Cheers may have been off the air for twenty-six years now, but it’s just as relevant today as it was in the 80s and early ‘90s, and no one is more hilariously relatable than Clifford C. Clavin, Jr., or Cliff, everyone’s favorite postal worker and obnoxious know-it-all barfly.

The funny thing is, Cliff wasn’t even in the original pilot for Cheers, but actor John Ratzenberger’s audition was so good that the producers on the show actually worked with him to create the character of Cliff. Thank goodness they did, too, because, otherwise, there wouldn’t be these ten hilarious quotes from Cliff that are still just as hilarious today as they were the day they were written.

10. “How would the Civil War have changed if Abraham Lincoln had octopus tentacles instead of a beard?”

Number ten on this list is a question I never thought to ask ourselves: “how would the Civil War have changed if Abraham Lincoln had octopus tentacles instead of a beard?” Luckily, Cliff thought to ask the real questions, so we didn’t have to. As a historian by trade, I have to ask, how would the Civil War have changed if Abraham Lincoln had octopus tentacles instead of a beard? Would people have taken him more seriously, or less? Would they have been terrified? Would Pirates of the Caribbean be different now? So many questions, so few answers.

9. “Norm, you’ve got time to make your own coal.”

Cliff is, perhaps, best known for his hilarious zingers when his friends unwittingly set themselves up. This time, Norm’s the one accidentally asking for it when he says, “I wish I had time for a hobby,” prompting Cliff to reply, “Norm, you’ve got time to make your own coal.” According to the vast wealth of knowledge that is the Internet, we all know that it takes about 300 million years to make your own coal. Cliff is right to roast his friend, too; Norm obviously has way too much time on his hands based on how much time he spends in the bar.

8. “Interesting little article here. It says that, uh… the average human being only uses 17% of his brain. Boy, you realize what that means? We don’t use a full, uh… 64%.”

I’ll admit, I’m just as bad at math as Cliff would probably be quick to point out I am, but even I heard this and knew that couldn’t be correct. Though I am bad enough at math that a calculator was put into use for these purposes. Sure enough, if the average human being only uses 17% of his brain, that means there’s a full 83% of his brain unused. Cliff is missing an entire 19% of his brain, which makes sense since he can’t do basic subtraction correctly, even when given the time to actually do the math out in his head. Nice try, buddy. You’re not fooling anyone.

7. “I wonder if you know that the harp is a predecessor of the modern-day guitar. Early minstrels were much larger people. In fact, they had hands the size of small dogs.”

Cliff wonders things throughout the day that anyone would wonder. After all, human beings are naturally curious, and it stands to reason that someone who spends as much time alone every day as a postal worker does would start to come up with some pretty interesting concepts.

Cliff fires off this fun fact—a musing, if you will—about harps and guitars, only going on to start talking about minstrels, as if anyone knows what he’s talking about. He just starts to spiral by the time he’s talking about their hands. Cliff really would have benefited from using Snopes, or even just from having the advantages of Google. As it is, he seems functionally illiterate.

6. “It doesn’t seem fair, does it, Norm? That I should have so much knowledge when there are people in the world that have to go to bed stupid every night?”

Cliff is worried about his buddies, that much is clear from this hilarious quote from him where he asks his buddy, “it doesn’t seem fair, does it, Norm? That I should have so much knowledge when there are people in the world that have to go to bed stupid every night?” He’s right, it isn’t fair.

There are so, so many stupid people in the world that go to bed every night without using the full 100% of their brain, just like Cliff says he does—or might, if he had been able to do that math early. Regardless, Cliff is aware that life just ain’t fair—for him more than most, it seems.

5. “That’s when you say one thing when you’re actually thinking about a mother.”

Woody with the wind-up: “What’s a Freudian Slip?,” and Cliff with the pitch: “That’s when you say one thing when you’re actually thinking about a mother.” Cliff must have been either so mortified or so proud when he said that. Knowing him, he would probably insist for years and years to come that he meant to say “a mother” rather than “another,” that he was giving an example, c’mon, guys.

Either way, is it too much to hope that Cliff doesn’t have an Oedipus complex? Was that ever something the other guys at Cheers were concerned about? Because, apparently, they should’ve been.

4. “It’s a little known fact that cows were domesticated in Mesopotamia and were also used in China as guard animals for the forbidden city.”

Ah, Cliff and his “little known facts.” If he had a nickel for every time he told someone a “little known fact,” the man would have enough money to buy Cheers from Sam.

This time, he even starts out strong, with a fact I couldn’t disprove (mostly because I don’t know enough about the topic to speak intelligently about it): cows were domesticated in Mesopotamia. Sure, why not? Sounds good. Then, we get to the punchline: cows were also used in China as guard animals for the forbidden city. I’m picturing the cow in The Emperor’s New Groove in a helmet with a sword. Hopefully, the forbidden city wasn’t dangerous?

Speaking of Cliff’s “little known facts,” one of his best ones is also one of his shortest facts to date: “It’s a little-known fact that the tan became popular in what is known as the Bronze Age.” Any historian worth her salt can tell you that the Bronze Age is so-named because it was a period characterized by humanity’s usage of bronze.

Though people were working outside quite a bit and probably were rather tan, Cliff seems to be the only one who thinks that bronzeis referring to the skinof the people alive during the time period. Also, the Bronze Age is characterized by cultures beginning to develop the first systems of writing, one of which was the cuneiform script of Mesopotamia, which begs the question: why does Cliff know so many random almost-facts about Mesopotamia?

2. “There’s no rule against postal workers not dating women. It just works out that way.”

Oof. You hate to see it. Sometimes, people say things so blissfully ignorant you can’t help but laugh at them. To quote Diane, “if ignorance is bliss, this is Eden.” Poor Cliff doesn’t even realize that there doesn’t need to be a rule against postal workers not dating women because women don’t seem to ever want to date them—or, at least, they don’t want to date Cliff.

Interesting that Cliff specifies women, though; do the postal workers only employ gay men? Are there female postal workers? Do they have to be straight women? Once again, one of Cliff’s hilarious quotes only asks more questions than it answers. The question at the top of the list, though, remains the same: is Cliff okay?

1. “You wanna see dark sides, you oughta see Ma when you leave the shower curtain outside the tub.”

The question at the top of the list now has an answer: no! No, Cliff is not okay; clearly, that Oedipus complex we were worried about earlier has come back around to haunt us. Cliff doesn’t want to talk about his own dark side, nor does he want to try a reference to Star Wars; instead, Cliff decides to return to the subject of his mother, and how controlling and feral she seems to be. The same woman who gave her son the Freudian slip also, apparently, lashes out when water drips onto her bathroom floor.

Makes sense, though, that the number one quote from Cliff would be something both hilarious and chillingly haunting. For so many of us, Cliff Clavin is simply timeless.