No Poe text contains this line. Quote Investigator ↗ finds the joke in a May 12, 1946 New York Times article by Joe Laurie Jr. that credits it to comedian “Senator” Ford: “Does anyone in your family suffer from insanity?” / “No, they enjoy it.” QI credits Ford with that version only tentatively. The first-person “enjoy every minute of it” wording came later, by way of email sign-offs, bumper stickers and T-shirts.
“I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it” not Edgar Allan Poe. An anonymous joke that Quote Investigator traces to a 1946 New York Times article crediting comedian “Senator” Ed Ford (tentatively); the modern wording came later. Quotle.info
Can you use it?
? We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool
In context
Evoking the world of Edward Hastings Ford — Vaudeville comedian; creator of radio’s Can You Top This?. Theme: "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
Where the joke actually comes from
Earliest form found
“That’s No Gag, That’s a Switch,” Joe Laurie Jr., The New York Times
Date
May 12, 1946
Credited to
“Senator” Ed Ford (Edward Hastings Ford), tentatively, per Quote Investigator
Modern wording
Appears in a 1995 Washington Post column on email catchphrases
“Does anyone in your family suffer from insanity?” “No, they enjoy it.”
1946 form
This is the joke as Quote Investigator transcribes it from the 1946 New York Times. In the same piece, Laurie shows the older rheumatism gag it was switched from (“Does anyone in your family suffer with rheumatism?”). The first-person “I don’t suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it” is a later rewording.
1946: Joe Laurie Jr.’s New York Times article on comedians “switching” old jokes gives the insanity version and credits “Senator” Ford. (Quote Investigator ↗)
1957: Lloyd Biggle Jr.’s story “Leading Man” in Galaxy Science Fiction says of the patients in a mental hospital: “They don’t suffer anything. They enjoy every minute of it.” (Quote Investigator ↗)
1995–1997: The exact first-person line appears in a 1995 Washington Post column on email sign-off catchphrases. It then shows up in a 1997 bumper-sticker roundup and on a T-shirt the Post listed among the funniest of summer 1997. (Quote Investigator ↗)
2014: The Poe Museum lists the saying among quotes falsely attributed to Poe and finds no evidence of it before the later half of the twentieth century. (Poe Museum blog ↗)
The line is an anonymous joke that changed over decades, with no single identifiable published work, so Quotle.info claims no copyright status for it. It is not from any Poe work. The 1946 New York Times article quoted above is a separate publication with its own rights.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Why people credit it to Poe — and who else gets it
Poe’s tales of madness make him an easy target for any clever line about insanity. Quote Investigator’s investigation opens by listing the candidates it found: Poe, Edward Hastings Ford, Lloyd Biggle Jr., Pat Williams, Joss Whedon, a bumper sticker, a T-shirt slogan, and “Anonymous.”
✕
The famous nameEdgar Allan Poe Spurious
Quote Investigator writes that there is “no substantive evidence that Poe said or wrote this quotation” and calls the connection spurious (QI ↗). The Poe Museum lists it among falsely attributed quotes (Poe Museum blog ↗). Poe did write a real line on the subject, quoted below under Context.
~
Science-fiction echoLloyd Biggle Jr. Later variant
His 1957 Galaxy story “Leading Man” has “They don’t suffer anything. They enjoy every minute of it.” That is eleven years after the 1946 New York Times version, and the wording is still not first-person (QI ↗).
~
Joke books and pop culturePat Williams; Joss Whedon Later use
Quote Investigator names both as candidates. It cites a 1984 Cleveland Plain Dealer review of a one-liner book by Williams that used a sportswriter version (“doesn’t suffer from insanity. He enjoys it.”), and a 2012 mailing-list message noting that a student had credited the line to Joss Whedon. Both come decades after 1946 (QI ↗).
✓The joke was circulating by 1946, when the New York Times credited a version to comedian “Senator” Ed Ford. Quote Investigator credits him only tentatively and notes the wording changed over time. The line is not Poe’s (Quote Investigator ↗).
Context
What Poe actually wrote about insanity
Poe did write a memorable line about madness, though it is darker than the bumper-sticker joke. In a letter to George W. Eveleth dated January 4, 1848, he described his state of mind during his wife’s long illness: “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” (Poe Society of Baltimore ↗).
The joke works the other way round. It treats madness as fun, not suffering, and that twist comes from the vaudeville habit of “switching” old gags, here a rheumatism joke turned into an insanity joke. A century later the same punchline was being printed on T-shirts.
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. — Poe, letter of January 4, 1848
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1887–1970 · Vaudeville comedian; creator of radio’s Can You Top This?
Edward Hastings Ford was born in Brooklyn and performed in vaudeville as “Senator” Ford. He created the radio joke-telling show Can You Top This?, where he sat on the panel with Joe Laurie Jr. and Harry Hershfield. In a 1946 New York Times article about how comedians rework old gags, Laurie credited him with the insanity joke. Quote Investigator treats Ford as a tentative originator of that early version, not of the modern wording.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Earliest citation in Quote Investigator’s research
Joe Laurie Jr., “That’s No Gag, That’s a Switch,” New York Times, May 12, 1946 (joke credited to “Senator” Ford), as documented in Quote Investigator, “I Don’t Suffer from Insanity; I Enjoy Every Minute of It!” December 21, 2015, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/21/enjoy/.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it’?” Last verified 3 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-dont-suffer-from-insanity-i-enjoy-every-minute-of-it/