Steven Wright is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and an Oscar-winning film producer. He is known for his distinctly lethargic voice and slow, deadpan delivery of ironic, philosophical, and sometimes nonsensical jokes, non sequiturs, anti-humor, and one-liners with contrived situations. He was ranked as the twenty-third greatest comedian by Comedy Central in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics.
Here is a short selection (only 107!) of the best Steven Wright quotes. Enjoy!
- 7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
- A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
- A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
- A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
- A cop stopped me for speeding. He said, “Why were you going so fast?” I said, “See this thing my foot is on? It’s called an accelerator. When you push down on it, it sends more gas to the engine. The whole car just takes right off. And see this thing? This steers it.”
- A friend of mine once sent me a post card with a picture of the entire planet Earth taken from space. On the back it said, “Wish you were here.”
- A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I’m afraid of widths.
- All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.
- Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
- Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
- Borrow money from pessimists-they don’t expect it back.
- Change is inevitable….except from vending machines.
- Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country.
- Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
- Doing a little work around the house. I put fake brick wallpaper over a real brick wall, just so I’d be the only one who knew. People come over and I’m gonna say, “Go ahead, touch it…it feels real.”
- Drugs may lead to nowhere, but at least it’s the scenic route.
- Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.
- Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don’t have film.
- Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
- Half the people you know are below average.
- Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
- How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?
- I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
- I bought a house, on a one-way dead-end road. I don’t know how I got there.
- I bought a million lottery tickets. I won a dollar.
- I bought some powdered water, but I don’t know what to add to it.
- I can remember the first time I had to go to sleep. Mom said, “Steven, time to go to sleep.” I said, “But I don’t know how.” She said, “It’s real easy. Just go down to the end of tired and hang a left.” So I went down to the end of tired, and just out of curiosity I hung a right. My mother was there, and she said “I thought I told you to go to sleep.”
- I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
- I eat swiss cheese from the inside out.
- I had amnesia once or twice.
- I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day because that means it’s going to be up all night.
- I have an answering machine in my car. It says, “I’m home now. But leave a message and I’ll call when I’m out.”
- I intend to live forever – so far, so good.
- I love to go shopping. I love to freak out salespeople. They ask me if they can help me, and I say, “Have you got anything I’d like?” Then they ask me what size I need, and I say, “Extra medium.”
- I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don’t know what to feed it.
- I saw a bank that said “24 Hour Banking”, but I don’t have that much time.
- I saw a sign: “Rest Area 25 Miles”. That’s pretty big. Some people must be really tired.
- I saw a small bottle of cologne and asked if it was for sale. She said, “It’s free with purchase.” I asked her if anyone bought anything today.
- I spilled spot remover on my dog. He’s gone now.
- I took a course in speed waiting. Now I can wait an hour in only ten minutes.
- I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
- I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn’t park anywhere near the place.
- I was going 70 miles an hour and got stopped by a cop who said, “Do you know the speed limit is 55 miles per hour?” “Yes, officer, but I wasn’t going to be out that long…”
- I was in a job interview and I opened a book and started reading. Then I said to the guy, “Let me ask you a question. If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?” He said, “I don’t know.” I said, “I don’t want your job.”
- I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. So I said, “Got any shoes you’re not using?”
- I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.
- I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was locking the front door. I said, “Hey, the sign says you’re open 24 hours.” He said, “Yes, but not in a row.”
- I went into this bar and sat down next to a pretty girl. She looked at me and said, “Hey, you have two different colored socks on.” I said, “Yeah, I know, but to me they’re the same because I go by thickness.”
- I went to a 7-11 and asked for a 2×4 and a box of 3×5’s. The clerk said, “ten-four.”
- I went to a fancy french restaurant called “Deja Vu.” The headwaiter said, “Don’t I know you?”
- I went to a general store. They wouldn’t let me buy anything specifically.
- I went to a restaurant that serves “breakfast at any time”. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.
- I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, “What for?” I said, “I’m going to buy some sugar.”
- I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in the shape of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren’t included.
- I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.
- I woke up one morning, and all of my stuff had been stolen and replaced by exact duplicates.
- I worked in a health food store once. A guy came in and asked me, “If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?”
- I wrote a song, but I can’t read music so I don’t know what it is. Every once in a while I’ll be listening to the radio and I say, “I think I might have written that.”
- I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
- If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.
- If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
- If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
- If you can wave a fan, and you can wave a club, can you wave a fan club?
- If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before.
- If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.
- If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?
- If you write the word “monkey” a million times, do you start to think you’re Shakespeare?
- If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.
- In my house on the ceilings I have paintings of the rooms above…so I never have to go upstairs.
- In school, every period ends with a bell. Every sentence ends with a period. Every crime ends with a sentence.</li\>
- It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.
- Join the Army, meet interesting people, kill them.
- Many people quit looking for work when they find a job.
- Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.
- My socks DO match. I go by thickness.
- My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.
- OK, so what’s the speed of dark?
- On the other hand, you have different fingers.
- One night I walked home very late and fell asleep in somebody’s satellite dish. My dreams were showing up on TV’s all over the world.
- One time a cop pulled me over for running a stop sign. He said, “Didn’t you see the stop sign?” I said, “Yeah, but I don’t believe everything I read.”
- Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
- Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
- Smoking cures weight problems…eventually.
- Someone sent me a postcard picture of the earth. On the back it said, “Wish you were here.”
- Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.
- Support bacteria – they’re the only culture some people have.
- The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
- The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
- The judge asked, “What do you plead?” I said, “Insanity, your honor, who in their right mind would park in the passing lane?”
- The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
- The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.
- The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
- To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
- Today I dialed a wrong number… The other person said, “Hello?” and I said, “Hello, could I speak to Joey?”… They said, “Uh… I don’t think so…he’s only 2 months old.” I said, “I’ll wait.”
- What a nice night for an evening.
- What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
- What’s another word for Thesaurus?
- When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
- When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving.
- When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, “Well, what do you need?”
- When I was in boy scouts, I slipped on the ice and hurt my ankle. A little old lady had to help me across the street.
- When I’m not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.
- Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
- Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
- You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?
- I’m a peripheral visionary. I can see into the future, but just way off to the side.
- I have a new dog. It’s a paranoid retriever. He brings everything back because he’s not sure what I throw at him.
Relevant links
- Steven Wright official website
- 120 Inspirational Quotes About Laughter
- 120 Inspiring Three Word Quotes
- 120 Two Word Quotes: Simply Awesome, Perfectly Fabulous!
- Laughing Exercise: If You Love To Laugh You’Ll Love This How To Guide!
What does it mean when he says I’m afraid of widths?
It means that he is afraid of becoming fat / obese.
It doesn’t mean anything in particular. It is irrational, which makes it funny.
Widths are a type of alien monster which can only be seen if you tilt your head to one side.
You can’t have everything, where would you put it?
If you have to ask, then Steven Wright is definitely not for you.
Well, that is one interpretation… I took it to just be his typical anti-pattern to comedy. Height is common, width is mostly nonsensical although being afraid of depth could have some interesting overtones as well.
Question: When did he say “x percent of statistics are made up on the spot?” It sounds like him but I can’t find any clip of him actually saying it. Listened to the entire clip above and didn’t hear it here either.
Has anyone else noticed made up statistics inflation over the past few years? You say he said 7%. I remember 37.5% but most of the internet seems to think it’s around 43% although one has it at 73.6% and someone just used 80%. Do I hear 100%? There must be a bit in there somewhere.
I heard him at my college live way back before he hit it big. I recall him saying that line, but can’t remember the exact percentage he used. If memory serves he said something like, “Eighty seven point five of all statistics are made up on the spot.” I remember that it was well over 50% when he said it and he used a decimal. I have followed his career pretty closely since and heard him use that joke only one other time I can recall. If I’m not mistaken, it was during one of the shows that highlighted his college tours? Not sure on that though, but I do remember he doesn’t use it all the time. It was part of his college circuit lineup, I think.
Doh! Many people are afraid of heights it’s a play on words in a situation. The genius of Steven Wright show up here. If sometimes it doesn’t make sense. try looking from another angle.
Omg some of you guys take his comedy too seriously. It’s just off the wall humor. Try to figure him out and you’ll go crazy. Lol
My fav is, I couldn’t fix your brakes so I made your horn louder
I tried making orange juice from concentrate, but all I got was a really bad headache.
I may have this wrong, but I thought it was Stephen Wright that said something about dying…that he preferred going through the Pearly Gates full speed and sliding sideward. If not he, who was it?
No idea
A Jewish comedian said the one about French toast in the renaissance back in the 30’s.
Otherwise I love his stuff.
My favorite wasn’t even listed.
I’m a peripheral visionary. I can see into the future, but just way off to the side.
Thank you for pointing this out! Now corrected.
A stand-up’s jokes undergo evolution. This joke started several decades ago as, “I live in a hundred story building. Every night when I get home I take my dog up to the top for a walk around the edge. He’s not afraid of heights, but he is afraid of widths.” Evidently, Steven is happier with the shorter length of the current form.
My favorite: Went to the ballet the other night, and saw a bunch of dancers running around on their toes. Why don’t they just hire taller dancers?
Steven Wright is my absolute favourite comic, and was lucky enough to see him live a few years ago locally. You missed the one where he says, “He was killed instantly.” “That’s the way it works. You’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re dead.”
Also, “So I got off the plane and I forget to take off my seat-belt and I’m dragging the plane through the terminal… The wings are knocking people over…”
“You know when you’re sitting on a chair and you lean back so you’re just on two legs and you lean too far so you almost fall over but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like that all the time.”
“I photocopied a mirror. Now I have two photocopiers.”
“I just had a skylight installed in my apartment. My upstairs neighbors are furious. “
Here’s just a few of my favs that I didn’t see, but nice list!
There’s a light switch in my house that doesn’t seem to do anything. Every once in a while I just like to turn it off and on really fast to see if anything happens. One day I got a call from a woman in Germany. She said, “Cut it out.”
Why’s the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
If it’s a penny for your thoughts, but you put your two cents in … Somebody’s making a penny!
I read somewhere that over 50% of all accidents happen within 5 miles or your home, so I moved.
This one time I was … no wait, that wasn’t me.
I’ve been working on a map of the United States. It’s huge! The scale is 1 mile equals 1 mile.
I notice many of these are recollections of what Steven said rather than quotes Sebastian. A number contain phrases he didn’t say such as in 78 which should end: “I wasn’t going to be out that long.” & the punch line of 76 should end: “I go by thickness.”
Corrections made, and thank you for pointing them out! Isn’t a quote a citation, repeating what someone has said?
Discovered Stephen Wright in 1985 and love his comedy the best.!He has shaped my way of thinking.(him and the creators of Airplane!) Saw him live twice in Melbourne,Fl..Real treat…
2 jokes of his I love..not depicted here are….
“The other day i saw a subliminal advertising executive..but.only for a second.”
“My friend has HDADD..High Definition Attention Deficit Disorder..He has problems focusing but when he does its amazingly clear”
“What’s another word for Thesaurus”
Luv ya Stephen🤙Brilliant mind
“I put instant coffee in the microwave and almost went back in time”
It’s a small world… I wouldn’t want to paint it.
Very few comedians can crack me up by their delivery, Steven is one one of them .
Fred Allen was another
Did Steven come up with DAM stands for Mothers Against Dyslexia ?
I just love Steven Wrights humor. I wish he would post videos that are up to date on you tube.
He said something like: I was born by C-section, but not that you would notice. Except that I always go in and out of my house through the window.
One of my favorites is “Why do you suppose they are called apartments when they are all stuck together?” There’s a second part to that but I just cannot remember and it’s not on your list!
I don’t remember if this was Steven Wright, but I remember one about him finding the Anti-Christ, and the Anti-Christ said, “No, that’s three 9’s!”. So he said, “Great, now I have to find three 6’s with a line under it”.
I like the Smokey the Bear one. “Only YOU can prevent forest fires”. (He points to himself and facepalms) “Great, every night out the window with a bucket of water”