Dick Cavett

“Does anything show the complexity of the miraculous brain more than that weird curiosity, the sleep-protection dream?”

“To label me an intellectual is a misunderstanding of what that is.”

“I'll be happy if I can just stay out of Nebraska.”

“The brain process that results in a joke materializing where no joke was before remains a mystery. I'm not aware of any scholarly, scientific or neurological studies on the subject.”

“It's no fun being a specimen.”

“I'm not the guy with the enormous comedy nose or the big feet or the bad posture or the whatever; a physical comic has certain things.”

“Why are people afraid of ghosts? 'Ooh, no, I wouldn't want to see one! I'd be too scared' - accompanied by a tremolo of fear in the voice - is the common reaction. This puzzles me. I'd think...”

“I'm not sure why writing for others became harder. Probably a reluctance to give away anything you might conceivably use yourself caused a block. I did it, but it remained hard when it had o...”

“Teaching is an art and a profession requiring years of training.”

“Perhaps the saddest irony of depression is that suicide happens when the patient gets a little better and can again function sufficiently.”

“I'm not freakishly short. I had, on my show, used shortness as a joke subject; it didn't really bother me.”

“Sloppy language leads to sloppy thought, and sloppy thought to sloppy legislation.”

“I have never been converted to or even had much interest in spiritualism, occultism, Swedenborgianism or any particular religion. And I never, except occasionally for a laugh, visit the quac...”

“I'm the only talk show host, I think, if there's such a category in, what's called, the book of records, to have a guest die while we were taping the show, yeah.”

“Therapists need to give a depressed patient support and direction.”

“The emotions in all true anxiety dreams are next to unbearable.”

“Unpleasant reading on the subject of anger tells us that there's not really anything wrong with it. In limited amounts. It can even be a good thing. A pressure valve.”

“Nobody is going to try to confiscate guns, although some Web sites know better: President Obama, they are certain, wants to.”