George Carlin

"We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, yet less time; we have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgment; more experts, yet more problems; we have more gadgets but less satisfaction; more medicine, yet less wellness; we take more vitamins but see fewer results. We drink too much; smoke too much; spend too recklessly; laugh too little; drive too fast; get too angry; stay up too late; get up too tired; read too seldom; watch TV too much and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values; we fly in faster planes to arrive there quicker, to do less and return sooner; we sign more contracts only to realize fewer profits; we talk too much; love too seldom and lie too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less; we make faster planes, but longer lines; we learned to rush, but not to wait; we have more weapons, but less peace; higher incomes, but lower morals; more parties, but less fun; more food, but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer friends; more effort, but less success. We build more computers to hold more information, to produce more copies than ever, but have less communication; drive smaller cars that have bigger problems; build larger factories that produce less. We've become long on quantity, but short on quality. These are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall men, but short character; steep in profits, but shallow relationships. These are the times of world peace, but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun; higher postage, but slower mail; more kinds of food, but less nutrition. These are the days of two incomes, but more divorces; these quick trips, disposable diapers, cartridge living, throw-away morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies and pills that do everything from cheer, to prevent, quiet or kill. It is a time when there is much in the show window and nothing in the stock room."

"Birth control pills are still on prescription. You still need a note to get laid."

"You know how you speed up baseball? Everybody gets one swing. That's it, one swing, fuck you, you're out, sit down!"

"And athletes, athletes got into uppers, college athletes. The right wing's last line of defense on campus. They're doing amphetamines. Remember when "being up for the game" was kind of a spiritual thing? Now, man..."You up for the game?" "(pop, pop) Been up all week, man!""

"I used to be Irish Catholic; Now I'm an American. You know, you grow."

"O Beautiful, for smoggy skies, insecticided grain"

"Hansel and Gretel discovered the ginger bread house about 45 minutes after they discovered the mushrooms."

"There are two-way words, like, it's okay for Curt Gowdy to say, "Roberto Clemente has two balls on him!" But he can't say, "I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony, don't you?""

"And the other two-way word is "prick". It's okay if it happens to your finger; yes, you can prick your finger, but don't finger your prick!"

"Nobody goes right to work. You might get there on time, but, screw the company, those first twenty minutes belong to you, right? It's not an attitude in line with the American Spirit, but there it is: we all screw around first. "I just got here, man, you kiddin' me?" Really. You never see a memo that says 9:01."

"If you take five white guys and put 'em with five black guys, and let 'em hang around together for about a month, and at the end of the month, you'll notice that the white guys are walking and talking and standing like the black guys do. You'll never see the black guys going, "Oh, golly! We won the big game today, yes sir!" But you'll see guys with red hair named Duffy going, "What's happenin'?""

"It was in 1951, when I was 14, when grass swept the neighborhood. We hadn't been into grass before, we were into gang fighting, and wine and beer in the park, and punching the shit out of people, and having jackets with your name, and your girls were your 'debs', and you had turf, and all that dumb shit, and we would get into fights over girls...and then pot came along and gang fighting went away. In one semester, in shop class, all the guys went from making zip guns to hash pipes."

"Spoiler: advertising man says, "It's Good!""

"The seven dwarfs were each on different little trips. Happy was into grass and grass alone … Happy, that's all he did. Sleepy was into reds. Grumpy, too much speed. Sneezy was a full blown coke freak. Doc was a connection. Dopey was into everything. Any old orifice will do for Dopey. He's always got his arm out and his leg up. And then, the one we always forget, because he was Bashful. Bashful didn't use drugs. He was paranoid on his own. Didn't need any help on that ladder."

"There are four hundred thousand words in the English language, and there are seven you can't say on television. What a ratio that is: 399,993 to 7. They must really be bad; they'd have to be outrageous to be separated from a group that large! "All of you over here, you seven? BAD WORDS." That's what they told us they were, remember? "That's a bad word!" ...No bad words; bad thoughts, bad intentions... and words. You know the seven, don't you, that you can't say on television? Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that will infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war."

"I would never want to be a member of a group whose symbol was a man nailed to two pieces of wood. Especially if it's me!"

"Don't give your money to the church. They should be giving their money to you."

"Have you noticed that most of the women who are against abortion are women you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place, man? There's such balance in nature."

""Fussy eater" is a euphemism for "big pain in the ass"."

"And, of course, the funniest food: "kumquats". I don't even bring them home anymore. I sit there laughing and they go to waste."

"So I say live and let live. That's my motto. Live and let live. Anyone who can't go along with that, take him outside and shoot the motherfucker. It's a simple philosophy, but it's always worked in our family."

"Reminds me of something my grandfather would say. He'd say, "I'm goin' upstairs and fuck your grandmother." Well he was an honest guy ya know, he wasn't gonna bullshit a 4-year-old."

"Help me find some shoes I really like. Help me also to find a nymphomaniac coke connection who owns a Ferrari dealership."

"Let me arrive safely back at my hotel room. Don't let me be attacked by a maniac wearing a french tickler and a space helmet. Don't let my beard become entangled in the gears of a transcontinental bus. And don't let me be hit by a flying turd."

"Let's go for a drive OK? Well I'll go for a drive, you'll go for a ride. The person who drives the car they go for a drive, the other people they go for a ride. People don't know that, tell them when they're in your car. Say "you assholes are goin' for a ride!""

"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"

"Have you noticed that there are some people, who when they lose something, their first reaction is that it had to be stolen? First thing- "Hey! It was stolen!" It's an ego defense. They can't stand the fact that they might have been stupid enough to have lost something. And even if it's something that anyone would really want that much. "Hey! Who stole my collection of used bandages?! And they also got away with my nude pictures of Ernest Borgnine!""

"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."

"I never fucked a 10, but one night I fucked 5 twos!"

"And you know, I always wanted to work in a delicatessen just so that a woman would come in one day and ask me to give her some tongue. And I'd say "Well, I don't get off 'till four o'clock." And she'd say "Well, I don't get off at all. That's why I'm looking for some tongue!""

"Some day birth control will come off prescription, and they'll need those cute little catchy names like the patent medicines have...some day birth control pills will have names like, "Preg-Not"! Doctors prefer "Embry-No"! Here's one for the ladies, "Nary-A-Carry"! Something lofty and poetic: "Nay Family Way"; something earthy and crude: "Mom Bomb"; something for the youngsters, "Junior Miss"; here's a real man's product, "Inconceivable"! "Mommy-Not", "Fetus Fail", "Kiddie Kill", "Papa Stopper", "Womb Broom", "Humpty Dumpty"... I wouldn't be surprised if they came up with a birth control pill that doesn't work all the time; they'd call it "Baby Maybe"!"

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, that we've enjoyed some good times this evening, and enjoyed some laughter together, I feel it is my obligation to remind you of some of the negative, depressing, dangerous, life-threatening things that life is really all about; things you have not been thinking about tonight, but which will be waiting for you as soon as you leave the theater or as soon as you turn off your television sets. Anal rape, quicksand, body lice, evil spirits, gridlock, acid rain, continental drift, labor violence, flash floods, rabies, torture, bad luck, calcium deficiency, falling rocks, cattle stampedes, bank failure, evil neighbors, killer bees, organ rejection, lynching, toxic waste, unstable dynamite, religious fanatics, prickly heat, price fixing, moral decay, hotel fires, loss of face, stink bombs, bubonic plague, neo-Nazis, friction, cereal weevils, failure of will, chain reaction, soil erosion, mail fraud, dry rot, voodoo curse, broken glass, snake bite, parasites, white slavery, public ridicule, faithless friends, random violence, breach of contract, family scandals, charlatans, transverse myelitis, structural defects, race riots, sunspots, rogue elephants, wax buildup, killer frost, jealous coworkers, root canals, metal fatigue, corporal punishment, sneak attacks, peer pressure, vigilantes, birth defects, false advertising, ungrateful children, financial ruin, mildew, loss of privileges, bad drugs, ill-fitting shoes, widespread chaos, Lou Gehrig's disease, stray bullets, runaway trains, chemical spills, locusts, airline food, shipwrecks, prowlers, bathtub accidents, faulty merchandise, terrorism, discrimination, wrongful cremation, carbon deposits, beef tapeworm, taxation without representation, escaped maniacs, sunburn, abandonment, threatening letters, entropy, nine-mile fever, poor workmanship, absentee landlords, solitary confinement, depletion of the ozone layer, unworthiness, intestinal bleeding, defrocked priests, loss of equilibrium, disgruntled employees, global warming, card sharks, poisoned meat, nuclear accidents, broken promises, contamination of the water supply, obscene phone calls, nuclear winter, wayward girls, mutual assured destruction, rampaging moose, the greenhouse effect, cluster headaches, social isolation, Dutch elm disease, the contraction of the universe, paper cuts, eternal damnation, the wrath of God, and PARANOIAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!"

"I really haven't seen this many people in one place since they took the group photographs of all the criminals and lawbreakers in the Ronald Reagan Administration. Two-hundred and twenty-five of 'em, so far! 225 different people in the Ronald Reagan administration have either quit, been fired, arrested, indicted or convicted of either breaking the law or violating the ethics code! These are the same people who were elected with the help of the moral majority. Elected with the help of the moral majority and the Teamsters union. That's a good combination! Organized religion and organized crime working together to help build a better America."

"I'm the first one to say it's a great country, but it's a strange culture. We got a strange culture. This has got to be the only country in the world that could ever come up with a disease like bulimia; gotta be the only country in the world where some people have no food at all, and other people eat a nourishing meal and puke it up intentionally. This is a country where tobacco kills four hundred thousand people a year, so they ban artificial sweeteners! Because a rat died! You know what I mean? This is a place where gun store owners are given a list of stolen credit cards, but not a list of criminals and maniacs! And now, they're thinking about banning toy guns – and they're gonna keep the fucking real ones!"

"Next time you're at a wishing well. Doesn't happen often. Next time you're at a wishing well ask to see the manager! Tell him you've been coming there for 10 years and none of your wishes have come true. Either you gimme my money back—or I'm shittin' in the well!"

"It's the old American Double Standard, ya know: Say one thing, do somethin' different. And of course this country is founded on the double standard, that's our history! We were founded on a very basic double standard: This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. Am I right? A group of slave owners who wanted to be free! So they killed a lot of white English people, in order to continue owning their black African people, so they could wipe out of the rest of the red Indian people, so they move west and steal the rest of the land from the brown Mexican people, giving them a place to take off and drop their nuclear weapons on the yellow Japanese people. You know what the motto of this country ought to be? "You give us a color, we'll wipe it out!""

"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. D'you think anybody in this country could ever really have a civil war? "Say, pardon me...*machinegun sounds*...I'm awfully sorry! Awfully sorry." Now of course the Civil War has been over for about 120 years. But...not so you'd really notice it. Because you see we have these people called "Civil War buffs"...in fact some of these people actually get dressed up once a year and then go out and re-fight these battles. D'you know what I say to these people? USE LIVE AMMUNITION ASSHOLES, WOULD YA PLEASE?! You might just raise the intelligence level of the American gene pool!"

"These people call themselves "right to lifers." Don't you love that phrase? And don't you love the way these kind of people pervert the English language? You realize that most of the right-to-lifers are in favor of the DEATH penalty? And they support the South American DEATH squads. And they're against gun control and they're against nuclear weapons control. When they say "right to life," they're talking about THEIR right to decide which people should live or die. Doesn't it strike you as mildly ironic that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place?"

"Some people try to get out of jury duty by lying. You don't have to lie. Tell the judge the truth. Tell him you'd make a terrific juror because you can spot guilty people [snaps fingers] just like that!"

"The FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, decided all by itself that radio and television were the only two parts of American life not protected by the free speech provisions of the first amendment to the Constitution. I'd like to repeat that, because it sounds... *vaguely* important! The FCC, an appointed body, not elected, answerable only to the president, decided on its own that radio and television were the only two parts of American life not protected by the first amendment to the Constitution. Why did they decide that? Because they got a letter from a minister in Mississippi! A Reverend Donald Wildman in Mississippi heard something on the radio that he didn't like. Well, Reverend, did anyone ever tell you there are two KNOBS on the radio? Two. Knobs. On the radio. Of course, I'm sure the reverend isn't that comfortable with anything that has two knobs on it. But hey, reverend, there are two knobs on the radio! One of them turns the radio OFF, and the other one [slaps his head] CHANGES THE STATION! Imagine that, reverend, you can actually change the station! It's called freedom of choice, and it's one of the principles this country was founded upon. Look it up in the library, reverend, if you have any of them left when you've finished burning all the books."

"People I can do without. This is my list: guys in their fifties named "Skip." Anyone who pays for vaginal jelly with an Exxon credit card. An airline pilot who has on two different shoes. A proctologist with poor depth perception. A pimp who drives a Toyota Corolla. A gynecologist who wants my wife to have three or four drinks before the examination. Guys with a lot of small pins on their hats. Anyone who mentions Jesus more than three hundred times in a two-minute conversation. A dentist with blood in his hair. Any woman whose hobby is breast-feeding zoo animals. A funeral director who says "Hope to see you folks again real soon!" Girls who get drunk and throw up at breakfast. A man with only one lip. A Boy Scout master who owns a dildo shop. People who actually know the second verse to "The Star-Spangled Banner." Any lawyer who refers to the police as the "Federalies." A cross-eyed nun with a bullwhip and a bottle of gin! A brain surgeon with "Born to Lose" tattooed on his hands. Couples whose children's names all start with the same initials. A man in a hospital gown directing traffic. A waitress with a visible infection on her serving hand. People who have large gums and small teeth. Guys who wear the same underwear until it begins to cut off the circulation to their feet. And any man whose arm hair completely covers his wristwatch. All right, that's enough of that."

"I know that. Some people don't want you to mention certain things. Some people don't want you to say this, some people don't want you to say that. Some people think if you mention some things they might happen. Some people are really fucking stupid. Did you ever notice that, how many stupid people you run into during the day? Goddamn there's a lot of stupid bastards walking around. Carry a pad and pencil with you, you'll wind up with thirty or forty names by the end of the day. Think about this: think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of 'em are stupider than that."

"Let me get a sip of water here...you figure this stuff is safe to drink? [audience yells "No"] Actually, I don't care, I drink it anyway. You know why? 'Cause 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."

"But what's the alternative? What's the alternative to pumping out a unit every nine months? Pointless careerism? Pointless careerism, putting on a man tailored suit and shoulder pads and imitating all the worst behavior of men? Is this the noblest thing that women can think of?"

"But, when it comes to changing the language, I think they [feminists] make some good points, because we do think in language, and so the quality of our thoughts and ideas could only be as good as the quality of our language. So maybe some of this patriarchal shit ought to go away. I think "spokesman" ought to be "spokesperson," I think "chairman" ought to be "chairperson," I think "mankind" ought to be "humankind." But they take it too far, they take themselves too seriously, they exaggerate. They want me to call that thing in the street a "person-hole cover;" I think that's taking it a little bit too far. What would you call a lady's man, a "person's person"? That would make a "He-man" an "It-person." Little kids would be afraid of "the boogieperson". They'd look up in the sky and see "the person in the moon". Guys would say, "Come back here and fight like a person," And we'd all sing "For it's a jolly good person." That's the kind of thing you would hear on Late Night with David Letter-Person."

"Government want to tell you things you can't say because they're against the law, or you can't say this because it's against a regulation, or here's something you can't say because its a...secret; "You can't tell him that because he's not cleared to know that." Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in."

"Same with religion. Religion is nothing but mind control. Religion is just trying to control your mind, control your thoughts, so they're gonna tell you some things you shouldn't say because they're...sins. And besides telling you things you shouldn't say, religion is gonna suggest some things that you ought to be saying; "Here's something you ought to say first thing when you wake up in the morning; here's something you ought to say just before you go to sleep at night; here's something we always say on the third Wednesday in April after the first full moon in spring at 4 o'clock when the bells ring." Religion is always suggesting things you ought to be saying."

"Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It's as simple as that. The CIA doesn't kill anybody anymore, they neutralize people, or they depopulate the area. The government doesn't lie, it engages in disinformation. The Pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units. Israeli murderers are called commandos, Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime, and firefighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?"

"I have certain rules I live by. My first rule: I don't believe anything the government tells me. [...] I look at war a little bit differently. To me, war is a lot of prick-waving! OK? Simple thing. That's all it is. War is a whole lot of men standing out on a field waving their pricks at one another. Men are insecure about the size of their dicks, and so they have to kill one another over the idea. That's what all that asshole jock bullshit is all about. That's what all that adolescent, macho, male posturing and strutting in bars and locker rooms is all about. It's called "dick fear!" Men are terrified that their pricks are inadequate and so they have to compete with one another, to feel better about themselves, and since war is the ultimate competition, basically, men are killing each other in order to improve their self-esteem! You don't have to be a history major or a political scientist to see the bigger-dick foreign policy theory. It sounds like this: "What, they have bigger dicks? Bomb them!" And of course, the bombs and the rockets and the bullets are all shaped like dicks. It's a subconscious need to project the penis into other people's affairs. It's called "fucking with people!""

"When they talk about drugs, they don't talk about all of them. They never mention coffee. The low end of the speed spectrum, I grant you, but there are coffee freaks. And they're walking around, nobody worrying about it."