Paula Poundstone

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"I'm thankful that my memory is good because my vision is going."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up - 'cause they're looking for ideas."

"Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up 'cause they're looking for ideas."

"The problem with cats is that they get the same exact look whether they see a moth or an ax-murderer."

"There are those wonderful moments of clarity in life when one is reminded how irreparably flawed we humans are. Once, when I was nineteen, on the subway in Boston I lost my balance slightly and bumped into an elderly woman. I quickly apologized and she replied, "Well, hold on to something, stupid." There it is. That's it. That's it in a nutshell. I don't want to sound negative, but I think every fetus should be shown a film of that incident, maybe projected up on the uterine wall, and then asked if it wants to come out. I am a strong believer in a woman's right to choose, but I also think that in the last trimester, the kid should be given every opportunity to back out."

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