Ours is a government of checks and balances. The Mafia and crooked businessmen make out checks, and the politicians and other compromised officials improve their bank balances.

- Steve Allen

Asthma doesn't seem to bother me any more unless I'm around cigars or dogs. The thing that would bother me most would be a dog smoking a cigar.

- Steve Allen

The hair is real - it's the head that's a fake.

- Steve Allen

In a rational society we would want our presidents to be teachers. In our actual society we insist they be cheerleaders.

- Steve Allen

If the Old Testament were a reliable guide in the matter of capital punishment, half the people in the United States would have to be killed tomorrow.

- Steve Allen

If there is a God, the phrase that must disgust him is - holy war.

- Steve Allen

One of the nice things about problems is that a good many of them do not exist except in our imaginations.

- Steve Allen

Totalitarianism is patriotism institutionalized.

- Steve Allen

Humor is a social lubricant that helps us get over some of the bad spots.

- Steve Allen

I used to be a heavy gambler. But now I just make mental bets. That's how I lost my mind.

- Steve Allen

Dark energy is perhaps the biggest mystery in physics.

- Steve Allen