Paula Poundstone famous quotes

The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Cat #Animal #Humanity

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Thinking #Community #Library

Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas
-- Paula Poundstone

#Growing Up #Children #Kids

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

#Time #Taken #Tired

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

#Community #Library #Speech

My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim.'
-- Paula Poundstone

#Funny #Mom #Lakes

I’m an atheist. The good news about atheists is that we have no mandate to convert anyone. So you’ll never find me on your doorstep on a Saturday morning with a big smile saying ‘Just stopped by to tell you there is no word. I brought along this little blank book I was hoping you could take a look at.’
-- Paula Poundstone

#Morning #Atheist #Book

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Sports #Believe #Indecision

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

#Funny #Saving #Three

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Children #Laughter #Grateful

When we live up to our Constitution, let's form a Conga line around the Capitol and bungee jump off the dome.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Lines #Domes #Constitution

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Mother #School #Kids

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Years #Numbers #Degrees

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Night #Clubs #Auditions

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Party #Rain #Noise

There are really only so many foods and so many ways you can prepare them.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Way

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

#Funny #Mother #Money

I was born in Alabama, but I only lived there for a month before I'd done everything there was to do.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Done #Months #Alabama

Once I was gone for a month and I was just miserable, so I flew back from Florida for two hours just to be home and see my cats.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Cat #Home #Florida

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Land #Talking #World

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Kids #Two #Work Out

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Want #Observation

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#California #Alaska #Presidential

I love key lime pie, although it's never made the proper way.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Pie #Keys #Way

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Witty #Clever #Mean

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Watches #Sense Of Humor #My Family

I'm thankful that my memory is good because my vision is going.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Memories #Vision

My act is sort of improvisational. I have a skeleton in my head, but no fat or skin on it.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Skeletons #Skins #Fats

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

#Hate #Hair #I Hate

I also like a great Caesar salad with anchovies, although I don't know why some places say 'with anchovies.' If you're making a proper Caesar salad, it's going to have anchovies.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Caesar Salad #Salad

Can you remember when you didn't want to sleep? Isn't it inconceivable? I guess the definition of adulthood is that you want to sleep.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Sleep #Want #Definitions

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?
-- Paula Poundstone

#Sweet #Nice #Eye

The definition of adulthood is that you want to sleep.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Sleep #Definitions #Want

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Brother #Kids #Names

I don't like sex ... I'm a single working mom with nine cats, a dog-shark, a lizard, and a bunny. I don't go to bed, I pass out. The idea that I'd get to my bed and there'd be someone in there with whom I was supposed to have an activity is horrifying to me.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Mom #Dog #Sex

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Atheist #Believe #Guy

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

#Night #Talking #Crowds

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Beautiful #Memories #Talking

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

#Forget

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Unique #Brain #Trying

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

#Memories #Loss #Thinking

I don't have a bank account because I don't know my mother's maiden name and apparently that's the key to the whole thing right there. I go in every few weeks and guess.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Mother #Names #Keys

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!
-- Paula Poundstone

#Ocean #Kissing #Hands

I used to work at The International House of Pancakes. It was a dream, and I made it happen.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Dream #Work #House

I think we need a 12-step group for non-stop talkers. We're going to call it On and On Anon.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Thinking #Needs #Steps

I know a little bit about handicapping. If the horse has an IV, you want to stay - away from it.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Horse #Gambling #Littles

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Senior #Children #Years

The position of First Lady has no rules, just precedent, so its evolution has been at a virtual standstill for years. If Martha Washington didn't do it, then no one is sure it should be done.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Years #Done #Firsts

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.
-- Paula Poundstone

#Silly #Shoes #Paper

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

#Home #Kids #Firsts

When every high school graduate can spell the word, 'inauguration,' let's put lampshades on our heads and listen to his speeches until Obama's voice gives out.
-- Paula Poundstone

#School #Voice #Giving