Quotes by Comedians - Page 42

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.

Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair.

I like to think of this little [newspaper] column as a brassière, or do I mean brasserie? Brazier, possibly. All three! A column that lifts, separates, supports, serves excellent cappuccino and crackles merrily with sweet-smelling old chestnuts.

It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.

The cost of living is going up while the chances of living are going down.

But tonight I finally made the connection that change always strolled hand in hand with loss, with upheaval, and that I would always feel it keenly because in the end, I did not live under the same sky as most other people. (p179)

Let him treat you like a lady and open the car door for you. If he doesn't automatically open the door for you, stand by the darn thing and don't get into the vehicle until he realises he needs to get hid behind out of the driver's seat and come round and open the car door for you. That's his job!

I hate McDonald's. I don't want to order my dinner by yelling into a clown's mouth. If I want my face in a clown's mouth, I'll tongue kiss Glenn Beck.

aphorism 90: I am incorrigible. I would have every object of the universe mechanically predictable but myself.

Race is there. You're tire of hearing about it? Imagine how fucking exhausting it is living it.

Two people occupying the same air. Nothing else in common. Just oxygen.

From birth to age eighteen a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on she needs good cash.

Bisexuals are really attracted to senior Lib Dems - as they are both a man and a great big pussy.

They say the only people who tell the truth are drunkards and children. Guess which one I am.

... had to pee like a racehorse at an Iced Tea convention.

Every day in America is a day with a shooting.

Everyone says it's wrong, 'drinking and driving', don't they. I can tell you two things that are far more dangerous than 'drinking and driving': 1. 'drinking'; 2. 'driving'.Do you know how many people were killed last year in Britain as a direct result of alcohol abuse?--thirty-five-thousand!Do you know how many people were killed as a direct result of driving a car?--twenty-two-thousand!Do you know how many people were killed as a direct result of drinking _and_ driving?--five-hundred! ::pauses::I'm not taking any fuckin' chances!::swigs his beer::

Her idea of a romantic setting is one that has a diamond in it. If you feel the need to marry a doctor I suggest a dermatologist. Good hours free Retin-A.

We have a duty tonight. Everybody, and guys this for you as well because I know you know women. You have a duty tonight. You only have to tell one other person what you heard. Just tell them what you heard, or ask them have you ever heard of this? If the answer is no, share what you learn tonight.That’s all. You don’t have to do anything else. You just have to tell somebody else. You have to take whatever stigma people think that is there. You have to take it. It’s not male or female. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with, here’s a disease you don’t know about and you need to know about it. It’s that simple. It’s not rocket science.[Whoopi Goldberg on endometriosis awareness from the 2009 Blossom Ball]

Everyone gets their rough day. No one gets a free ride. Today so far I had a good day. I got a dial tone.

I won't say I'm out of condition now - but I even puff going downstairs.

I phoned the Admiral back.'It's no use, Admiral, the French speak nothing but French.'There was a short pause on the end of the line then his voice rattled into life like a sabre.'They're lying, Tim!''What?''The French Navy must by law speak English, as English is the international maritime language of the sea.''Has anyone told the French that?'The line went dead for a moment before he thundered, 'Yes Nelson. At the battle of Trafalgar.'I tried to stifle an irresistibly British giggle not knowing if the Admiral was making a joke or not. I got it right. He was serious.

Hey, I stopped smoking cigarettes. Isn't that something? I'm on to cigars now. I'm on to a five-year plan. I eliminated cigarettes, then I go to cigars, then I go to pipes, then I go to chewing tobacco, then I'm on to that nicotine gum

Religion forces every individual to take responsibility. Specifically, take it away from yourself and give it to God. If we had to be accountable for every one of our actions, we'd be crippled with indecision. But with religion pointing the way, we can feel confident in our choice to picket our children's elementary school when we find out the art teacher is gay.

When I ask how old your toddler is, I don't need to hear '27 months.' 'He's two' will do just fine. He's not a cheese. And I didn't really care in the first place.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen.

Sex at eighty-four is terrific especially the one in the winter.

Great writers, I discovered, were not to be bowed down before and worshipped, but embraced and befriended. Their names resounded through history not because they had massive brows and thought deep incomprehensible thoughts, but because they opened windows in the mind, they put their arms round you and showed you things you always knew but never dared to believe. Even if their names were terrifyingly foreign and intellectual sounding, Dostoevsky, Baudelaire or Cavafy, they turned out to be charming and wonderful and quite unalarming after all.

Mistakes are a part of being human. Precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.

The reason people use a crucifix against vampires is that vampires are allergic to bull shit.

Nobody is wired wrong because there’s no wrong and right in the way we are.

Two languages in one brain? No one can live at that speed!

You know who must be very secure in their masculinity? Male ladybugs.

When we became teenagers boredom grew like a moth in a cocoon fighting to escape, and the peace created by our parents became a prison. We sought excitement and adventure. We sought anything but the sinless, pure, and average of the faux idyllic.

Jealousy always trumps schadenfreude! It’s a rule from the heartbreak version of ‘rock, paper, scissors.

You are all so good and I wish I were better. Now get out of here because I want to be where you are.

Church is important to most folks in the South. So the most important thing going is basically ruled by men as decreed by the Big Man himself. Not only that, but the church puts pressures on women that it does not put on men. Young women are expected to be chaste, moral, and pure, whereas young men are given way more leeway, ’cause, ya know, boys will be boys. Girls are expected to marry young and have kids, be a helpmate to their husbands (who are basically like having another child), and, of course, raise perfect little Christian babies to make this world a better place. So while it’s the preacher man who controls the church, it’s the women—those helpmates—who keep that shit going. They keep the pews tidy and wash the windows; type up the bulletins; volunteer for Sunday school, the nursery, youth group, and Vacation Bible School; fry the chicken for the postchurch dinners; organize the monthly potluck dinners, the spaghetti supper to raise money for a new roof, and the church fund drive; plant flowers in the front of the church, make food for sick parishioners, serve food after funerals, put together the Christmas pageant, get Easter lilies for Easter, wash the choir robes, organize the church trip, bake cookies for the bake sale to fund the church trip, pray unceasingly for their husband and their pastor and their kids and never complain, and then make sure their skirts are ironed for Sunday mornin’ service. All this while in most churches not being allowed to speak with any authority on the direction or doctrine of the church. No, no, ladies, the heavy lifting—thinkin’ up shit to say, standing up at the lectern telling people what to do, counting the money—that ain’t for yuns. So sorry.

New Rule: Never underestimate the ability of a tiny fringe group of losers to ruin everything. We've all been laughing heartily at the wacky antics of the "birthers"--the far-right goofballs who claim Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii, and therefore the job of the president goes to the runner-up, Miss California Carrie Prejean. And there's nothing you can do to convince these people--you could hand them, in person, the original birth certificate, with the placenta, and have a video of Obama emerging from the womb with Don Ho singing in the background...and they still wouldn't believe it. Hey, birthers, wanna hear my theory? My theory is Obama was born in America, and your were born with the umbilical cord around your neck. I don't know what his mother was doing when she was pregnant, but I'm pretty sure yours was drinking.Oh, I kid the birthers, and actually, there is one thing that makes me think they could be right: We're Americans; of course we're gonna hire an illegal alien to clean up. I'm joking, of course, and laughing it off has also been the reaction from Democratic leaders so far, proving that Democrats never learn: In America, if you don't immediately kill arrant bullshit, no matter how ridiculous, it can grow and thrive and eventually take over, like crabgrass or Cirque du Soleil. This might be a deluded, time-wasting right-wing obsession, but so was Whitewater, and look where that ended up. Liberals said, "Oh, what're they gonna do, keep expanding the case until they impeach the president over a blow job?"I'm telling you, in America, there is no idea so patently absurd that it can't catch on. For example, have you ever met a Mormon? More recently, we had the Swift Boat allegations against John Kerry, making him, a genuine war hero, into a coward in a race against a guy who never left Texas--this was so stupid that Kerry refused to even discuss it. And we all know how well that worked out.You may ask, how does something as inane as Whitewater or Swift Board or the "birther" phenomenon gain traction? I'll tell you how: the same way the story about Elton John almost dying from ingesting too much of Rod Stewart's sperm gained traction in my high school: dummies talking to other dummies. It's just easier now because of the Internet and because our mainstream media does such a lousy job of speaking the truth to stupid.Lou Dobbs said recently, "People are asking a lot of questions about the birth certificate." Yes, the same people who want to know where the sun goes at night, and where to put the stamp on their e-mail. And, Lou, you're their new king. That's why it's so important that we the few, the proud, the "reality-based," attack this stuff before it has a chance to fester and spread. It's not a case of Democrats vs. Republicans. It's sentient beings vs. the Lizard People, and it is to them I offer this deal: I'll show you President Obama's birth certificate when you show me Sarah Palin's high school diploma.

You do realize as you grow older that almost nobody knows what they are talking about.

If it's a penny for your thoughts and you put in your two cents worth, then someone, somewhere is making a penny.

Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth . . . Then he said, "Let there be light." Which means he made the entire universe in the dark! How fucking good is that? He's brilliant.

Look at the kind of people who most object to the childishness and cheapness of celebrity culture. Does one really want to side with such apoplectic and bombastic bores? I should know, I often catch myself being one, and it isn’t pretty. I will defend the absolute value of Mozart over Miley Cyrus, of course I will, but we should be wary of false dichotomies. You do not have to choose between one or the other. You can have both. The human cultural jungle should be as varied and plural as the Amazonian rainforest. We are all richer for biodiversity. We may decide that a puma is worth more to us than a caterpillar, but surely we can agree that the habitat is all the better for being able to sustain each. Monocultures are uninhabitably dull and end as deserts.

I can’t for the life of me not eat something that I want to eat. You know how if you turned on a faucet in your sink to wash your hands, the idea of leaving the bathroom without turning it off is insane? That’s how I am about ignoring delicious food.

Immediately after his re-election [Cameron] announced: “For too long we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens so long as you obey the law we will leave you alone.” A statement so far to the right that it conceded the political centre ground to Judge Dredd.

It’s even more awkward when we’re face to face with people. It used to be exciting to make plans with friends because you could sit and catch up and talk about what’s been going on in your lives. Now when you see someone there’s nothing left to say. You’ve already seen the pictures from their trip to Rio on Facebook. You’ve read their tweets about the latest diet they’re on. And they already texted you about the pregnancy scare. So you end up just sitting and staring at each other until you both start texting other people.

Envy and respect are not the same things...Before I endow you with respect, I should find out whether your curiosity is intellectual or merely morbid. Not that those who gawk at train derailments are so different from those who conduct autopsies; both want, at some level, to know what has happened, and, by extension, what will happen. Did the liver fail because of the decedent's alcoholism or was some toxin administered? If the deliverer is found, he or she may be imprisoned or, in more honest times, hanged, and thus pose no further threat. Or for the gawker at the accident, espying loose parts not unlike his or her own parts strewn amid wreckage may lead to a sense of awe at death's power, or horror at life's fragility, either of which may be instructive in any number of ways.

Learn from your past and be better because of your past, but don't cry about your past. Life is full of pain. Let the pain sharpen you, but don't hold on to it. Don't be bitter.

REGARDING THE MARCHING BAND: How much more interesting it would be to see a creeping band.

You have to remember one thing about the will of the people: it wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the Macarena.

On peut rire de tout mais pas avec n'importe qui.

For fast-acting relief try slowing down.

The groom is so much better for her than her last boyfriend. He's sophisticated he brings her flowers and candy he dines by candlelight. Her last boyfriend thought it was enough to spray her name on a fence.

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

I think life is a lot different for alternative kids nowadays. Texting and the internet mean that being a Goth or something means you're part of a big social scene, it's an inclusive thing. Back then, we all just went our different ways in the afterglow,wishing each other all the best with the next ten years of bullying.

Fettucini alfredo is macaroni and cheese for adults.

We must have been hunters and gatherers but some of us were just waiters and hopers.

We've never been happier. Things are great. . . I just don't go into her part of the house.

A flag is supposed to represent everything that a country does. It doesn't only represent the good things. If you burn the flag, you're burning the flag for what you perceive to be the bad things the country has done. it's only a symbol. It's only a piece of cloth.