Ten Great Steven Wright One-Liners

Stand-Up isn't my favourite form of comedy. Sometimes it seems like a room full of canned laughter revolving around some guy of average comic ability trying way too hard.

Steven Wright barely tries at all. No-one, inside the world of comedy or outside, has a better deadpan than Steven Wright. That wry monotone is by itself an art form that no one else can master. But he uses it in service of one-liners that, at their best, are amazingly clever epigrams that one doesn't get immediately but makes up for lost time in laughter once it sinks in.

Steven Wright is one of the greats. Here are ten of his best.

1.	EXISTENTIAL MAP: "I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it."
2.	SPONGES: "Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn't happen."
3.	IMMORTALITY: "I intend to live forever. So far, so good."
4.	CANDLE SHOP: "I remember when the candle shop burned down. Everyone stood around singing 'Happy Birthday.'"
5.	SECOND MOUSE: "The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
6.	THE BEACH: "Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see them at the beach... it pisses me off! I'll go over to a little baby and say 'What are you doing here? You haven't worked a day in your life!'"
7.	THE OTHER HAND: "On the other hand, you have different fingers."
8.	SYNCHRONISED SWIMMING: "If one synchronised swimmer drowns, do all the rest have to drown too?"
9.	CLOWNS: "I had a friend who was a clown. When he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car."
10.	WIDTHS: A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths.