Paula Poundstone 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.

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.

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

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

I got my dog three years ago because I was drunk in a pet store. We had nine cats at the time. The cats started hiding the alcohol after that.

I get in fewer arguments when I'm alone.

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

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.

Remember when you were considered an environmentalist when you didn't throw junk out the car window? I sure do miss that simpler, happier time.

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.’

Gay Republicans, how exactly does that work? 'We disapprove of our own lifestyle. We beat ourselves up in parking lots.

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.

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!

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.

What moron said that knowledge is power? Knowledge is power only if it doesn't depress you so much that it leaves you in an immobile heap at the end of your bed.

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

I was court-ordered to Alcoholics Anonymous on television. Pretty much blows the hell out of the second A, wouldn't you say?

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.