Insightful And Funny Quotes From Jerry Seinfeld's Stand-Up And His Book

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the best comedians of all time. Between his standup act and his book SeinLanguage, he is full of hilarious and insightful comedy. The best comedy has little truth in it, and his definitely does. Here are just a few of his best, and funniest, lines.

I always say your number of years in comedy is about your maturity level. When you're doing it ten years, you're like a 10-year-old. Fifteen, you're like a 15-year-old; you're start-- a slight bit of maturity. Twenty years, you're like-- kind of a grown-up, but still completely infantile.

Seinfeld's always been a little immature.

I'm on the plane, we left late, and the pilot says, "We're going to be making up some time in the air." I thought, "Isn't that interesting. They just make up time." That's why you have to reset your watch when you land. Of course, when they say they're making up time, obviously they're increasing the speed of the aircraft. Now my question is, if you can go faster, why don't you just go as fast as you can all the time? "Come on, there're no cops up here! Nail it! Give it some gas!"

Plane jokes! Classic Jerry Seinfeld. When people imitate him, plane jokes are where they go with it.

You know how the old people drive? They drive slow, they sit low. That is their motto. The state flag of Florida should be just a steering wheel with a hat and two knuckles on it. And then that left turn signal on from when they left the house that morning. That's a legal turn in Florida: it's known as an eventual left.

He might be immature at times. but he's got an old soul.

Men and women will never understand each other; we all know that. It's just not gonna happen; just forget it. I know I will not understand women. I know I will never be able to understand how a woman could take boiling hot wax, pour it on her upper thighs, rip the hair out by the root... and still be afraid of a spider.

Relationships have always been at the forefront of his work.

I really feel that that's one of the big powers of adulthood, is the ability to be totally bored and remain standing. I think that's why they can set up the DMV that way.

Every day observations. The heart and soul of Jerry Seinfeld's comedy and philosophy.

Neat and clean. That's the way I want to live. My idea of the perfect living room would be the bridge on the Starship Enterprise: big chair, nice TV, remote control. That's why Star Trek really was the ultimate male fantasy. Hurtling through space in your living room, watching TV.

Jerry loves pop culture, like Star Trek and Superman.

The whole supermarket itself is designed to break down your sense of having any life outside the supermarket. It's like a casino: there's no clocks, no windows, no easily-accessible exits. You ever not buy anything in the supermarket and try to get out of there? It's impossible. There's no way out.

Once again, he nails it by the way he sees the world differently, and with an eye like no other.

Dads feel they know enough about the world to start their own civilization. That's what the family is to them. The fathers think "The hell with life! I can invent my own people. My own rules for fashion. My own health and diet."

The truth Seinfeld speaks is the truth we all want.

Nobody wants anything less than "extra strength". "Extra strength" is the absolute minimum. You can't even get "strength"; "strength" is out now. It's all "extra strength". Some people are not satisfied with "extra"; they want "maximum". "Give me the 'maximum strength'." "Give me the maximum allowable human dosage." "Figure out what will kill me and then back it off a little bit."

This is maybe my favorite joke, and I think of it every time I open a bottle of Advil. Which is to say, I think of it often.

Dogs are broke their entire lives. And you know why they have no money? No pockets! They have no pockets. They see change on the street, there is nothing they can do about it.

I think pockets aren't the only reason, but it is ONE reason, right?

Some people actually cheat on the people that they're cheating with, which is like holding up a bank and then turning to the robber next to you and going, "All right, give me everything you got, too."

Reverse psychology is classic Seinfeld.

I'll tell you, you get into a hot tub with three or four really old men, this is not the cover of the Club Med brochure. They get out of the tub, it looks like an ad for gravity.

The older I get, the more this one stings!

Flying doesn't make me nervous. Driving to the airport can make me nervous. Because if you miss that plane, there's no alternative. No airline goes, "Well, you missed the flight. We do have a cannon leaving in about ten minutes. Would you be interested in that? It's not a direct cannon, you have to change cannons after you land

The thought of being shot out of a cannon sometimes sounds preferable to dealing with the airport, if I'm honest. Maybe this is the way to go. I hate missing flights more than anything in the world.

To me, clothes spend most of their lives waiting, if you look at it. In the closet, in the hamper, in the drawer. The shirts in your house right now are going "He never picks me...". Laundry day is their only exciting day, 'cause the washing machine is the nightclub of clothes. It's dark, bubbles happening; they're all kind of dancing around in there. A shirt grabs the underwear: "C'mon, babe, let's go!"

Who looks at their closet or a dirty pile of clothes and thinks of something like this? It might be disturbing if it weren't so funny!

Dating is not easy. What is a date, really, but a job interview that lasts all night? The only difference between a date and a job interview is: not many job interviews is there a chance you'll end up naked at the end of it. "Well, Bill, the boss thinks you're the man for the position! Why don't you strip down, meet some of the people you'll be workin' with?"

I've never thought of dating like this, but then, when Jerry Seinfeld makes the observation, it makes perfect sense!

The dumbest thing of all, I think, you can think in a New York cab is "Well, the man knows what he's doing!" "I mean, he is driving a little fast, but he's a professional cab driver. He's got a cab driver's license; I can see it right there." I don't even know what it takes to get a cab driver's license. I think all you need is a face... and a name with, like, eight consonants in a row.

I lived in New York for a long time, and I never once truly trusted a cab driver, but the crazy ones always got me to my destination the fastest!

I saw a thing, actually-- a study that said: speaking in front of a crowd is considered the #1 fear of the average person. I found that amazing! #2 was death. Death is #2? This means, to the average person, if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.

As someone who used to speak in front of people for a job at one point in my life, I appreciate the joke, but #2 still scares me more.

What is this urge to get information we already have? Whenever I'm in a car, and I drive by a mirrored office building, I look in the reflection to see if I'm in the car. This is information I already have! What am I looking for? Why am I checking? And what would I do if I looked and I saw that there was a small Korean woman driving my car?

Again, one of those classic observations that makes all feel silly for the things we all do on a regular basis. Seinfeld has a special skill in pointing those things out.

Whenever a friend refers a doctor they say, "Make sure you tell him that you know me." Why? What's the difference? He's a doctor. "Oh, you know Bob? Oh, okay. I'll give you the real medicine. Everybody else I'm giving Tic Tacs."

Bob knows people. Listen to Bob. Doctors are like nightclubs, there is a secret password for the best ones, right? Maybe not. Seinfeld is right.

The equivalent for a normal person would be to go in to work in your underwear... and try and do your job that you normally do. All of a sudden, you can't do anything. That's how a comedian feels when he's doing a new bit.

We all feel exposed at times. Maybe comedians do feel it more than we do, I don't know, I don't deliver jokes as well as Jerry Seinfeld.

It is amazing what people will believe. I mean, I've watched these infomercials late at night: if it gets late enough, the products start to look good to me. I have actually found myself sitting there thinking "Y'know... I don't think I have a knife that can cut through a shoe..." "I don't think any of my knives are good enough to cut through shoes!" "I'm gonna get this knife and cut my shoes up."

I haven't watched a lot of infomercials lately, but it's amazing how close I used to come to ordering the dumbest stuff I saw.

Now they show you how detergents get out bloodstains on television: pretty violent image, there! I think if you've got a T-shirt with bloodstains all over it, maybe laundry isn't your biggest problem right now. Maybe you ought to get rid of the body before you do the wash.

Seriously. If you've got a lot of blood on your shirt, you'd better be in the emergency or confessing to the police.

I would say the main competition for the book is the video because for some reason people feel they need to come home with a rectangular block of something that they don't know the end of. The big advantage of a book is it's very easy to rewind. Close it and you're right back at the beginning.

As writers who write about movies and TV all the time, this is the kind of conversation that comes up all the time.

A comedian is basically a very aggressive thing to do. You force people to see things your way so powerfully, they react audibly! They actually-- you force them to react. It's "Look at things the way I look at them, and laugh at it when I say to!"

This really lays out exactly how Seinfeld treats his job. He's so good at it, you never feel like he's attacking you, but you do almost always come around to his way of thinking. It's an amazing trick that only the comedians can do, and Seinfeld does it better than most. It's really special.