Comedians From The United States

"There’s a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause."

"Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadows about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us."

"Imagine if all of life were determined by majority rule. Every meal would be a pizza. Every pair of pants, even those in a Brooks Brothers suit, would be stone-washed denim. Celebrity diet and exercise books would be the only thing on the shelves at the library. And — since women are a majority of the population — we'd all be married to Mel Gibson."

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

"The American political system is like a gigantic Mexican Christmas fiesta. Each political party is a huge piñata — a papier-mâché donkey, for example. The donkey is filled with full employment, low interest rates, affordable housing, comprehensive medical benefits, a balanced budget and other goodies. The American voter is blindfolded and given a stick. The voter then swings the stick wildly in every direction, trying to hit a political candidate on the head and knock some sense into the silly bastard."

"Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the archetypal extremely smart person who went into politics anyway instead of doing something worthwhile for his country. So maybe he owes all of us an apology..."

"The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it."

"Many reporters, when they go to work in the nation’s capital, begin thinking of themselves as participants in the political process instead of glorified stenographers."

"Marilyn Quayle was there, too, looking – it was indeed a strange week in Washington – great. She had her hair done up in something my wife said was a chignon, and whatever it was, it made Marilyn look considerably less like a Cape buffalo than usual. Though actually I admired the Cape buffalo look. I have an idea that – like a Cape buffalo – if Marilyn Quayle gets furious and charges, you've got only one shot at the skull. You wouldn't want to just wound her."

"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it."

"The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop."

"There are twenty-seven specific complaints against the British Crown set forth in the Declaration of Independence. To modern ears they still sound reasonable, in large part, because so many of them can be leveled against the federal government of the United States."

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."

"What would be a road hazard anywhere else, in the Third World is probably the road."

"War will exist as long as there's a food chain."

"To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze."

"They don't like anyone who isn't Korean, and they don't like each other all that much, either. They're hardheaded, hard-drinking, tough little bastards, "the Irish of Asia"."

"There are probably more fact-finding tours of Nicaragua right now than there are facts— the country has shortages of practically everything."

"There are a lot of mysterious things about boats, such as why anyone would get on one voluntarily."

"The most extraordinary change in Moscow was Arbat Street, the USSR's first pedestrian mall. Of course, there's something a little sad about a pedestrian mall in a nation where few people own cars— the whole damn country's a pedestrian mall."

"The larger the German body, the smaller the German bathing suit and the louder the German voice issuing German demands and German orders to everybody who doesn't speak German. For this, and several other reasons, Germany is known as 'the land where Israelis learned their manners'."

"The Italians have had two thousand years to fix up the Forum and just look at the place."

"The interesting thing about staring down a gun barrel is how small the hole is where the bullet comes out, yet what a big difference it would make in your social schedule."

"The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whiskey I don't know."

"The Australian language is easier to learn than boat talk. It has a vocabulary of about six words."

"The America's Cup is like driving your Lamborghini to the Grand Prix track to watch the charter buses race."

"Some people are worried about the difference between right and wrong. I'm worried about the difference between wrong and fun."

"One nice thing about the Third World, you don't have to fasten your seat belt. (Or stop smoking. Or cut down on saturated fats.) It takes a lot off your mind when average life expectancy is forty-five minutes."

"Moscow has changed. I was here in 1982, during the Brezhnev twilight, and things are better now. For instance, they've got litter. In 1982 there was nothing to litter with."

"Italy is not technically part of the Third World, but no one has told the Italians."

"It had never occurred to us that the Kremlin's new anti-booze campaign would apply to journalists. Now, that's a human-rights violation."

"Only one way to cover a story like this, and make that a double, bartender, please."

"In Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of sailing-boat equipment, the gin and tonic."

"If Christ came back tomorrow, He'd have to change planes in Frankfurt. Modern air travel means less time spent in transit. That time is now spent in transit lounges."

"I've always figured that if God wanted us to go to church a lot He'd have given us bigger behinds to sit on and smaller heads to think with."

"I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books."

"I can understand why mankind hasn't given up war. During a war you get to drive tanks through the sides of buildings and shoot foreigners— two things that are usually frowned on during peacetime."

"I am no stranger to loud noise. I've been to a Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels concert. I once dated a woman with two kids."

"Harvard has been almost as important to the American Jewish community as the pork-sausage industry."

"Everything on a boat has a different name than it would have if it weren't on a boat. Either this is ancient seafaring tradition or it's how people who mess around with boats try to impress the rest of us who actually finished college."

"Earnestness is just stupidity sent to college."

"Cockfighting has always been my idea of a great sport— two armed entrées battling to see who'll be dinner."

"Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof."

"To really enjoy drugs you've got to want to get out of where you are. But there are some wheres that are harder to get out of than others. This is the drug-taking problem for adults. Teenage weltschmerz is easy to escape. But what drug will get a grown-up out of, for instance, debt?"

"These were people who believed everything about the Soviet Union was perfect, but they were bringing their own toilet paper."

"The Soviet constitution guarantees everyone a job. A pretty scary idea, I'd say."

"The real slums are another matter. The bad parts of Tondo are as bad as any place I've seen, ancient, filthy houses swarmed with the poor and stinking of sewage and trash. But there are worse parts— squatter areas where people live under cardboard, in shipping crates, behind tacked-up newspapers. Dad would march you straight to the basement with a hairbrush in his hand if he caught you keeping your hamster cage like this."

"The Institute of U.S. and Canadian Studies is supposed to have subscribed to the Village Voice for six years in an attempt to find out about life in America's rural areas."

"The forces of safety are afoot in the land. I, for one, believe it is a conspiracy— a conspiracy of Safety Nazis shouting "Sieg Health" and seeking to trammel freedom, liberty, and large noisy parties. The Safety Nazis advocate gun control, vigorous exercise, and health foods. The result can only be a disarmed, exhausted, and half-starved population ready to acquiesce to dictatorship of some kind."

"Something is happening to America, not something dangerous but something all too safe. I see it in my lifelong friends. I am a child of the "baby boom," a generation not known for its sane or cautious approach to things. Yet suddenly my peers are giving up drinking, giving up smoking, cutting down on coffee, sugar, and salt. They will not eat red meat and go now to restaurants whose menus have caused me to stand on a chair yelling, "Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, dinner is served!" This from the generation of LSD, Weather Underground, and Altamont Rock Festival! And all in the name of safety! Our nation has withstood many divisions—North and South, black and white, labor and management—but I do not know if the country can survive division into smoking and non-smoking sections."