My father, who was technically an immigrant—he came when he was an infant—wanted me to be an American, preferably an American president. He didn’t go to college. Before I was born he wanted me to go specifically to Yale, which he thought would help. It was easy for him to think I could be president: […]
Calvin Trillin Quotes
I actually think of being funny as an odd turn of mind, like a mild disability, some weird way of looking at the world that you can’t get rid of.
People, particularly comedians, always say it’s all in the timing. But in written humor, the reader has to do his own timing—you have to build in the timing for the reader, which is difficult.
Not as bad as you might have expected. (suggested state motto for New Jersey)
In modern America, anyone who attempts to write satirically about the events of the day finds it difficult to concoct a situation so bizarre that it may not actually come to pass while the article is still on the presses.
The poor in Resurrection City have come to Washington to show that the poor in America are sick, dirty, disorganized, and powerless – and they are criticized daily for being sick, dirty, disorganized, and powerless.
Americans drive across the country as if someone’s chasing them.
