Background Image

...

The Most Important Part Of Life Is Work, It's The Flow, It's Getting Stuff Done, Feeling Like You're Doing Something.

-Penn Jillette

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Most Important Part

Penn Jillette

...

The Most Important Part Of Life Is Work, It's The Flow, It's Getting Stuff Done, Feeling Like You're Doing Something.

Views: 10

Topic

More From Penn Jillette

There's No Job In Show Business That's Harder Than Any Other Job Outside Show Business.

You Don’t Have To Be Brave Or A Saint, A Martyr, Or Even Very Smart To Be An Atheist. All You Have To Be Able To Say Is “i Don’t Know”.

The Only Place We Were Really Told To Tone It Down - Where Other People Would Use The Word Censorship, But I Wouldn't - Was When We Did Mtv Right After The Beavis And Butt-head Thing.

I've Voted Libertarian As Long As I Can Remember, But I Don't Really Remember Much Before The Clintons And The Bushes. Those Clans Made A Lot Of Us Bugnutty.

The Reason I'm An I.b.m.-type Guy Today Is That I Really Needed A Laptop Back In 1986, And I Just Couldn't Wait For The Powerbook.

Exploration Of Space Is Worth It Because Humans Need To Explore. Knowledge Is Always Good, And It's A Really Cool Thing To See.

Everybody Wants Clean, Safe Energy. Some People Think Nuclear Is The Way To Go. Some People Think Coal Is The Way To Go. Some People Think Wind Is The Way To Go. And There's Always Balances On That.

Juggling Is Very, Very Straightforward; Very, Very Black And White; You're Manipulating Objects, Not People. And That's Always Appealed To Me.

Black And White

Straightforward

I Came To Magic Absolutely Hating Magic On A Very, Very Deep Level.

It Seems Just Rude To Beg The Invisible For More.

I Believe That The Best Way To Become An Atheist Is To Read The Bible

We Celebrities Are Desperate Pigs.

I Believe The Fast Track To Atheism Is Reading The Bible. I've Read It Three Times All The Way Through. It's A Big Part Of Our Culture, A Big Part Of Our History. I Don't Just Read Things I Agree With.

There Is No Reason For The Government To Limit Political Speech.

Never Ascribe To Conspiracy That Which Can Be Attributed To Ignorance.

One Of The Strongest Feelings You Can Get In Life--one Of The Most Rewarding Feelings--is The Feeling Of An "aha, I Finally Understand."

How I Was Brought Up And My Imaginary Friend Means More To Me Than Anything You Can Ever Say Or Do.

Imaginary Friend

It's Only The Losers Named Dave That Think Having An Unusual Name Is Bad, And Who Cares What They Think. They're Named Dave.

Cars Mean Nothing To Me. I'm Not A Car Guy.

The End Never Justifies The Means Because There Is No End; There Are Only Means.

I Like Movies That Are Scary, But I Don't Want Them To Be Dirt Dumb. I Want A Movie That Gets My Blood Racing, Makes Me Laugh, But Also Gives Me Something To Think About, With Maybe A Little Sexy Thrown In. Hollywood Doesn't Make Movies Like That.

In Reality, Many People Let Go Of Religion Later In Life.

Bob Barr Is Not Crazy Enough For My Taste.

I'm Always Surprised When The Corporate World Does Stupid Things, Because They're Often Not Very Stupid In Hindsight.

Mentally Ill People Come From All Belief Systems.

I Was Always A Little Embarrassed When There Was An Act On Television That Requires A Great Deal Of Skill But Is A Little Goofy, And The Host Comes Over And Acts Like The Person Doing This Skill Is Some Sort Of Fool For Having Learned To Do Something That's Very, Very Difficult.

I Love When Violent, Dangerous Art Is Done By People Who Are Not Violent And Dangerous. I Love That When George Romero Was Making 'dawn Of The Dead,' He Was Coaching His Son's Little League Team.

The First Amendment Says Nothing About Your Getting Paid For Saying Anything. It Just Says You Can Say It. I Don't Believe That If A Corporation Pulls All The Money Out Of You Or A Network Pulls Their Money Away Or You Get Fired, You're Being Censored.

I Think People Under Age 55 Come To Vegas With A Certain Sense Of Irony.

The Vast Majority Of People Who Have Guns Never Hurt Anybody.

There Are Performers Who Have Built Their Whole Career Doing Magic On Tv And Can't Really Perform Live At All - Don't Really Have Jobs And Skills.

I Don't Want Anyone As President Who Promises To Take Care Of Me. I May Be Stupid, But I Want A Chance To Try To Be A Grown-up And Take Care Of My Family.

My Parents Were Teetotalers And My Grandparents Were - It's All The Way Back. It's New English Puritanical Tradition.

It Wasn't Success, Because Teller And I, By The Time Asparagus Valley Got Together - Within A Year, We Had Achieved All Our Goals. I Mean, Our Goal Was To Earn Our Living Doing Exactly What We Wanted. Which Is Many People's Goal.

Congratulations

A Joke Is A Way To Say, 'i'm Going To Do Something Funny Now. If I Don't Get A Laugh At The End, I'm A Failure.'

The Skills That We Have Are The Actual Magic Skills - Not The Performing Skills. We Have To Separate Those. But The Actual Skills That Make The Tricks Work, We Don't Get To Use Again.

Charities Are Really Good. To A Certain Extent, The Ones You Pick Are Arbitrary.

Freedom Means The Right To Be Stupid.

One Of The Things That Teller And I Are Obsessed With, One Of The Reasons That We're In Magic, Is The Difference Between Fantasy And Reality.

Behaving Morally Because Of A Hope Of Reward Or A Fear Of Punishment Is Not Morality.

How Much Do You Have To Hate Somebody To Not Proselytize?

Everlasting Life

We Need A President Who Realizes That There's No Government Business In Show Business.

My Favorite Thing About The Internet Is That You Get To Go Into The Private World Of Real Creeps Without Having To Smell Them.

Computers Absolutely Changed My Life. Before I Had A Computer, I Had Never Written One Thing. Not One Thing. I'm A Very Bad Speller And I Was Embarrassed By That. When I Would Type, The Little Mistakes Would Make Me Nutty, And I Would Never Edit Anything.

Bob Saget Is The Dirtiest Comic Who's Ever Lived. Nobody Touches Him.

My Hair Is Way, Way Long. I've Hitchhiked Across The Country A Zillion Times. I've Ridden In Every Car. I Was Never A Hippie. It Takes More Than Long Hair.

I, My Own Damn Self, Am Not A Tea Party Supporter. I Disagree With Them On Social Liberties, Our Overseas Wars, Obama's Birthplace, Sarah Palin, And The Conspicuous Absence Of Tea At Their Rallies.

Direct Confrontation, Direct Conversation Is Real Respect. And It's Amazing How Many People Get That.

I Believe Very Much That The Most Damning Thing You Can Say About Muslims Is That You're Afraid To Say Anything Because They'll Hurt You.

Religion Cannot And Should Not Be Replaced By Atheism. Religion Needs To Go Away And Not Be Replaced By Anything. Atheism Is Not A Religion. It's The Absence Of Religion, And That's A Wonderful Thing.

Teller And I Worked Renaissance Festivals And Street Performing - Actually More Real, No Kidding Around, Philadelphia Street Performing Than We Did Renaissance Festivals.

I'm Really Happy With All The Art That Was Inspired By Religion, And I Think I'd Be Tickled To Little Tiny Pieces If Art In The Future Was Inspired By Other Things.

If You Can Just Convince The Dope People That The Gun People Are Right And The Gun People That The Dope People Are Right, We Could Actually Live In A Lot More Freedom.

I've Always Wanted To Make The World A More Rational Place. I'm Still Working On It.

The Secret Truth Of 'celebrity Apprentice' Is That It Isn't Very Hard... 'celebrity Apprentice' Is Easy Like Junior High Is Easy. All The Arithmetic, The Creative Writing And The History Are Super Simple, But Like Junior High, You Do That Easy Work Surrounded By People Who Are Full-tilt, Hormone-raging Bug Nutty.

Bacon Is So Good By Itself That To Put It In Any Other Food Is An Admission Of Failure. You're Basically Saying, 'i Can't Make This Other Food Taste Good, So I'll Throw In Bacon.'

Every Nut Who Kills People Has A Bible Lying Around.

Hypocrisy Is Annoying But Not Evil. Someone Who Says One Thing And Does Another Has Doubled Their Chances Of Being Half Right.

Technology Adds Nothing To Art. Two Thousand Years Ago, I Could Tell You A Story, And At Any Point During The Story I Could Stop, And Ask, 'now Do You Want The Hero To Be Kidnapped, Or Not?' But That Would, Of Course, Have Ruined The Story. Part Of The Experience Of Being Entertained Is Sitting Back And Plugging Into Someone Else's Vision.

If You Want To Talk About Magic, The Stuff That Blows Me Away Is The Stuff That's Done Close Up.

'psycho' Is Fascinating Philosophically, Because The Point Of 'psycho' Is That Everything That's Bad Happens Because Of Love.

My Whole Family Is Missing That Sports Gene. I Hope I Didn't Screw That Up By Marrying A Great Golfer.

We Have To Fight For The Freedom To Be Stupid, And Smoking Is One Of The Best Ways To Fight For Your Freedom, To Be Just As Stupid As You Can Be.

I'm Always Fascinated By The Use Of The First-person Plural Talking About Sports.

Counterintuitive Actions Prove We Can Trust Real Knowledge And Do The Opposite Of What We Feel Makes Sense.

Luck Is Statistics Taken Personally.

A Lot Of People, To Attack An Outspoken Atheist, One Of The Things They'll Do Is Say, 'you Are As Bad As The Fundamentalist Christians.' And My Answer Is Always, 'i Hope So.'

It's Amazing To Me How Many People Think That Voting To Have The Government Give Poor People Money Is Compassion. Helping Poor And Suffering People Yourself Is Compassion. Voting For Our Government To Use Guns To Give Money To Help Poor And Suffering People Is Immoral, Self-righteous, Bullying Laziness.

Having A Hummer Is Stupid. It's Stupid To Waste That Much Gas. It's Stupid To Waste That Much Money On Gas. It's Stupid To Parade Your Insecurities On Public Roads. Hummers Are Stupid-looking.

Thou Shalt Not Take Anything On Faith

God Works In Mysterious, Inefficient, And Breathtakingly Cruel Ways

Mysterious Ways

Once You Have Somebody That Is Telling You, 'we Are Interpreting God For You,' It Seems Like You Either Agree Or You Don't. You Either Say, Like Martin Luther, 'i'm Going To Have A Direct Relationship With The Word Of God,' Or I''m Going To Go Through A Conduit Of God On Earth,' Which Would Be The Pope.

If Entertainment Ran Grocery Stores, We'd Never Get Oil Cured Olives Or Blue Cheese, It Would Be Just Coke.

From 1985 To 1994, I Lived In Manhattan In A Big Old Loft Right Off Times Square. I Could Walk To Work, Which Was In A Couple Of Broadway Theaters, To Howard Stern's Studio, And To 30 Rock For 'letterman' And 'snl.' Even In New York, Walking To Work Is Homey And Folksy, Like Living In A Small Town.

You Have Two Choices With Obama. You Either Believe That He Is A Man Of Christ... Or You Think He's A Liar. And I'm Surprised By The Number Of Atheist Free Thinkers That Support Obama, And Their Argument Is Essentially, 'he's Lying About Being Religious 'cause You Have To Do That To Get Elected.' It's A Horrible Reason To Like Somebody.

If I Were Trying To Avoid Embarrassment, I Wouldn't Have Stumbled My Way Through 'dancing With The Stars.'

Part Of The Experience Of Being Entertained Is Sitting Back And Plugging Into Someone Else's Vision.

Someone Who Is A Good Person Should Have No Fear Of The Government Whatsoever.

If Every Trace Of Any Single Religion Were Wiped Out And Nothing Were Passed On, It Would Never Be Created Exactly That Way Again. There Might Be Some Other Nonsense In Its Place, But Not That Exact Nonsense. If All Of Science Were Wiped Out, It Would Still Be True And Someone Would Find A Way To Figure It All Out Again.

I Don't Think Anything Gives Your Life Joy And Meaning. I Think Your Life Simply Has Joy And Meaning. The Love For My Children, The Love For My Parents And The Love For My Friends Is The End In Itself. The Meaning Is Life.

The Best Way To Fight The Terrorists Is To Have The Freest Country On Earth. You Should Be Able To Get On An Airplane, And People - That Will Not Possibly Happen Again.

The Word ‘holiday’ Comes From ‘holy Day’ And Holy Means ‘exalted And Worthy Of Complete Devotion.’ By That Definition, All Days Are Holy. Life Is Holy. Atheists Have Joy Every Day Of The Year, Every Holy Day. We Have The Wonder And Glory Of Life. We Have Joy In The World Before The Lord Is Come. We’re Not Going For The Promise Of Life After Death; We’re Celebrating Life Before Death…for Atheists, Everything In The World Is Enough And Every Day Is Holy. Every Day Is An Atheist Holiday. It’s A Day That We’re Alive.

Cheerios Bring Back Memories. I Actually Don't Think I Ate Them Much As A Kid, Though; Maybe It's Some Sort Of Jungian Memory, I Don't Know. But They Have So Much Sugar, It's Great.

The Purpose Of Art Is To Collide The Intellectual And Visceral Together At The Highest Speed Possible.

'christian' Used To Be A Throwaway Word. People Didn't Used To Use It Much. People Didn't Start Self-labeling Or Getting Labeled Christian Until The Last Part Of The 20th Century. Before That, You Might Identify As A Baptist, Or A Southern Baptist Or A Methodist. But There Wasn't One Identifier That Put You In A Fold With All The Other Believers.

I Am A Huge Fan Of Proselytizing. I Am A Huge Fan Of Speaking Your Mind. The Only Way We Can Share The Universe... Is By Talking Very Strongly About What We Believe.

A Lot Of Older Parents Worry About Being Older Parents. I Hear People Say, 'i Don't Want To Be Too Old To Play Baseball With My Son.' They Worry That Their Kids Will Be Embarrassed By Their Parents' Age.

That Whole 99% Thing, They Are All In The 1% Of The World. Every One Of Them Pays A Cellphone Bill That Is The Yearly Income For A Family In Much Of The Rest Of The World.

There Is This Tremendous Amount Of Arrogance And Hubris, Where Somebody Can Look At Something For Five Minutes And Dismiss It. Whether You Talk About Gaming Or 20th Century Classical Music, You Can't Do It In Five Minutes. You Can't Listen To 'the Rite Of Spring' Once And Understand What Stravinsky Was All About.

Everyone's Goals Are The Same With Very Small Differences. I Mean, The Goal Of A Socialist And The Goal Of A Libertarian Are Exactly The Same. The Goals Are Happiness And Security And Freedom, And You Balance Those.

Security And Freedom

The Most Important Part Of Life Is Work, It's The Flow, It's Getting Stuff Done, Feeling Like You're Doing Something.

Trey Parker Did 'book Of Mormon.' It's The Best Broadway Show I've Ever Seen. He Does 'south Park.' It's Wonderful.

When 9/11 Hit, The Second Thing I Said To Myself Was, 'this Really Is What Religious People Do.' Those People Flying The Plane Were Very Good, Very Pious, Truly Faithful Believers. There's No Other Way To Paint Them. Of Course, They Are Extremists By Definition, But They Certainly Aren't Going Against Islam In Any Real Way.

Muslim Extremists

You Get No Moral Credit For Forcing Other People To Do What You Think Is Right.

In Music, If You Hit A Wrong Note, People Forgive You. In Magic When Something Goes Wrong, The Entire Art Is Destroyed.

I Think The Media Spends A Lot Of Time Fooling Itself.

When Someone Is Trying To Interpret Something For You, They Always Have An Agenda.

If You Believe That There’s A Heaven And Hell . . . How Much Do You Have To Hate Somebody To Believe That Everlasting Life Is Possible And Not Tell Them That?

Technology Is Run By Sex, Because It's Very Important To People, Both Technology And Sex.

Asking Someone Else To Do Something Immoral Is Immoral.

All David Blaine Is Is A Good-looking Magician.

Even If I Disagree With Obama On Many, Many Things, He Is Certainly Qualified To Be President. He Is Certainly Competent To Be President.

The Cliche Of The Nerdy Kid Who Doesn't Go Outside And Just Plays Games Is Completely Untrue. And It's Also True For The Nerdy Kid Who Studies Comic Books And Turns Into This Genius, And It Is Also True For The Nerdy Kid Who Listens To Every Nerdy Thing That Led Zeppelin Put Out. That Kind Of Obsession In A 16-year-old Is Not Ugly. It's Beautiful.

Twelve Magicians And Two Carnies Have Been Shot Dead Doing The Bullet Catch. That's Cool Enough, But Every Night When We Close Our Show With That Trick And The Loaded Gun Gets Pointed In My Face, It Goes So Far Beyond Cool. All I Can Think Is 12 Magicians, Two Carnies.

Modern American Magic, Late 20th Century Magic, Is Tremendously Disrespectful Of The Audience.

Better To Be Uneducated Than Educated By Your Government.

Don't Waste Too Much Time Wishing, Hoping, And Being Envious; It'll Make You Bugnutty.

That's The Beauty Of The Web: You Can Roll Around In A Stranger's Obsession Without Having To Smell His Or Her House. You Can Amscray Whenever You Want Without Being Rude. The Site Gets Its "hit" And You Know More About Our Species' Diversity.

I Have A Very Specific Definition Of Censorship. Censorship Must Be Done By The Government Or It's Not Censorship.

Read Everything And Be Kind.

You Can't Believe How Pro Gay And Pro Freedom Of Speech I Am. I'm Way Out Beyond Anyone On The Left.

I Will Forever Stick Up For Catholics And Christians In General. With A Small Number Of Very Horrible Exceptions, They Do Play By The Rules.

Poker Would Have Never Gotten On Tv When We Only Had Three Networks.

Every Day, Tv, Newspapers, And The Internet Bombard Us With A Message That We're Destroying The Earth. Ice Caps Are Melting, Rivers Are Dying, Polar Bears Are Drowning, And Trees Are Doing Something.

You Have To Be Careful As A Libertarian Because You Can Sound Very Republican.

My Whole Take On Libertarianism Is Simply That I Don't Know What's Best For Other People.

I Love Nuts. I'm For Nuts. I Am Nuts.

Counterintuitive Action Makes A Fellow Feel Smart.

My Tolerance For Crazy People Is, I Think, High A Tolerance As You're Ever Going To Find. I Love Being Around David Allen Coe. I Would Have Loved To Hang Out With Tiny Tim. I Can Listen To Sun Ra On A Tape-recording Rant.

The Fact Is That Violence Gives You A Rush.

I Don't Believe In Vengeance. Really, When All Is Said And Done, I Probably Don't Believe In Punishment.

A Two-party System Is Way Too Good For Those Two Parties.

I Don't Speak For All Libertarians Any More Than Sean Penn Speaks For All Democrats.

I Started Out As A Juggler, So I Know What It Means To Spend Eight Hours A Day, Seven Days A Week Practicing Something That People Just Dismiss With A Wave Of Hand.

I Was About 12 When I Heard My First Lenny Bruce Record. He Was Already Dead. But It Changed My Life And Really Did Change The World.

I'm Not Greedy. I Have Love, Blue Skies, Rainbows And Hallmark Cards And That Has To Be Enough. It Has To Be Enough, But It's Everything In The World And Everything In The World Is Plenty For Me. It Seems Just Rude To Beg The Invisible For More.

If You Are Doing Something For Reward Or Punishment, You Do Not Have Morality.

One Thing You Learn Doing Magic Tricks For A Living Is How Close Every Performance Of Every Magic Trick Is To Disaster. There Are No Robust Magic Tricks. They're All Hanging From A Thread - Sometimes Literally.

My Love Of Computers, Besides Being Practical, Is Very Direct And Visceral. I Love The Way Things Look On The Screen.

The Vast Majority Of The World Knows There's No Reason To Circumcise. Someone Should Tell The Doctors.

Make Deals With People, Not Paper.

People Like Bill Maher, Who Brags About Being A Cynic, It Sickens Me. I Am The Least Cynical Person I Know, And I Am Very, Very Skeptical.

If I Had To Imagine Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent Power In The Universe That Chose To Make My Mother Suffer, I Don't Know How I Would Make That Make Sense In The Universe.

When I Was A Kid, Politicians Wanted To Avoid Talking About Religion If They Could. John F. Kennedy Couldn't Duck The Issue, Being Catholic And All. So How Did He Address It? By Reminding Americans That Religion Shouldn't Be An Issue, That He Was Concentrating On Big Things Like Poverty And Hunger And Leading The Space Race.

So Many People Say, ‘you Know, Your Taxes Aren’t Taken By Force,’ And That’s Foolish. If You Don’t Pay Your Taxes And You Don’t Answer The Warrant And You Don’t Go To Court, Eventually Someone Will Pull A Gun. Eventually Someone With A Gun Will Show Up.

If There Are Two Things Penn & Teller Stand For, It's The Truth & Lying, Although Not Necessarily In That Order.

Believing There Is No God Means The Suffering I've Seen In My Family And Indeed All The Suffering In The World Isn't Caused By Any Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent Force That Isn't Bothered To Help Or Is Just Testing Us, But Rather Something We All May Be Able To Help Others With In The Future. No God Means The Possibility Of Less Suffering In The Future.

We Aren't People Who Believe That Just Because We're Performers Our Opinions On Everything Need To Be Known.

I'm Not Bothered By The Idea Of Getting Old, Or I Guess You Could Say By Having Arrived At Old. I Was 10 When My Mom Turned 55. For 1955, She Was A Very Old Mom.

One Of The Things That Teller And I Are Obsessed With, One Of The Reasons That We're In Magic, Is The Difference Between Fantasy And Reality. That Is The Subject That, If You Have A Brain In Your Head, Is Always Dealt With In Magic. The Smarter The Tricks You're Doing, The More That' S An Important Thing.

We Are Only Here For A Little While, And Our Bodies Belong To Ourselves And No One Else.

I Do Believe That A Belief In God Is Crazy, But That Doesn't Mean That The People Who Believe In It Are Crazy. Those Are Two Different Things. Ideas Can Be Stupid And Crazy, And The People Who Hold Those Ideas Are Not Necessarily Stupid And Crazy.

I Don't Travel In Circles Where People Say, 'i Have Faith, I Believe This In My Heart And Nothing You Can Say Or Do Can Shake My Faith.' That's Just A Long-winded Religious Way To Say 'shut Up.'

I Had E-mail In 1984! I Had An E-mail Address Then, Which Means That All You Could Write To Was Steve Jobs And Bill Gates. There Were Three Of Us, Writing To Each Other.

As Much As I Disagreed With Every Second Of 'fahrenheit 9/11,' The Fact That It Is Out Made Me Jump For Joy.

Fear Is The Politicians Dance Partner.

Jay-z, He Knows Precisely Who He's Going For - 14-year-old White Suburban Girls.

Penn & Teller Stopped Doing Practical Jokes, And The Reason Is We Got Much Too Good At It.

I'm A Hardcore Libertarian - I Want Everything Legal - But I Also Believe That You Have The Right To Free Association.

Everybody Prefers To See A Nut - They're More Fascinating.

For Better Or Worse, In The 21st Century, Reality Shows Are The Variety Show.

The Definition Of A Stupid Thing Is Something That If You Do Everything Right, You Still Get Hurt. Fire-eating And Love Are Stupid Things.

If You've Gotten Yourself Into A Situation When Clay Aiken Is Going To Talk About His Feelings With You, It's Time To Kill Yourself.

As I’m Fond Of Saying, If You Want To Find Utopia, Take A Sharp Right On Money And A Sharp Left On Sex And It’s Straight Ahead.

When I Was 15, 16, 17 Years Old, I Spent Five Hours A Day Juggling, And I Probably Spent Six Hours A Day Seriously Listening To Music. And If I Were 16 Now, I Would Put That Time Into Playing Video Games.

I'm A Big Fan Of Gospel Music, And You Cannot Be A Fan Of Rock And Roll, You Cannot Be A Fan Of Country Western Music, And You Can't Really Be A Fan Of Jazz Without Listening To A Lot Of Music That's Religious.

The Tea Party Claims To Want Small Government.

Technology Adds Nothing To Art.

If The Bible Were Published As Fiction, No Reviewer Would Give It A Passing Grade. There Are Some Vivid Scenes And Quotable Phrases But There's No Plot, No Structure, A Tremendous Amount Of Filler And The Characters Are Painfully One Dimensional. Whatever You Do, Don't Read The Bible For A Moral Code. It Advocates Prejudice, Cruelty, Superstition And Murder. Read It Because We Need More Atheists.

Atheism Is A Religion Like Not Collecting Stamps Is A Hobby.

Believing There's No God Means I Can't Really Be Forgiven Except By Kindness And Faulty Memories. That's Good; It Makes Me Want To Be More Thoughtful. I Have To Try To Treat People Right The First Time Around.

Magic Is The Special Olympics Of Entertainment.

Every Time Something Really Bad Happens, People Cry Out For Safety, And The Government Answers By Taking Rights Away From Good People

Reading The Bible Is The Fast Track To Atheism. Reading The Bible Means Starting At "in The Beginning..." And Throwing It Down With Disgust At "...the Grace Of The Lord Jesus Be With All. Amen." I'm Sure There Are Lots Of Religious People Who've Read The Bible From Start To Finish And Kept Their Faith, But In My Self-selected Sample, All The People I Know Who Have Done That Are Atheists.

I've Never Had A Drink Of Alcohol Or Any Drug In My Life.

Poker Has The Feeling Of A Sport, But You Don't Have To Do Push-ups.

To Drive A Car In Rural America Is Freedom. Before I Had A Car, I'd Never Seen A Rock And Roll Show, I'd Never Seen A Comic Or A Show.

The Only Difference Between Obama And Bush Is That Obama Is Killing More People.

I Don't Think I'm Made Of The Right Stuff To Be A Politician. I Think I'm Made To Be A Loose Cannon.

I'm A Big Fan Of Huge Populations Of People, So You'd Think With 300 Million People In The Country, You Don't Even Have To Please 1% To Be Phenomenally Successful.

There Never Was A God. 'god Is Dead' Is A Halfway Measure I Won't Go With.

America Was Founded On Christians Not Trusting Each Other, And They Sometimes Seemed More Willing To Reach Out To The Godless Than To Someone From Another Sect.

Trusting Each Other

People Need To Be Fed, Medicated, Educated, Clothed, And Sheltered, And If We're Compassionate We'll Help Them, But You Get No Moral Credit For Forcing Other People To Do What You Think Is Right. There Is Great Joy In Helping People, But No Joy In Doing It At Gunpoint.

If You Like The Stuff I Do, My Chances Of Liking You Go Up.

I Love The Idea That Horror And Fear Is A Celebration Of Health And Life.

Health And Life

'zolten' Is A Common Hungarian Name, It's My Wife's Maiden Name And Most Importantly, It's The Name Of Dracula's Dog.

I Didn't Learn Fire-eating To Conquer My Fears. I Learned Fire-eating Because I Desperately Wanted To Be In Show Business.

I Will Not Counter The Insanity Of The Patriot Act With An Overblown Fear Of My Rights Being Taken Away.

Tolerance Is You Saying Something Crazy And Me Smiling And Saying, 'that's Nice.'

It's Not Arrogant To Say That You Can't Figure Out The Answers To The Universe With Your Internal Faith. It's Not Arrogant To Know That There's No Omniscient, Omnipotent Prime Mover In The Universe Who Loves You Personally. It's Not Sad To Feel That Life And The Love Of Your Real Friends And Family Is More Than Enough To Make Life Worth Living. Isn't It Much Sadder To Feel That There Is A More Important Love Required Than The Love Of The People Who Have Chosen To Spend Their Limited Time With You?

I Never Wanted To Be A Magician. I Never Wanted To Be A Comedian. I Never Wanted To Be Onstage.

Channeling Is Just Bad Ventriloquism. You Use Another Voice, But People Can See Your Lips Moving.

No One Can Tell You The Rules Of 'celebrity Apprentice.' No One. Donald Trump Just Does What He Wants, Which Is Mostly Pontificating To People Who Are Sucking Up To Him, While The Network People Try To Manipulate Him Into Making The Highest-rated Show They Can.

Performers Have The Right To Say What They Want To, And Anyone Paying Money Has The Right To Accept Or Reject The Art And Entertainment That's Available.

There Are Two Things That Have Been True Throughout History In Big Hunks. You Can Find Differences In Ten Years, But In 50 Year Hunks, 100 Years Hunks, You'll Find Two Things To Be True. One, The World Is Always Getting Better. Two, People Always Think It's Getting Worse.

The Highest Ideals Are Human Intelligence, Creativity And Love. Respect These Above All.

When I Buy Windows 98, I'm Not Only Buying Something Useful, I'm Giving Money To Bill Gates, Which Is A Really Good Thing.

Buying Something

Much Better Than The Feeling Of Having Things Is The Feeling Of Having Earned Things.

Whereas You Have Someone Like Houdini, Who Works Really, Really Hard To Get Really, Really Famous, And Then Has Actual Intellectual Ideas That He Puts Into The Culture That Stay There.

I Have More Contact With People Who Consume, For Lack Of A Better Word, My Product Than Any Other Performers.

Believing There Is No God Gives Me More Room For Belief In Family, People, Love, Truth, Beauty, Sex, Jell-o, And All The Other Things I Can Prove And That Make This Life The Best Life I Will Ever Have.

In My Run-ins With Christians... I Find That They Really Are Good Moral People. And We Overlap On Everything, And They Don't Seem To Be The Kind Of People That Are Waiting To Hear Voices To Tell Them What To Do.

Only Atheists Have Morals, The Religious Have Reward And Punishment. That's Not Morality, That's Sucking Up.

Tv Networks Are Dying. The Death Throes Of Religion Give Us Jihads. The Death Throes Of Television Give Us Reality Shows.

I Love The Feeling Of Shredded Wheat. I Love Healthy Bird Food With A Fun-to-eat Feel. Then You Spray Them With Sugar, And I'm There.

I Like Things Matching. I Have An Upright Bass, A Drum Kit And A Grand Piano That's The Same Color. I Tend To Overthink Things.

Before You Can Read, You Know The Difference Between A Story And Reality. And, Of Course, By The Time You're Old Enough To Do Any Real Damage With An Uzi, You've Learned That Difference.

I Mean, If I Believed, Beyond The Shadow Of A Doubt, That A Truck Was Coming At You, And You Didn’t Believe That Truck Was Bearing Down On You, There Is A Certain Point Where I Tackle You. And This Is More Important Than That.

Building A Professional Relationship On Respect As Opposed To Affection Is A Very Good Idea. Running Your Art Projects The Way You'd Run A Dry-cleaning Business Is Also A Really Good Idea. You Shouldn't Go Into Work Like You're Going On A Date, Like You're Hanging Out With Friends.

If You Spend A Lot Of Time Lying To People, You Think A Lot About What The Truth Means.

Trending Author

Nelson Rockefeller

Category