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Why Can't We Have Racism That's Ignorant But Nice? You Could Have Stereotypes That Are Positive About Race. You Could Say, "those Chinese People, They Can Fly!" "you Know About The Puerto Ricans? They're Made Of Candy!"

-Louis C. K.

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Why Can't We Have

Louis C. K.

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Why Can't We Have Racism That's Ignorant But Nice? You Could Have Stereotypes That Are Positive About Race. You Could Say, "those Chinese People, They Can Fly!" "you Know About The Puerto Ricans? They're Made Of Candy!"

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For Years, Blockbuster Video Has Edited Movies. Like The Bad Lieutenant, When He's Masturbating While The Girls In The Car Are Doing The Thing. I Rented It From Blockbuster And Sped To That Scene, And It Was Gone. I Called Up Blockbuster, And I'm Like, "i Got An Erection, And The Scene's Not There."

When I Got Divorced, I Thought 'well, There Goes My Act.'

Apple Embodies A Lot Of What Have Been Defined As Feminine Traits: An Emphasis On Intuitive Design, Intellect, A Strong Sense Of Creativity, And That Striving To Always Make The Greatest Version Of Something.

Most Americans Have So Much Crap, That You Could Lose Most Of It And Still Have Way More Stuff Than The Average Canadian.

It's Just A Big Excuse To Say Awful Things.

I Know I'm Getting Old Because There Will Be Times When I'm Not Even Doing Anything And I'll Think, 'i Need To Go Wipe My Ass Right Now.'

The Only Pitch I Have To Movie People Is The Same As This One: Just Give Me $8 Million. I'm Not Telling You What It's About And I'm Not Telling You Who's In It.

I Am Really Tired Of Looking At My Hips. I'm Seriously Really Tired Of Standing Naked In The Mirror And Staring At My Hips For Hours And Hours While Muttering, "you Hips. You Hips Need To Get It Together."

I'm Enjoying The Work While I Get It Right Now.

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My Kids Used To Love Math. Now It Makes Them Cry. Thanks Standardized Testing And Common Core!

I Do Love Standup. I Love Comedians. They're My Community. Also, Because I Know So Many Of Them, I Know The Value Of Them. I Know What They Can Do.

There's A Woman I See Who's Not My Therapist, But She's Like An Old Friend Who's A Therapist In Profession. She Lets Me Talk To Her Like A Therapist Once In A While, And She Does A Great Thing. Whenever I Have A Big Dilemma, Like This Is A Big Problem In My Life, She Always Says, 'wow, You're Going To Have To Figure That Out.'

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Cars And Cameras Are The Two Things I Let Myself Be Materialistic About. I Don't Care About Other Stuff.

Out Of The People That Ever Were, Almost All Of Them Are Dead. There Are Way More Dead People, And You're All Gonna Die And Then You're Gonna Be Dead For Way Longer Than You're Alive. Like That's Mostly What You're Ever Gonna Be. You're Just Dead People That Didn't Die Yet.

Spend Time With Your Kids And Have Your Own Ideas About What They Need. It Won't Take Away Your Manhood; It Will Give It To You.

I Look Around, Pretty Much 100% Of The People Driving Are Texting. And They're Killing, Everybody's Murdering Each Other With Their Cars. But People Are Willing To Risk Taking A Life And Ruining Their Own Because They Don't Want To Be Alone For A Second Because It's So Hard.

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Just Be Yourself

You Can Do Eight Things. We Got It Down To Eight For You.

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Feeling Unsure And Lost Is Part Of Your Path. Don't Avoid It. See What Those Feelings Are Showing You And Use It.

I've Had Two Great Years, Probably Five Good Years. So I Had 20 Years Of Just Kind Of Uncertainty And Suffering And Ego Destruction And Poverty. All These Things. There's No Way I'm Ever Going To Catch Up To The Misery Years. It's Impossible... If I Don't Do Anything Dumb Or I Don't Get A Disease Or Something, And Then I've Got To Five To Eight Years I Think Where It'll Really Be Great And Then It Will Start To Degenerate Like Uranium, You Know?

The Earliest Stand-up Comedy I Was Aware Of Was Bill Cosby. I Watched Saturday Night Live As Soon As I Was Aware Of It, And Monty Python Used To Be On Pbs At Weird Hours, So I Used To Try To Watch That. And I Loved George Carlin On Snl, That Was The First Stand-up I Ever Really Remember Seeing On Tv. And Then Steve Martin. I Guess I Was In Fifth Or Sixth Grade When Steve Martin Showed Up, And He Was Instantly My Idol. And Richard Pryor Around The Same Time Too, I Sort Of Became Aware Of Him, Though I Don't Remember The First Time I Saw Him.

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When I Am In A Hotel, And I Turn Off The Lights And The Tv, I Just Freak Out. I Turn The Tv Back On And Don't Get Any Sleep.

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I Love Being Married. It's Great. But I Hate Arguing. I Hate Fighting. You Know What I Do Now? When We Get In An Argument, I Just Take Her Side Against Me. It's Just Easier; It Goes Quicker. She's Like, "what's Wrong With You?" And I'm Like, "i Know! Damn It! Argh!"

If You're A Woman And A Guy's Ever Said Anything Romantic To You, He Just Left Off The Second Part That Would Have Made You Sick If You Could Have Heard It.

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There Are People That Really Live By Doing The Right Thing, But I Don't Know What That Is, I'm Really Curious About That. I'm Really Curious About What People Think They're Doing When They're Doing Something Evil, Casually. I Think It's Really Interesting, That We Benefit From Suffering So Much, And We Excuse Ourselves From It.

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To Me, It's Very Exhilarating When Somebody Else Does A Great Thing, And It's Not Me.

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You're A Tourist In Sexual Perversion. I'm A Prisoner There.

I Don't Have A Brother In Real Life.

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I Didn't Make Any Kind Of Grades In High School. My Mother Was A Single Mom, Putting My Three Sisters Through College, And I Was Such A Bad Student That I Knew I Had No Right To Take Her Money. But I Loved Being In Classes And Learning. I Took In A Huge Amount Of What I Learned, But I Had A Feeling Of Always Being Behind And Being In Trouble.

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Most People Are Dead. Hitler. Ray Charles. Some Other Guys. But Mostly Those Two.

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When A Person Tells You That You Hurt Them, You Don't Get To Decide That You Didn't.

...then I Got Divorced And Everything Changed, And I Became A Father In A Whole New Way And Found A Whole New Set Of Difficulties.

Expensive Quality Work Doesn't Cost More - It Pays.

People Are Always Fighting For Attention With Things Now Because There's So Much Content. Actually, If You Don't Tell People Stuff - You Just Keep Your Mouth Shut - You Don't Have To Whisper It, You Just Don't Yell. Take The Bullhorn Off Your Mouth And It's A Secret.

I Remember The Day I Saw My Hair Was Thinning. I Don't Remember Caring Much. I Don't Care. It's Just Hair. It Never Bothered Me Much. I Was Pretty Young, Too. And It Happened And Is Happening Very Slowly. I Have A Feeling Dead People Get Really Mad When We Complain About Losing Hair.

If You Had A Jetpack You'd Be Like I Have The Shittiest Jetpack. Who's Your Service Provider On Your Jetpack? Did They Make The New One? I Hate This Thing.

I Do Actually Use A Boxing Trainer When I Train For Stand-up.

I Have A Lot Of Beliefs, And I Live By None Of Them - That's Just The Way I Am They Make Me Feel Good About Who I Am.

I've Learned From Experience That If You Work Harder At It, And Apply More Energy And Time To It, And More Consistency, You Get A Better Result. It Comes From The Work.

I Learned That Money Can Be A Lot Of Things,it Can Be Something That Is Hoarded, Fought Over, Protected, Stolen And Withheld. Or It Can Be Like An Energy, Fueled By The Desire, Will, Creative Interest, Need To Laugh, Of Large Groups Of People. And It Can Be Shuffled And Pushed Around And Pooled Together To Fuel A Common Interest, Jokes About Garbage, Penises And Parenthood.

I Don't Have A Gun, But If I Did, I Would Shoot A Baby Deer In The Mouth And Feel Nothing.

To Me, Comedies Are Usually The Least Funny Movies. Movies That Are Actually A Comedy Are Usually Not All That Funny. To Me Goodfellas And Raging Bull Are Two Of The Funniest Movies I Ever Saw.

People Say There's Delays On Flights. Delays, Really? New York To California In Five Hours, That Used To Take 30 Years, A Bunch Of People Used To Die On The Way There, Have A Baby, You Would End Up With A Whole Different Group Of People By The Time You Got There. Now You Watch A Movie And [go To The Toilet] And You're Home.

My Show Is Sort Of A Short-film Anthology, And I'm Able To Tell Little Stories That Don't Necessarily Carry A Whole Episode In Terms Of Narrative. I Like The Audience Not Being Sure What They're Getting. I Think It's More Fun To Watch Something When You're Discovering It As You Go Along.

I've Met A Lot Of People Who've Lost Their Jobs And They Still Have A Sense Of Humor.

Race Doesn't Mean What It Used To In America Anymore. It Just Doesn't. Obama's Black, But He's Not Black The Way People Used To Define That. Is Black Your Experience Or The Color Of Your Skin? My Experience Is As A Mexican Immigrant, More So Than Someone Like George Lopez. He's From California. But He'll Be Treated As An Immigrant. I Am An Outsider. My Abuelita, My Grandmother, Didn't Speak English. My Whole Family On My Dad's Side Is In Mexico. I Won't Ever Be Called That Or Treated That Way, But It Was My Experience.

Bill Gates Has 90 Billion Dollars ... If I Had 90 Billion Dollars, I Wouldn't Have It For Long Because I Would Just Dream Of All The Crazy Stuff I Could Do With It. This Guy, 90 Billion Dollars. He Could Buy Every Baseball Team And Make Them All Wear Dresses And Still Have 88 Billion Dollars.

I Finally Have The Body I Want. It’s Easy, Actually, You Just Have To Want A Really Shitty Body.

I Did A Show In New Jersey In The Auditorium Of A Technical High School ... Technical High School, That's Where Dreams Are Narrowed Down. We Tell Our Children, "you Can Do Anything You Want." Their Whole Lives. "you Can Do Anything!" But This Place, We Take Kids - They're 15, They're Young - And We Tell Them, "you Can Do Eight Things. We Got It Down To Eight For You."

Why Can't We Have Racism That's Ignorant But Nice? You Could Have Stereotypes That Are Positive About Race. You Could Say, "those Chinese People, They Can Fly!" "you Know About The Puerto Ricans? They're Made Of Candy!"

I Could Never Sit Down And Write Jokes.

A Lot Of Tv Is Put Together By Teams, By Writing Staffs And Several Different Directors. It's A Great, Very Smart Way To Make Television. It's Worked For However Long Tv's Been Around.

I Think You Have To Try And Fail, Because Failure Gets You Closer To What You're Good At.

Most People Are Dead. Did You Know That? It's True, Out Of All The People That Ever Were, Almost All Of Them Are Dead.

Stereotypically Speaking Feminists Can't Take A Joke. ::audience Boo:: See?

Natural Enemies

If I Owned A Network, I Would Never Let A Guy Just Put People On Without Telling Me Who They Are.

Life's Too Short To Be An Asshole, As An Employer Or As An Employee.

Sorry - Americans Only Buy Things That Come From Suffering. They Just Enjoy It More When They Know Someone's Getting Hurt.

Every Year White People Add 100 Years To How Long Ago Slavery Was. I've Heard Educated White People Say, 'slavery Was 400 Years Ago.' No It Very Wasn't. It Was 140 Years Ago...that's Two 70-year-old Ladies Living And Dying Back To Back. That's How Recently You Could Buy A Guy.

Perception Is Created And Twisted So Quickly.

I Don't Like Waking Up. I Feel Like Staying In Bed Usually, But I Can't Because I've Got Two Kids Standing Next To My Bed, Just Eager To Live Another Day.

You Know When You See A Mother Someplace Just Melting Down On Her Kid? She's Like, 'shut Up, I Hate You, You're Ugly!'... Any Parents There Are Thinking, 'what Did That Shitty Kid Do To That Poor Woman? That Poor Woman. I Wish I Could Help.'

God Is Like A Shitty Girlfriend.

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I Always Tell My Kids To Cut A Sandwich In Half Right When You Get It, And The First Thought You Should Have Is Somebody Else. You Only Ever Need Half A Burger.

How Do Women Still Go Out With Guys, When You Consider The Fact That There Is No Greater Threat To Women Than Men? We're The Number One Threat To Women. Globally And Historically, We're The Number One Cause Of Injury And Mayhem To Women... You Know What Our Number One Threat Is? Heart Disease.

I Never Viewed Money As Being 'my Money' I Always Saw It As 'the Money.' It's A Resource. If It Pools Up Around Me Then It Needs To Be Flushed Back Out Into The System.

When You're A Father In A Marriage, You Sort Of Become The Mother's Assistant, And You Sort Of Get A List From Her Every Day, And You Do, You Know, You Run Down The List, And It Feels Very Much Like A Chore. And A Lot Of Fathers Live In Kind Of An Avoidance. They Sit On The Toilet For Several Hours A Day... Oh, Honey, It Took Me 40 Minutes To Go To The Post Office... But Once You Become A Dad Without The Mom There, You Have To Take It All On, And You Sort Of Activate Male Skills That You Didn't Know You Could Apply To Fatherhood.

If You Do Something And People Think You're Stupid, Just Go For Crazy. You Get More Respect That Way Because Nobody Likes Stupid People.

Every Day Starts, My Eyes Open And I Reload The Program Of Misery. I Open My Eyes, Remember Who I Am, What I'm Like, And I Just Go, 'ugh'.

I Can't Just Sit On My Daughter's Bed And Just Say 'n---' All Night And Then Put Her To Sleep. I Just Ain't Gonna Do That... I Told The Girls That These Boys Are Racists, And They're Not Nice Boys. But I Think We Can Still Enjoy The Stories About The Fishin' And The Tradin'.

You Have To Be Aware Of Who You're Talking To In An Audience.

Sometimes I Try To Take A Nap Before Shows. That Clears My Head.

Dating Is Horrible, It's Awful. I Don't Get It. It's Like You're Standing There: 'hi. Do You Want To Have Sex And Later Wish You Hadn't?' It's Horrible. And It's Awkward At 42 Because I Don't Have The Body Or The Drive. I Just Sit In The Car And Hope Somebody Gets In.

It's Hard To Know Where Your Thoughts Come From, Especially When You Have A Thirst For Material Because You Need It Professionally.

I Spend Enough Time Onscreen Looking Hangdog And Depressed.

I Love Stand-up More Than Anything, And I'm So Happy To Have Found A Way To Use It In The Show.

People Don't Talk To Me On Airplanes.

Being Popular With An Audience Is A Very Rickety Ladder To Be On.

All Talking Is Good, Negative And Positive. Stabbing Is Bad; Talking Is Good.

We Have White People Problems In America. You Know What That Is? That's When Your Life Is Amazing, So You Just Make Stuff Up To Get Worried About.

I Don't Care About The Weight. You Know, I'm Lucky; I'm One Of Those People - I Can Eat Donuts, Whatever, And I Just Get Fat.

When I Was First Divorced, I Started Dating Younger Women, And It Was Really Exciting. But After A While I Was Like, 'this Is Just Dumb.'

I Know What It's Like To Have A Bunch Of Material That's Working That You Don't Care About. You Want To Die.

I Don't Think It Makes Any Sense To Try To Get Anyone To Not Talk.

I Get Mad Like Anybody Else Does, But Being Able To Laugh About Getting Mad Is Very Healthy, And My Kids Know That.

Sadness Is Poetic. You're Lucky To Live Sad Moments. When You Let Yourself Be Sad, Your Body Has Antibodies. It Has Happiness That Comes Rushing In To Meet The Sadness.

A Household Name Is Like Ketchup. Everybody Wants Ketchup. Ketchup Doesn't Hurt Anybody.

Everything That People Say Is Testable.

If You're A Cartoon Character Or Most Tv Characters, Sure, You'll Fight, Because The Punches Are Juicy-sounding And They Don't Leave Marks. But In Real Life, If Somebody Punches You In The Eye, It Doesn't Make Any Noise And Your Eye Is Swollen For, Like, Six Months. It's A Nightmare To Get Punched In The Eye.

There's Nothing That Beats Proving You're Funny By Making A Funny Thing, And Right Now There Are Huge Outlets For That, With You Tube And All The Other Stuff Online.

My Bank Is The Worst. They Are Screwing Me. You Know What They Did To Me? They're Charging Me Money For Not Having Enough Money. Apparently, When You're Broke, That Costs Money.

A Lot Of The Struggle I Had With Movies Is I Really Loved Moments And Tones And Feelings In A Scene, And I Loved Creating Those, But I Never Really Had Great Stories To String Them Together.

Bill Has Three Goldfish. He Buys Two More. How Many Dogs Live In London?

Some Things I Think Are Very Conservative, Or Very Liberal. I Think When Someone Falls Into One Category For Everything, I'm Very Suspicious. It Doesn't Make Sense To Me That You'd Have The Same Solution To Every Issue.

To Me The Goal Of Comedy Is To Just Laugh, Which Is A Really High Hearted Thing, Visceral Connection And Reaction.

When I See Two Guys Kissing, I'm Like, How Come I Can't Kiss One Of Those Guys? They Look Like They're Having A Good Time.

The Only Road To Doing Good Shows, Is Doing Bad Shows.

I Killed My Facebook Page Years Ago Because Time Clicking Around Is Just Dead Time. Your Brain Isn't Resting And It Isn't Doing. I Think People Have To Get Their Heads Around This Thing. All This Unmitigated Input Is Hurting Folks.

Someday, One Of Your Friends Is Gonna Get Divorced, It's Gonna Happen, And They're Gonna Tell You. Don't Go, 'ohhhh I'm Sorry.' That's A Stupid Thing To Say. First Of All You're Making 'em Feel Bad For Being Really Happy, Which Isn't Fair. And Second Of All: Divorce Is Always Good News. I Know That Sounds Weird, But It's True, Because No Good Marriage Has Ever Ended In Divorce. It's Really That Simple.

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