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There's A Part Of Me That Is Angry. Not In The Sense Of, "gee, George Is An Angry Guy!" I Mean, Anyone Who's Been With Me Five Minutes, Five Years, Whatever, They Would Tell You They've Rarely Seen Me In A Moment Of Anger. Yes, I Can Become Highly Irritated In A Line That's Moving Slowly, Or With A Clerk Who's Incompetent. But I Don't Yell. I Don't Get Rude. I Am Clear About What I Expect. In A Store, My Mother Always Told Me, "ask For The Manager Immediately. It Changes The Tone Of The Conversation."

-George Carlin

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There's A Part Of

George Carlin

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There's A Part Of Me That Is Angry. Not In The Sense Of, "gee, George Is An Angry Guy!" I Mean, Anyone Who's Been With Me Five Minutes, Five Years, Whatever, They Would Tell You They've Rarely Seen Me In A Moment Of Anger. Yes, I Can Become Highly Irritated In A Line That's Moving Slowly, Or With A Clerk Who's Incompetent. But I Don't Yell. I Don't Get Rude. I Am Clear About What I Expect. In A Store, My Mother Always Told Me, "ask For The Manager Immediately. It Changes The Tone Of The Conversation."

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I Think It Would Be Fair And Right To Use Some Of My Land And Wealth For A Drug-rehab Center Or An Indian School.

My Tombstone? I'm Thinking Something Along The Lines Of, 'geez, He Was Just Here A Minute Ago.'

I Never Took Reds Or Quaaludes To Balance Out The Coke. So When It Got To Be Four In The Morning And The Gram Was Three Quarters Gone, I'd Start Wishing It Was Nine O'clock And Hoping The Guy Got Up Early. But, Of Course, He Didn't Sleep Either, So There Was No Sweat. During All Those Years, I Was Always Looking Forward To The Next Snort Or The Next Guy I Could Score From.

When Thomas Edison Worked Late Into The Night On The Electric Light, He Had To Do It By Gas Lamp Or Candle. I'm Sure It Made The Work Seem That Much More Urgent.

If A Pig Loses Its Voice, Is It Disgruntled?

Let Me Get A Sip Of Water Here... You Figure This Stuff Is Safe To Drink? Actually, I Don't Care, I Drink It Anyway. You Know Why? Because I'm An American And I Expect A Little Cancer In My Food And Water. I'm A Loyal American And I'm Not Happy Unless I Let Government And Industry Poison Me A Little Bit Every Day.

Do You Realize That The Only Time In Our Lives When We Like To Get Old Is When We're Kids? If You're Less Than 10 Years Old, You're So Excited About Aging That You Think In Fractions.

One Of The More Pretentious Political Self-descriptions Is 'libertarian.' People Think It Puts Them Above The Fray. It Sounds Fashionable, And To The Uninitiated, Faintly Dangerous. Actually, It's Just One More Bullshit Political Philosophy.

If You've Got A Cat And A Leg, You've Got A Happy Cat. If You've Got A Cat And Two Legs, You've Got A Party.

Bowling Is Not A Sport Because You Have To Rent The Shoes.

If Someone Loves You And They Leave And Don't Come Back, It Was Never Meant To Be. If Someone Loves You And They Leave And Come Back, Set Them On Fire.

Most People Are Not Particularly Good At Anything.

I'm Certainly A Skeptic. I Always Quibble With People.

I'm 63 Now. But That's Just 17 Celsius.

Save The Trees, Save The Bees, Save The Whales, Save Those Snails.

Because Brenda [carlin] Had A Drinking Problem Along With The Coke, She Had To Hit Bottom First. Most Alcoholics Do. And For Her, Bottom Was An Automobile Accident That Almost Landed Her In Jail.

Sometimes, After I'd Gone At The Coke Like One Of Those Snow Plows Moving Up First Avenue, I'd Think My Heart Was Over On The Dresser, Pounding, And I Was Watching It. I Asked Some Of The Doctors Who Drifted Through The Intensive-care Unit What Kind Of Effect Total Cocaine Abuse Has On The Heart And They Said Things Like, "well, There's Not Enough Valid Information...." That Kind Of Answer.

A House Is Just A Place To Keep Your Stuff While You Go Out And Get More Stuff.

People Tell You To Have A Safe Trip, As If You Have Some Control Over It.

You Know, If A Drug Has Anything Going For It At All, It Should Be Self-limiting. It Should Tell You When You've Had Enough. Acid And Peyote Were That Way For Me.

Two Things Happened. The Creative Side Of My Career Was Harmed. When I'd Sit Down And Write Under The Influence Of Coke, The Ratio Of Pages Kept To Pages Thrown Out Declined Drastically. But Onstage, When Rapping About A Feeling I Already Owned, I Would Sometimes Get A Burst Of Eloquence.

Religion Is Just Mind Control.

Beethoven Was So Hard Of Hearing, He Thought He Was A Painter.

People Say, 'i'm Going To Sleep Now,' As If It Were Nothing. But It's Really A Bizarre Activity. 'for The Next Several Hours, While The Sun Is Gone, I'm Going To Become Unconscious, Temporarily Losing Command Over Everything I Know And Understand. When The Sun Returns, I Will Resume My Life.

I Had No Shoes, And I Felt Sorry For Myself Until I Met A Man Who Had No Feet. I Took His Shoes. Now I Feel Better.

A Woman Told Me Her Child Was Autistic, And I Thought She Said Artistic. So I Said, 'oh Great. I'd Like To See Some Of The Things He's Done.

There Are A Lot Of Little Things About Our Bodies That We All Know, But We Never Talk About. That's What Interests Me. These Are Practically Universal Experiences; Nobody Mentions Them! Some Of Them Are Disgusting. Some Of Them Are Appallingly Revolting And Degrading Even To The Most Degenerate Mind. So Let's Get Started With A Couple Of Them.

Republicans Have Been Trying To Get People To Work For No Pay For A Long Time.

I Went Through The Usual Stages: Imp, Rascal, Scalawag, Whippersnapper. And, Of Course, After That It's Just A Small Step To Full-blown Sociopath.

If People Stand In A Circle Long Enough, They'll Eventually Begin To Dance.

The Ending Of My Experience With Cocaine Came In A Periodic Way. I Would Get High Less Frequently, I Would Use Smaller Amounts, And I Would Do Coke For Less Periods Of Time. And That Process Just Kept Increasing And Increasing Until I Wasn't Using It At All. I Didn't Go On A Program Anywhere. I Didn't Join An Organization Or Detox Anywhere. I Just Slowly Tapered Off Until It Was Gone. That Was Also True Of My Heavy Pot Use. I Just Tapered Off Until There Was Almost No Use At All. And The Same Thing Was True Of Drinking Tons Of Beer.

There Are Battered Husbands. Apparently This Happens When The Woman Is Real Big, The Man Is Very Small, And They Each Drink A Quart Of Whiskey A Day.

Before They Give You A Lethal Injection, They Swab Your Arm With Alcohol. It's True. Well, They Don't Want You To Get An Infection, And You Can See Their Point. They Don't Want Some Guy Go To Hell And Be Sick.

In Rome, The Emperor Sat In A Special Part Of The Colosseum Called The Caesarian Section.

Every Time You Use The Phrase All My Life It Has A Different Meaning.

So I Want To Thank The Pentagon, The Soviet Union And The Military-industrial Complex From The Bottom Of My Heart. Without Them, I Could Never Have Become The Man I Am Today.

I Thought Of Myself As An Atheist Until I Realized It Was A Belief, Too. It's A Shame Everything Has To Have A Label. I Feel That If I Was Figuratively Dropped On The Earth And There Was A Political Line, I Would Be Just Left Of Center. The Difference For Me Is That Conservatives Are More Interested In Property Values And Rights And Free Markets, And Liberals Are More Interested In Human Rights. In The End, There Are People Who Don't Fit Into The Marketplace And Are Not Equipped. I Believe The Government Should Step In Where The Free Market Fails.

There Is A Certain Amount Of Righteous Indignation I Hold For The American Culture, Because To Get Back To The Real Root Of It, To Get Broader About It, My Opinion That Is My Species - And My Culture In America Specifically - Have Let Me Down And Betrayed Me. I Think This Species Had Great, Great Promise, With This Great Upper Brain That We Have, And I Think We Squandered It On God And Mammon. And I Think This Culture Of Ours Has Such Promise, With The Promise Of Real, True Freedom, And Then Everyone Has Been Shackled By Ownership And Possessions And Acquisition And Status And Power.

The Good Lord Tripped Me Up Behind The Line Of Scrimmage.

Humor Is Based On Surprise, And Surprise Is A Milder Way Of Saying Shock. It's Surprise That Makes The Joke.

Sun Worship Is Fairly Simple. There's No Mystery, No Miracles, No Pageantry, No One Asks For Money, There Are No Songs To Learn, And We Don't Have A Special Building Where We All Gather Once A Week To Pare Compare Clothing.

If This Is The Best God Can Do, I'm Not Impressed.

We Are All Precancerous.

Cancer Survival

I Simply Decided That Dope Wasn't Worth The Ritual.

Nothing You See On The Internet Is Mine Unless It Comes From One Of My Albums, Books, Hbo Specials, Or Appeared On My Website.

The Whole Problem With The World Today: Private Property. If No One Owned Anything, It Would Be A Lot Better. There's Even An Entire Industry Devoted To Keeping An Eye On Other People's Stuff. This Is How Stupid It's Got. If You Decide To Get Rid Of A Lot Of Your Stuff, You Can Give It To A Thrift Shop Or To Goodwill.

Abraham Maslow Said That The Fully Realized Person Transcends His Local Group And Identifies With The Species. But The Election Of Ronald Reagan Might've Been The Beginning Of My Giving Up On My Species. Because It Was Absurd. To This Day It Remains Absurd. More Than Absurd, It Was Frightening: It Represented The Rise To Supremacy Of Darkness, The Ascendancy Of Ignorance.

Marry An Orphan: You'll Never Have To Spend Boring Holidays With The In-laws.

The Habits Of Liberals, Their Automatic Language, Their Knee-jerk Responses To Certain Issues, Deserved The Epithets The Right Wing Stuck Them With. I'd See How True They Often Were. Here They Were, Banding Together In Packs, So I Could Predict What They Were Going To Say About Some Event Or Conflict And It Wasn't Even Out Of Their Mouths Yet. I Was Very Uncomfortable With That. Liberal Orthodoxy Was As Repugnant To Me As Conservative Orthodoxy.

I've Never Been Quarantined. But The More I Look Around The More I Think It Might Not Be A Bad Idea.

My Mother And Her Plans For My Future. She Had It All Worked Out. I Would Attend A Nice College, Then Get A Job In Advertising. "you'll Be One Of Those Smart-looking Fellows In Their Madison Avenue Suits." And I Rebelled Against [my Mother] And Her Values And Her Plans For My Future At Every Opportunity.

You're Really Spread Out Now, You've Got Stuff All Over The World! You've Got Stuff At Home, Stuff In Storage, Stuff In Honolulu, Stuff In Maui, Stuff In Your Pockets...supply Lines Are Getting Longer And Harder To Maintain.

It's A "keep Your Fingers Crossed" Business, The Entertainment Business.

Fingers Crossed

Don't Give Your Money To The Church. They Should Be Giving Their Money To You.

Like On The Airlines, They Say They Want To 'pre-board'. Well, What The Hell Is 'pre Board'? What Does That Mean? To Get On Before You Get On?

Your Dog Thinks You're A God. Your Cat Thinks The Dog's An Asshole.

When I Listen To Those Tapes Now, The Real Cocaine Shows; There's Just Nothing Special About Their Content.

If Helen Keller Had Psychic Ability, Would You Say She Had A Fourth Sense? What Year Did Jesus Think It Was?

Every Day I Beat My Own Previous Record For The Number Of Consecutive Days I’ve Stayed Alive.

Age Is A Hell Of A Price To Pay For Wisdom.

Pardon Me I've Got Nothing To Say.

I Definitely Have A Gift For Language That Is Rhythmic And Attractive To The Ear, And I Have Interesting [verbal] Imagery Which I Guess Is A Poetic Touch.

Everything That You Know About Yourself Comes From Thinking Back, And I Think I Saw Religion As The First Big Betrayal Of Me.

Some People See Things That Are And Ask, Why? Some People Dream Of Things That Never Were And Ask, Why Not? Some People Have To Go To Work And Don't Have Time For All That.

I Always Wanted And Enjoyed Sex, But I Never Put Much Importance On Scoring Or Having An Athletic Sex Life. I Guess I Define Myself More By My Career And My Commitment To A Relationship Than By My Ability To Have A Lot Of Chicks Or Achieve Ten Orgasms In An Evening.

The Enjoyment Has Been Diminishing. Now, There's No Question That It's Sort Of Fun To Get High.

Never Get On An Airplane If The Pilot Is Wearing A Hat That Has More Than Three Pastel Colors.

Now, Some People Do This For Shock Value. Shock Is Just Another Uptown Word For Surprise. Granted It Has A Different Quality To It, But A Joke Is About Surprising Someone. I'm A Great Believer In Context. You Can Joke About Anything. I Do Like Finding Out Where The Line Is Drawn, Deliberately Crossing It And Bringing Some Of Them With Me Across The Line, And Having Them Be Happy That I Did.

Once You Leave The Womb, Conservatives Don't Care About You Until You Reach Military Age. Then You're Just What They're Looking For. Conservatives Want Live Babies So They Can Raise Them To Be Dead Soldiers.

May The Forces Of Evil Become Confused On The Way To Your House.

President George Bush Declared A National Day Of Prayer For Peace. This Was After He Had Carefully Arranged And Started The War.

I Finally Accepted Jesus. Not As My Personal Savior, But As A Man I Intend To Borrow Money From.

I Make Fun Of People Who Are Religious, Because They're Fundamentally Weak.

I Like To Control My Environment, Because I Feel If I Have My Physical Space In Order, Then I'm Free To Dream. So There Is Some Compulsion Involved. But The Dividend I Get Is The Freedom To Be Totally Disorderly In My Dreamworld.

That Invisible Hand Of Adam Smith Seems To Offer An Extended Middle Finger To An Awful Lot Of People.

Dusting Is A Good Example Of The Futility Of Trying To Put Things Right. As Soon As You Dust, The Fact Of Your Next Dusting Has Already Been Established.

Futility Of Life

To Me The Cynics Are The Ones In The Boardrooms With The Reports From The Focus Groups.

There's A Humorous Side To Every Situation. The Challenge Is To Find It.

I Went Straight From Shenanigans To Crimes Against Humanity.

Praying Is Begging For An Unseen Deity To Alter The Laws Of Nature For Someone Admittedly Unworthy.

On The Other Hand, Pot Opens Windows And Doors That You May Not Be Able To Get Through Any Other Way.

Movies And Television Don't Make You Violent; All They Do Is Channel The Violence More Creatively.

If The Reason For Climbing Mt. Everest Is That It's Hard To Do, Why Does Everyone Go Up The Easy Side?

I Hope I'm Beginning A New Cycle Of Energy And Creativity. If So, It'll Really Be My Third Career. The First Was As A Straight Comic In The Sixties. The Second Was As A Counterculture Performer In The Seventies. The Third Will Be...well, That's For Others To Judge.

If You Vote And You Elect Dishonest, Incompetent People Into Office Who Screw Everything Up, You Are Responsible For What They Have Done. You Caused The Problem; You Voted Them In; You Have No Right To Complain

When I'm Not Actually Doing My Work, I'm Planning It Or Thinking About It Or Reading Things That On Some Level Are Transformed Into Performance Fantasies. I Have No Active Interests.

As Soon As Someone Is Identified As An Unsung Hero, He No Longer Is.

Isn’t Making A Smoking Section In A Restaurant Like Making A Peeing Section In A Swimming Pool?

Well, If Crime Fighters Fight Crime And Fire Fighters Fight Fire, What Do Freedom Fighters Fight?

We're Not Supposed To Mention F***ing In Mixed Company, But That's Exactly Where It Takes Place.

You Have To Be Realistic About Terrorism. Certain Groups Of People, Certain Groups, Muslim Fundamentalists, Christian Fundamentalists, Jewish Fundamentalists, And Just Plain Guys From Montana, Are Going To Continue To Make Life In This Country Very Interesting For A Long, Long Time.

It's Depressing To See Blacks Wanting To Dive Into The Mainstream Of American Commercial Life. They Come From A Magnificent African Culture Based On Aesthetics, And They All Want To Become Fort Builders Like The Vicious People Who Originally Enslaved Them.

The Class Clown Album Was Done Totally Sober. I'd Realized What A Hell I'd Made For Myself And I Cleaned Up Completely For Three Months. You Can Hear The Clarity Of My Thinking And Of My Speech On That Album.

If No One Knows When A Person Is Going To Die, How Can We Say He Died Prematurely?

Without The Laughs, The Audience Wouldn't Be There At All, So In That Sense, Yes, I Am A Comedian.

Of Course, In Los Angeles, Everything Is Based On Driving, Even The Killings. In New York, Most People Don't Have Cars, So If You Want To Kill A Person, You Have To Take The Subway To Their House. And Sometimes On The Way, The Train Is Delayed And You Get Impatient, So You Have To Kill Someone On The Subway. That's Why There Are So Many Subway Murders; No One Has A Car.

If A Painting Can Be Forged Well Enough To Fool Experts, Why Is The Original So Valuable?

To My Way Of Thinking, There Is Every Bit As Much Evidence For The Existence Of Ufos As There Is For The Existence Of God. Probably Far More. At Least In The Case Of Ufos There Have Been Countless Taped And Filmed And, By The Way, Unexplained Sightings From All Over The World, Along With Documented Radar Evidence Seen By Experienced Military And Civilian Radar Operators.>>.

And Although I Broke A Lot Of Laws As A Teenager, I Straightened Out Immediately Upon Turning Eighteen, When I Realized The State Had A Legal Right To Execute Me.

When I See A Large Group Of People, I Wonder How Many Of Them Will Eventually Require Autopsies.

I Like Florida. Everything Is In The 80s. The Temperatures, The Ages And The Iq's.

The Next Time A Prostitute Solicits Your Business, Ask For The Clergyman's Rate.

If A Man Smiles All The Time, He’s Probably Selling Something That Doesn’t Work.

Cigarette Companies Market Heavily To Young People. They Need Young Customers Because Their Product Kills The Older Ones. It Is The Only Product That, If Used As Intended, Kills The Consumer.

If One Synchronized Swimmer Drowns, Do The Rest Drown Too?

If A Parsley Farmer Is Sued, Can They Garnish His Wages?

I Never Eat Sushi. I Have Trouble Eating Things That Are Merely Unconscious.

In Tv Today, You Can Say I Pricked My Finger, But You Can't Say It The Other Way Around.

I Don`t Understand A Belief That There Is An Invisible Being In The Sky Who Watches Over Us All The Time And Keeps Score And Who Throws You In A Burning Pit. I Think That's Very Limiting, Very Antihuman. It's The Way They Devised For Helping To Control People Because If They Can Make You Believe In An Invisible Man Who's Going To Hurt You Later, They Can Make You Believe Anything!

History Is Not Happenstance: It Is Conspiratorial. Carefully Planned And Executed By People In Power.

Where Do We Get Our Values From?

I'm Not An Angry Person, Just Very Disappointed And Contemptuous Of My Fellow Humans' Choices - And On Stage Those Feelings Sometimes Are Exaggerated For A Theatric Stage - You're On A Stage You Have An Audience Of 2500 Or 3000 People: You Need To Project The Feelings, The Emotions It's Heightened, And People Mistake It For A Personal Anger But It's More Dissatisfaction, Disappointment And Contempt For These Things We've Settled For.

We [americans] Are Not A Freedom-loving People In The Beautiful, Spiritual Sense. We Have An Inspiring Constitution, But We're A Hardhearted People.

Political Discourse Has Been Reduced To "where's The Beef?" "read My Lips," And "make My Day." Where Are The Assassins When We Really Need Them?

I'm Not A Person Who Thinks They Can Have It All, But I Certainly Feel That With A Bit Of Effort And Guile I Should Be Able To Have More Than My Fair Share.

The Bloodiest, Most Brutal Wars Fought, All Based On Religious Hatred. Which Is Fine With Me! Any Time A Bunch Of Holy People Want To Go Out And Kill Each Other I'm A Happy Guy!

I Don't Think Drugs Are A Problem; I Think They're A Symptom. As Long As Americans Are Empty, Spiritually, Emotionally, Morally Empty, They Will Need Things Like The Drugs They Choose To Use. Mankind Has Wanted To Change The Way It Felt From The Beginning Anyway. In This Country There Are Even More Reasons To Want To Feel Different, To Want To Feel Better, Because This Is Such A Neon Sewer. This Is Such A Degrading Culture. It Forces You To Play Beethoven To Your Child In The Uterus So That He Will Get Into A Better School And A Better Job And Make More Money So He Can Take Care Of You.

I Like To Say Two Things In Life That Mean The Most: Genetics And Luck. When You Look At It Realistically, Genetics Is Luck Too. Because You Could Have Been Born In Some Really Terrible Situation And Never Had A Chance To Realize Yourself Or See Who You Were. And So The Luck Of Genetics And Then After That, Circumstances, Those Are The Two Guiding Things.

When You Think About It, Attention-deficit Order Makes A Lot Of Sense. In This Country There Isn't A Lot Worth Paying Attention To.

Personally, When It Comes To Rights, I Think One Of Two Things Is True. I Think Either We Have Unlimited Rights, Or We Have No Rights At All. Personally I Lean Towards Unlimited Rights, I Feel For Instance I Have The Right To Do Anything I Please, But! If I Do Something You Don't Like I Think You Have The Right To Kill Me.

Conservatives Want Live Babies So They Can Train Them To Be Dead Soldiers.

The Christians Gave Him Sunday, The Jews Gave Him Saturday, And The Muslims Gave Him Friday. God Has A Three-day Weekend.

An Entertainer Is Someone Who Pleases Others, And An Artist Tries To Please Himself. An Artist Is On A Journey: They Don't Know Where They're Going, What Is Going To Happen, But They Know They Are Not There Yet, And There Is Some Continuity And Growth. I Think Of Myself As An Entertainer: I'm A Performing Entertainer, I'm A Stand-up Comic. But There's An Artist At Work Here, Too. One Who Interprets His World Through His Own Filter.

A Person Of Good Intelligence And Of Sensitivity Cannot Exist In This Society Very Long Without Having Some Anger About The Inequality - And It's Not Just A Bleeding-heart, Knee-jerk, Liberal Kind Of A Thing - It Is Just A Normal Human Reaction To A Nonsensical Set Of Values Where We Have Cinnamon Flavored Dental Floss And There Are People Sleeping In The Street.

Every Person You Look At, You Can See The Universe In Their Eyes, If You're Really Looking

Suddenly, I Was Thirty, Very Unhappy Entertaining People In Their Forties, And Here Came A Group Of People In Their Teens And Twenties Who Had Similar Anti-authority Problems And Similar Dreams And Wishes, Hopes For Mankind. So I Gravitated Toward Them.

There May Or May Not Be Atheists In Foxholes, But I'm Certain There Are None In The Ku Klux Klan.

Boxing Is A More Sophisticated Form Of Hockey.

I Gravitated Toward Being A Funny Guy. I Liked The Radio Comedians. I Lived In The Golden Age Of Radio, And The Golden Age Of Television Came Along When I Was Still In My Early Teens.

I Like Good Ideas. I Don't Want Just Do Something For It's Own Sake To Bother People, But If I Can Bother Them With A Logical Argument About Something They Have Agreed To In Society Simplistically - Like Children Are Sacred, The Cult Of The Child, This Cult Of Professional Parenthood, And Of Course Religion, And Respect For Policemen And The Law, And All Of These Untouchable Areas. I Like Attacking Those Beliefs, But In With Good Sound Thinking, And An Unusual Approach.

I Went To My Old School, Where All The Kids I'd Been With For Eight Years Were About To Graduate. But The Sisters Wanted Me To Repeat The Whole Term; So I Went To The Principal And Pleaded With Her To Allow Me To Graduate With My Class. She Finally Agreed On The Condition That I Write The Graduation Play. It Was Called How Do You Spend Your Leisure Time?catchy Title, Huh?

I Love And Treasure Individuals As I Meet Them, I Loath And Despise The Groups They Identify Or Belong To.

The Caterpillar Does All The Work, But The Butterfly Gets All The Publicity.

At A Formal Dinner Party, The Person Nearest Death Should Always Be Seated Closest To The Bathroom.

When You Look At The Average American You Realize There's Nothing Nature Enjoys More Than A Good Joke.

To My Surprise, My Marijuana Use Has Been Tapering Off Steadily.

I Often Wonder How Different The World Would Be If Hitler Had Not Been Turned Down When He Applied To Art School.

What I Hated Most Was Seeing Those Priests And Brothers Getting So Much Pleasure Out Of Inflicting Pain. I Wondered What Was Wrong With Them.

Baseball Is A Nineteenth-century Pastoral Game. Football Is A Twentieth-century Technological Struggle.

The Sicker You Get, The Harder It Is To Remember If You Took Your Medicine.

There Are Actually People Who Go Out And Re-fight These Battles. You Know What I Say? Use Real Ammunition! You Just Might Raise The Intelligence Level Of The American Gene Pool!

I Went To George Washington High School For Six Months Before My 16th Birthday, When I Could Legally Quit. That Was An Even Worse Experience Than The Catholic Schools. I Mean, They Were Still Teaching Fractions. But Mostly, I Played Hooky.

When You Step On The Brakes Your Life Is In Your Foot's Hands.

To Be Intoxicated Is To Feel Sophisticated, But Not Be Able To Say It.

There Is A Core Of Loneliness. It's Partly Existential. Secondly, I Was Raised A Loner. My Parents Were Not There. My Father Was Asked To Leave Because He Couldn't Metabolize Ethanol. Actually, My Mother Ran Away With Us When I Was 2 Months Old And My Brother Was 5. Real Dramatic Stuff: Down The Fire Escape, Through Backyards. So, I Sort Of Raised Myself. I Was Alone A Lot And I Invented Myself - I Lived Through The Radio And Through My Imagination.

When You Visualize The Recent Past, Do You See It As Being Somewhere Over On The Left?

Next Time You See Someone Sleeping, Make Believe You're In A Science Fiction Movie. And Whisper, 'the Creature Is Regenerating Itself.'

All The Media And The Politicians Ever Talk About Is Things That Separate Us, Things That Make Us Different From One Another

Grass Probably Helped Me As Much As It Hurt Me. Especially As A Performer. When You're High, It's Easy To Kid Yourself About How Clever Certain Mediocre Pieces Of Material Are. But, On The Other Hand, Pot Opens Windows And Doors That You May Not Be Able To Get Through Any Other Way.

My Mother Didn't Get Home Until About Seven Most Nights And, Yes, There Was A Sense Of Being Very Alone After School. She Gave Me All The Proper Guidance And Influences, But Physically, She Just Couldn't Be There.

Every Time You're Exposed To Advertising In America You're Reminded That This Country's Most Profitable Business Is Still The Manufacture, Packaging, Distribution, And Marketing Of Bullshit. High-quality, Grade-a, Prime-cut, Pure American Bullshit.

I Say Things That Can Be Defined As Prayers. But I Don't Pray To A Power Or Ask An Entity To Intercede In The Earthly Scheme, Because I Don't Believe That Happens. But If I See A Really Unfortunate Person In The Street, I Do Pray, Yes, Though I Suppose It's Really More Like A Mantra To Ease My Own Sorrow.

Life Is A Near-death Experience.

If It Requires A Uniform, It's A Worthless Endeavor.

You Show Me Something That Doesn't Cause Cancer, And I'll Show You Something That Isn't On The Market Yet.

Matt 13:57. Then Jesus Told Them, 'a Prophet Is Honored Everywhere Except In His Own Hometown And Among His Own Family.' The Other Night I Ate At A Real Nice Family Restaurant. Every Table Had An Argument Going.

Why Are A 'wise Man' And A 'wiseguy' Opposites?

The Symphony Orchestra Had Played Poorly, So The Conductor Was In A Bad Mood. That Night He Beat His Wife--because The Music Hadn't Been Beautiful Enough.

I Sort Of Gave Up On This Whole Human Adventure A Long Time Ago, Divorced Myself From It Emotionally. It Gives Me An Artistic Detachment That I Find Valuable. I Think The Human Race Has Squandered Its Gift, And I Think This Country Has Squandered Its Promise, For The Sake Of Cell Phones And Jet Skis.

Just When I Discovered The Meaning Of Life, They Changed It.

Property Is Theft. Nobody "owns" Anything. When You Die, It All Stays Here.

Some People Have No Idea What They're Doing, And A Lot Of Them Are Really Good At It.

Weather Tonight: Dark. Turning Partly Light By Morning.

I Don't Vote. We're Led To Believe We're Free Through The Exercise Of Ineffective Freedoms.

Don't Take Guilt Trips. Take A Trip To The Mall, To The Next County, To A Foreign Country, But Not To Where The Guilt Is.

I Don't Have Hobbies; Hobbies Cost Money. Interests Are Quite Free.

You Can't Fight City Hall, But You Can Goddamn Sure Blow It Up.

You Get Into Your Teens, Now They Can't Hold You Back. You Jump To The Next Number, Or Even A Few Ahead.

Have You Ever Noticed That The Lawyer Always Smiles More Than The Client?

As A Matter Of Principle, I Never Attend The First Annual Anything.

In My Neighborhood - West 121st Street In New York, "white Harlem" - There Were Only Two Drugs: Smack And Marijuana. By The Time I Was 13, Some Friends And I Were Using Marijuana Fairly Regularly. The Reefer Madness Myth Was Still Very Strong Then, But I'd Been Into Jazz And Those Lyrics Included So Many Casual References To Pot That It Was Completely Demystified For Me.

Little-known Fact: When The Stock Exchange Closes, The Guy Who Comes Out On The Balcony With That Big Hammer Slams It On The Head Of The Person Who Lost The Most Money That Day.

It's Difficult Enough For A Young Person To Put His Soul On The Line In Front Of A Lot Of Drunken People Without Having That Hanging Over His Head, Too.

We Spend The Early Years Feeding Our Brains With Information And The Latter Half Trying Not To Think About It All.

I Don't Like The Phrase Shock Value. Surprise Is Essential In Comedy, And If People Are Shocked By What I Consider Merely Surprising, Then That's Their Shock. But There Is No Joke Without Surprise.

And Now, In The Interest Of Equal Time, Here Is A Message From The National

Every Day I Break My Own Personal Record For Number Of Days I Have Been Alive.

People Are Wonderful. I Love Individuals. I Hate Groups Of People. I Hate A Group Of People With A 'common Purpose'. 'cause Pretty Soon They Have Little Hats. And Armbands. And Fight Songs. And A List Of People They're Going To Visit At 3am. So, I Dislike And Despise Groups Of People But I Love Individuals. Every Person You Look At; You Can See The Universe In Their Eyes, If You're Really Looking.

So About 80 Years After The Constitution Is Ratified, The Slaves Are Freed. Not So You'd Really Notice It Of Course; Just Kinda On Paper. And That Of Course Was At The End Of The Civil War. Now There Is Another Phrase I Dearly Love. That Is A True Oxymoron If I've Ever Heard One: "civil War." Do You Think Anybody In This Country Could Ever Really Have A Civil War? "say, Pardon Me?" (shoots Gun) "i'm Awfully Sorry. Awfully Sorry."

Somebody Once Said That Hollywood Is Based On A Lot Of Producers Deliberately Making Bad Movies, And Every Now And Then Somebody Gets Lucky.

I Think The Trend To Control Speech - And Therefore Thought - Continues. Because Of The Freer Flow Of Information Now, There's More On The Side Of Free Thought.

The Whole Idea Of The Pursuit Of Goods And Possessions Has Completely Corrupted The Human Experience, Along With Religion, Which I Think Limits The Intellect.

If You Dropped Me Off A Space Platform Onto The Ground Where A Line Was Drawn, I Would Fall To The Left Side Of It. I Believe The Difference Between Right And Left Is That The Right, For The Most Part, The Bulk Of Their Philosophy Is Interested In Property, And The Rights Of People To Own Property And Gain And Acquire And Keep Property. And I Think On The Left - Though They Blend And Mix - On The Left Primarily You Will Find People Who Are More Concerned About Humans, And The Human Condition, And What Can Be Done.

The Golden Gate Bridge Should Have A Long Bungee Cord For People Who Aren't Quite Ready To Commit Suicide But Want To Get In A Little Practice.

I Have As Much Authority As The Pope, I Just Don't Have As Many People Who Believe It.

We Have Multiplied Our Possessions, But Reduced Our Values.

I Find It Discouraging - And A Bit Depressing - When I Notice The Unequal Treatment Afforded By The Media To Ufo Believers On The One Hand, And On The Other, To Those Who Believe In An Invisible Supreme Being Who Inhabits The Sky.

They'll Get It All From You Sooner Or Later 'cause They Own This F**kin' Place. It's A Big Club And You Ain't In It. You And I Are Not In The Big Club. By The Way, It's The Same Big Club They Use To Beat You Over The Head With All Day Long When They Tell You What To Believe. All Day Long Beating You Over The Head With Their Media Telling You What To Believe, What To Think And What To Buy. The Table Is Tilted, Folks. The Game Is Rigged And Nobody Seems To Notice. Nobody Seems To Care. Good, Honest, Hard-working People: White Collar, Blue Collar, It Doesn't Matter What Color Shirt You Have On.

If We Could Just Find Out Who's In Charge, We Could Kill Him.

It Was Just A Compulsion. In Fact, I Soon Realized That The Only Thing I Really Enjoyed Was The Actual Snorting.

People Have Material Needs, But You Don't Need A Deodorant For Every Different Day Of The Week. You Don't Need Four Hundred Varieties Of Mustard. This Is What I Call Too Many Choices. There Are Too Many Choices In America.

The Larger The Group, The More Toxic, The More Of Your Beauty As An Individual You Have To Surrender For The Sake Of Group Thought. And When You Suspend Your Individual Beauty You Also Give Up A Lot Of Your Humanity. You Will Do Things In The Name Of A Group That You Would Never Do On Your Own. Injuring, Hurting, Killing, Drinking Are All Part Of It, Because You've Lost Your Identity, Because You Now Owe Your Allegiance To This Thing That's Bigger Than You Are And That Controls You.

My Money Buys Me The Freedom Not To Be A Member Of The Corporate Structure. And I Certainly Don't Feel Guilty Or Hypocritical About That. The Way Our Economy Is Set Up, If You Don't Want To Be A Corporate Moron And You Don't Want To Be Enfeebled In The Streets, You Must Earn Enough To Know That You'll Never Have To Go To Them For Money.

When I Hear A Person Talking About Political Solutions, I Know I Am Not Listening To A Serious Person.

If You Nail A Tool Shed Closed, How Do You Put The Hammer Away?

I'm Happy To Tell You There Is Very Little In This World That I Believe In.

E-i-e-i-o Is Actually A Gross Misspelling Of The Word Farm.

I'm In Favor Of Personal Growth As Long As It Doesn't Include Malignant Tumors.

You Live Eighty Years, And At Best You Get About Six Minutes Of Pure Magic.

There Are Two Types Of People: One Strives To Control His Environment, The Other Strives Not To Let His Environment Control Him. I Like To Control My Environment, Because I Feel If I Have My Physical Space In Order, Then I'm Free To Dream.

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