with a silent P.

I don't need a holiday or a feast to feel grateful for my children, the sun, the moon, the roof over my head, music, and laughter, but I like to take this time to take the path of thanks less traveled.

I happen to be a devout atheist. I don't believe in God. I still go to church
I'm not a heathen. I go to an atheist church. We have crippled guys who stand up and testify that they were crippled, and they still are.

I fall short of her standards. She made me buy cat food that hasn't been tested on animals. My cats took one bite of it, spit it out, and yelled, "Did no one test this?

The pleasure of the mulch pile is incomprehensible. I wouldn't care if they just hauled the mulch to the landfill somewhere. Obviously, grass clippings are biodegradable, but when they're bunched together at the landfill, they become badly influenced by other garbage.

I don't have a bank account because I don't know my mother's maiden name.

I did auditions at a club called the Comedy Connection. They wanted nothing to do with me. But one night they were doing a night of all women comics, and they invited me to do that.

I have jokes I've told before and will tell again, but my favorite part of the night is talking to the crowd.

Gay Republicans, how exactly does that work? 'We disapprove of our own lifestyle. We beat ourselves up in parking lots.