Steven Wright is a distinctive American comedian renowned for his deadpan delivery, surreal humor, and offbeat observations. Rising to fame in the 1980s, Wright’s minimalist style and monotone voice set him apart in the comedy landscape. He became known for his one-liners, often filled with absurdity and wordplay, delivered with impeccable timing and a detached demeanor. Wright’s comedy explores the peculiarities of everyday life, often diving into existential ponderings and absurd scenarios with a unique perspective. His dry wit and understated delivery have earned him critical acclaim and a dedicated fanbase. Wright’s influence extends beyond stand-up comedy, as he’s also worked in film and television, further showcasing his quirky humor and distinctive persona. Throughout his career, he has maintained a cult following and continues to be celebrated for his originality and unconventional approach to comedy.

Steven Wright Quotes

1. “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.”
— Steven Wright

2. “I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.”
— Steven Wright

3. “If at first you don’t succeed then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.”
— Steven Wright

4. “Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.”
— Steven Wright

5. “Support bacteria – they’re the only culture some people have.”
— Steven Wright

6. “The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.”
— Steven Wright

7. “To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.”
— Steven Wright

8. “If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.”
— Steven Wright

9. “If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?”
— Steven Wright

10. “43.7 per cent of all statistics are made up on the spot.”
— Steven Wright

11. “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?”
— Steven Wright

12. “Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.”
— Steven Wright

13. “I intend to live forever. So far, so good.”
— Steven Wright

14. “Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.”
— Steven Wright

15. “Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.”
— Steven Wright

16. “When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.”
— Steven Wright

17. “I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.”
— Steven Wright

18. “I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.”
— Steven Wright

19. “It’s like the Wild West, the Internet. There are no rules.”
— Steven Wright

20. “Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.”
— Steven Wright

21. “Light travels faster than sound. Isn’t that why people appear bright before you hear them speak?”
— Steven Wright

22. “Five out of four people have trouble with fractions.”
— Steven Wright

23. “Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories.”
— Steven Wright

24. “If a man says something in the woods and there are no women there, is he still wrong?”
— Steven Wright

25. “The speed of time is one second per second.”
— Steven Wright

26. “I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they’d never expect it.”
— Steven Wright

27. “If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before.”
— Steven Wright

28. “If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?”
— Steven Wright

29. “I have an inferiority complex, but it’s not a very good one.”
— Steven Wright

30. “I have a large sea shell collection which I keep scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you’ve seen it.”
— Steven Wright

31. “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…”
— Steven Wright

32. “How come abbreviated is such a long word?”
— Steven Wright

33. “I have a paper cut from writing my suicide note. It’s a start…”
— Steven Wright

34. “I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks he can get me five.”
— Steven Wright

35. “I went to a general store but they wouldn’t let me buy anything specific.”
— Steven Wright

36. “No one is listening until you make a mistake.”
— Steven Wright

37. “What’s another word for Thesaurus?”
— Steven Wright

38. “On the other hand, you have different fingers.”
— Steven Wright

39. “Consciousness: That annoying time between naps.”
— Steven Wright

40. “I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.”
— Steven Wright

41. “I heard that in relativity theory, space and time are the same thing. Einstein discovered this when he kept showing up three miles late for his meetings.”
— Steven Wright

42. “OK, so what’s the speed of dark?”
— Steven Wright

43. “The sun never sets on the British Empire. But it rises every morning. The sky must get awfully crowded.”
— Steven Wright

44. “Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he’ll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.”
— Steven Wright

45. “If it’s a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny.”
— Steven Wright

46. “Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard? Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the bottle?”
— Steven Wright

47. “Why is it, when a door is open it’s ajar, but when a jar is open, it’s not a door?”
— Steven Wright

48. “There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.”
— Steven Wright

49. “Everyone has a photographic Memory, some just don’t have film.”
— Steven Wright

50. “I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.”
— Steven Wright

51. “I wish the first word I ever said was the word quote, so right before I die I could say unquote.”
— Steven Wright

52. “I Xeroxed a mirror. Now I have an extra Xerox machine.”
— Steven Wright

53. “My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.”
— Steven Wright

54. “The best kind of friend is the kind you sit with, never say a word and walk away feeling like it was the best conversation you ever had.”
— Steven Wright

55. “When I turned two I was really anxious, because I’d doubled my age in a year. I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I’m six I’ll be ninety.”
— Steven Wright

56. “It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.”
— Steven Wright

57. “If it’s zero degrees outside today and it’s supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?”
— Steven Wright

58. “Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.”
— Steven Wright

59. “Half the people you know are below average.”
— Steven Wright

60. “Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.”
— Steven Wright

61. “I have an existential map. It has ‘You are here’ written all over it.”
— Steven Wright

62. “I think it’s wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly.”
— Steven Wright

63. “I saw a subliminal advertising executive, but only for a second.”
— Steven Wright

64. “Do Lipton employees take coffee breaks?”
— Steven Wright

65. “99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.”
— Steven Wright

66. “It doesn’t matter what temperature the room is, it’s always room temperature.”
— Steven Wright

67. “Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?”
— Steven Wright

68. “Why do scientists call it research when looking for something new?”
— Steven Wright

69. “Does fuzzy logic tickle?”
— Steven Wright

70. “It is like putting a dehumidifier and a humidifier in the same room and letting them fight it out.”
— Steven Wright

71. “I just have a relationship with my imagination. It’s like my friend, almost.”
— Steven Wright

72. “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, do the other trees make fun of it?”
— Steven Wright

73. “The other night I came home late, and tried to unlock my house with my car keys. I started the house up. So, I drove it around for a while. I was speeding, and a cop pulled me over. He asked where I lived. I said, “Right here, officer.””
— Steven Wright

74. “I hooked up my accelerator pedal in my car to my brake lights. I hit the gas, people behind me stop, and I’m gone.”
— Steven Wright

75. “I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, ‘Where’s the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.”
— Steven Wright

76. “I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.”
— Steven Wright

77. “I got a new dog. He’s a paranoid retriever. He brings back everything because he’s not sure what I threw him.”
— Steven Wright

78. “What a nice night for an evening.”
— Steven Wright

79. “In school, every period ends with a bell. Every sentence ends with a period. Every crime ends with a sentence.”
— Steven Wright

80. “A fool and his money are soon partying.”
— Steven Wright

81. “Smoking cures weight problems, eventually.”
— Steven Wright

82. “I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.”
— Steven Wright

83. “If heat rises, then heaven must be hotter than hell.”
— Steven Wright

84. “My dental hygienist is cute. Every time I visit, I eat a whole package of Oreo cookies while waiting in the lobby. Sometimes she has to cancel the rest of the afternoon’s appointments.”
— Steven Wright

85. “I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don’t know what to feed it.”
— Steven Wright

86. “I took a lie detector test the other day. No, I didn’t.”
— Steven Wright

87. “Be nice to your children. After all, they are going to choose your nursing home.”
— Steven Wright

88. “When I was in school the teachers told me practice makes perfect; then they told me nobody’s perfect so I stopped practicing.”
— Steven Wright

89. “If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?”
— Steven Wright

90. “My nephew has HDADHD. High Definition Attention Deficit Disorder. He can barely pay attention, but when he does it’s unbelievably clear.”
— Steven Wright

91. “If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?”
— Steven Wright

92. “How much deeper would the ocean be if sponges didn’t live there?”
— Steven Wright

93. “I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window.”
— Steven Wright

94. “All those who believe in psychokinesis – raise my hand.”
— Steven Wright

95. “I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.”
— Steven Wright

96. “I just got this new camera. It’s very advanced – you don’t even need it.”
— Steven Wright

97. “My friend Sally is a nudist. I went to her house. The closets have no doors. The walls are covered with see-through wallpaper.”
— Steven Wright

98. “If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?”
— Steven Wright

99. “Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff.”
— Steven Wright

100. “I went to the hardware store to buy some batteries, but they weren’t included, so I had to buy them again.”
— Steven Wright

101. “If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?”
— Steven Wright

102. “I went to San Francisco. I found someone’s heart.”
— Steven Wright

103. “How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?”
— Steven Wright

104. “Why are there five syllables in the word “monosyllabic”?”
— Steven Wright

105. “It was the first time I was ever in love, and I learned a lot. Before that I’d never even thought about killing myself.”
— Steven Wright

106. “Why isn’t the word “phonetically” spelled with an “f”?”
— Steven Wright

107. “My socks DO match. They’re the same thickness.”
— Steven Wright

108. “What happens if you get scared half to death twice?”
— Steven Wright

109. “Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen.”
— Steven Wright

110. “Some friends of mine got me a sweater for my birthday. I’d have preferred a moaner or a screamer, but the sweater was OK.”
— Steven Wright

111. “I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.”
— Steven Wright

112. “I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.”
— Steven Wright

113. “Black holes result from God dividing the universe by zero.”
— Steven Wright

114. “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.”
— Steven Wright

115. “Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts.”
— Steven Wright

116. “I bought a house on a one-way dead-end road. I don’t know how I got there.”
— Steven Wright

117. “A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I’m afraid of widths.”
— Steven Wright

118. “I tried to hang myself with a bungee cord. I kept almost dying.”
— Steven Wright

119. “There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.”
— Steven Wright

120. “You know how it is when you’re walking up the stairs, and you get to the top, and you think there’s one more step? I’m like that all the time.”
— Steven Wright

121. “I’m a peripheral visionary.”
— Steven Wright

122. “I met this wonderful girl at Macy’s. She was buying clothes and I was putting Slinkies on the escalator.”
— Steven Wright

123. “Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.”
— Steven Wright

124. “If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?”
— Steven Wright

125. “I’m addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn’t matter.”
— Steven Wright

126. “I washed a sock. Then I put it in the dryer. When I took it out, it was gone.”
— Steven Wright

127. “I got this powdered water – now I don’t know what to add.”
— Steven Wright

128. “They say the universe is expanding. That should help with the traffic.”
— Steven Wright

129. “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.’”
— Steven Wright

130. “Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country.”
— Steven Wright

131. “I’m a psychic amnesiac. I know in advance what I’ll forget.”
— Steven Wright

132. “I was thinking that women should put pictures of missing husbands on beer cans.”
— Steven Wright

133. “Why do they sterilize needles for lethal injections?”
— Steven Wright

134. “The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.”
— Steven Wright

135. “If you are in a spaceship that is traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything happen?”
— Steven Wright

136. “If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn’t it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?”
— Steven Wright

137. “In a lot of ways, success is much harder than I thought it would be. I figured that you’d get here and then everything would be happily ever after. But, it’s hard work, almost harder once you’re successful because you’ve got to maintain it.”
— Steven Wright

138. “What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?”
— Steven Wright

139. “I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.”
— Steven Wright

140. “Why isn’t the number 11 pronounced onety one?”
— Steven Wright

141. “The Bermuda Triangle got tired of warm weather. It moved to Alaska. Now Santa Claus is missing.”
— Steven Wright

142. “If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren’t people from Holland called Holes?”
— Steven Wright

143. “For my sister’s 50th birthday, I sent her a singing mammogram.”
— Steven Wright

144. “I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights, so it looks like I’m the only one moving.”
— Steven Wright

145. “Do Roman paramedics refer to IV’s as ’4’s??”
— Steven Wright

146. “I’m moving to Mars next week, so if you have any boxes…”
— Steven Wright

147. “When I die, I’m leaving my body to science fiction.”
— Steven Wright

148. “Do you have any toy train schedules?”
— Steven Wright

149. “Always try to be modest, and be proud of it!”
— Steven Wright

150. “Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity. If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your head. If you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick.”
— Steven Wright