Radio Personalities

"I wanted to believe, and I tried my damnedest to believe, in the rainbow I tried to get over, and I couldn't! … So what? Lots of people can't!"

"Wouldn`t it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, and a little more loving, have a little more empathy, and maybe we'd like each other a little bit more."

"They were little drunks. They got smashed every night and the police used to scoop them up in butterfly nets."

"Go and tell that nasty, rude little princess that we've known each other for long enough and gabbed enough in ladies' rooms that she should skip the ho-hum royal routine and just pop over here and ask me herself. … Tell her I'll sing if she christens a ship first."

"I'm just an Irish biddy."

"You are never so alone as when you are ill on stage. The most nightmarish feeling in the world is suddenly to feel like throwing up in front of four thousand people."

"I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot."

"When you get to know a lot of people, you make a great discovery. You find that no one group has a monopoly on looks, brains, goodness or anything else. It takes all the people - black and white, Catholic, Jewish and Protestant, recent immigrants and Mayflower descendants - to make up America.."

"We're not talking about dead people, we're talking about the aliens; of their ghosts!"

"Well, with prophecy you got to see what happens."

"I wonder if Chupacabras are...baby Mothmen?"

"Almost sounds like Bigfoot doesn't it?"

"From the city of angels off the Pacific Ocean. Good morning, good evening, wherever you may be, across the nation, around the world. I'm George Noory. Welcome to America's most listened-to late night talk show, Coast to Coast AM."

"If they think their dead grandmother is visiting them at night, more power to them. They don't need me telling them (it's) true or not true. There are those few people who may challenge the facts and say some of the stuff may not be true. I say to them, "Chill out, relax and have an open mind.""

"I am only too aware that I am open to Rees's Second Law of Quotation: "However sure you are that you have attributed a quotation correctly, an earlier source will be pointed out to you.""

"An analogous process I shall call Churchillian Drift...Whereas quotations with an apothegmatic feel are normally ascribed to Shaw, those with a more grandiose or belligerent tone are, as if by osmosis, credited to Churchill. All humorous remarks obviously made by a female originated, of course, with Dorothy Parker. All quotations in translation, on the other hand, should be attributed to Goethe (with 'I think' obligatory)."

"My toils in the quotation field have led me to formulate two or three laws about the way people use and abuse quotations. My first law is: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to Bernard Shaw – which I don't mean to be taken literally, but as a general observation of the habit people have of attaching remarks to the nearest obvious speaker. Churchill, Wilde, Orson Welles and Alexander Woollcott are other useful figures upon whom to father remarks when you don't know who really said them."

"Charlie McCarthy: I can't take this schoolwork any more - it's driving me nuts. Edgar Bergen: Well Charlie, I'm sorry, but hard work never killed anyone. Charlie McCarthy: Still, there's no use in taking chances."

"Conservatives believe in limited government. Liberals believe in intrusive government when required to achieve societal needs. (Exception: social-issues conservatives advocate government intrusion on matters of abortion, drugs and pornography.)"

"Conservatives believe in individual freedom and responsibility. Liberals believe in sacrificing individual freedom for socially desirable outcomes. Liberals believe that one of government's primary roles is social engineering."

"I don't believe that [blacks in New Orleans immediately prior to Hurricane Katrina]couldn't afford a bus ticket out of New Orleans for a minute- they might not be able to drive out in a brand new Lincoln, but they could afford a bus ticket."

"One of the hackneyed liberal complaints goes something like this: 'Bush is the first president in history to cut taxes during a war.' Nonsense. Bush didn’t cut taxes; he cut tax rates across the board - on income, dividends and capital gains. And that’s precisely why tax revenues have soared. When a department store wants to make more money, it doesn’t raise its prices, it cuts them and announces a big sale. If you want more work and investment, you hold a sale on economic activity by cutting tax rates, thereby reducing the cost of productive activity and increasing the prospect of after-tax returns on work and investment."

"We protect the right of pacifists and other anti-war militants to assemble and advance their cause. But I don’t respect such people and I don’t shrink from exposing their ideas as destructive and suicidal. Pacifists are my enemy because wittingly or not, they serve the purposes of my enemy and jeopardize my freedom."

"Non-supply siders: Concern themselves with 'How to divide up a [fixed] pie'. Supply siders: Concern themselves with 'How to make a bigger pie.'"

"Television is to news as a bumper sticker is to Shakespeare. I remember hearing an analogy once that went something like that. Your typical nightly, 35-minute TV news broadcast is a headline service with pictures. Five minutes of police-blotter reporting - fires, murders, car accidents, etc. - five minutes of human-interest stories and small talk, five minutes of weather, five minutes of sports, ten minutes of commercials, and maybe a minute or two for business, science, politics, and affairs of the world."

"Ideology is about ideas; politics is about winning elections."

"Don’t tell me you are a moderate. Moderate is an adjective. It is a qualifier. You may be a moderate conservative, a moderate democrat, or a moderate drinker but it doesn’t tell me what you believe in. It’s not a philosophy. Unless all you believe in is moderation for the sake of moderation. Grow up! You can’t be a good egg all of your life. Someday you have to either hatch or rot."

"Conservatives believe in peace through strength. Liberals believe in peace through cooperation and good will."

"Conservatives are nationalists. Liberals hope for world government."

"Conservatives believe that human nature is what makes us imperfectible. Liberals believe that human nature can be changed and perfected."

"Conservatives believe in equality of opportunity. Liberals believe in equality of outcome."

"Conservatives are concerned about the production of wealth. Liberals are concerned about the redistribution of it."

"Conservatives believe that some problems have no solution, that they can only be mitigated at best. Liberals believe that most every problem has a government solution."

"Conservatives believe in free markets. Liberals believe in government controls and central planning."

"In the United States of America, satire is protected speech, even if the object of the satire doesn’t get it."

"Senator Franken made the right choice to step down. I applaud him and thank him. He is right that we are having an important conversation right now about the equal treatment of women in every part of our society. We have a long way to go in combatting these problems, but holding everyone to a high standard—including public servants—is an important step down that road."

"They spent so much money in his first campaign making him look like a buffoon ... You're with him for five minutes and you see that's not true."

"No one saw what happened backstage. I didn’t tell the Sergeant Major of the Army, who was the sponsor of the tour. I didn’t tell our USO rep what happened. At the time I didn’t want to cause trouble. We were in the middle of a war zone, it was the first show of our Holiday tour, I was a professional, and I could take care of myself. I told a few of the others on the tour what Franken had done and they knew how I felt about it. I tried to let it go, but I was angry. Other than our dialogue on stage, I never had a voluntary conversation with Al Franken again. I avoided him as much as possible and made sure I was never alone with him again for the rest of the tour. Franken repaid me with petty insults, including drawing devil horns on at least one of the headshots I was autographing for the troops. But he didn’t stop there. The tour wrapped and on Christmas Eve we began the 36-hour trip home to L.A. After 2 weeks of grueling travel and performing I was exhausted. When our C-17 cargo plane took off from Afghanistan I immediately fell asleep, even though I was still wearing my flak vest and Kevlar helmet. It wasn’t until I was back in the US and looking through the CD of photos we were given by the photographer that I saw this one: I couldn’t believe it. He groped me, without my consent, while I was asleep. I felt violated all over again. Embarrassed. Belittled. Humiliated. How dare anyone grab my breasts like this and think it’s funny?"

"When I saw the script [Franken had written for a 2006 USO performance], Franken had written a moment when his character comes at me for a ‘kiss’. I suspected what he was after, but I figured I could turn my head at the last minute, or put my hand over his mouth, to get more laughs from the crowd. On the day of the show Franken and I were alone backstage going over our lines one last time. He said to me, “We need to rehearse the kiss.” I laughed and ignored him. Then he said it again. I said something like, ‘Relax Al, this isn’t SNL…we don’t need to rehearse the kiss.’ He repeated that actors really need to rehearse everything and that we must practice the kiss. I said ‘OK’ so he would stop badgering me. We did the line leading up to the kiss and then he came at me, put his hand on the back of my head, mashed his lips against mine and aggressively stuck his tongue in my mouth. I immediately pushed him away with both of my hands against his chest and told him if he ever did that to me again I wouldn’t be so nice about it the next time. I walked away. All I could think about was getting to a bathroom as fast as possible to rinse the taste of him out of my mouth. I felt disgusted and violated. Not long after, I performed the skit as written, carefully turning my head so he couldn’t kiss me on the lips. He continued to insist, and I was beginning to get uncomfortable."

"I look forward to working with Senator-elect Franken to build a new foundation for growth and prosperity by lowering health care costs and investing in the kind of clean energy jobs and industries that will help America lead in the 21st century."

"The most hypocritical thing I've ever seen done to a human being, and then they have enough guts to sit on the floor, watch him give his speech, and go over and hug him? That's hypocrisy at the highest level I've ever seen in my life."

"I know this photo looks bad, but remember: it also is bad. And sure, this was taken before Franken ran for public office, but this was also taken after he was a sophomore in high school."

"MCEVERS: So Leeann Tweeden talked about this today. She even released a picture where Al Franken appears to be placing his hands over her breasts. We should say she's asleep in the photo. She's wearing a Kevlar vest and a helmet. And Al Franken is smiling toward the camera in the shot. GONYEA: He's kind of mugging for the camera. And that moment you describe there, she didn't even know about it until she got home from the trip and started looking through the pictures that the official photographer had taken. And he gave her and others a disc. So that humiliated her and embarrassed her, she said. But it followed another problem with Franken on the same tour. He'd written a comedy sketch for them to do in front of the troops. She talked about it on KABC radio this morning on the show that she works on. She says Franken wanted to rehearse a kiss that he had written into the script for them. She said no. He kept insisting. She said no again. He insisted more. Finally she said OK."

"I offered Al Franken $50,000 if within one year he could get one percent of the audience in a major market. One percent. A 1.0 share, I offered him $50,000. He didn't even have to bet me. I just offered a straight-cash payout. [...] These [hosts on AirAmerica] are amateurs. [...] Al Franken has no experience in the broadcasting business. None. [...] And he has no business being on the air. At all."

"Al Franken is ready for this job. It is time to get to work, and, Al Franken, there is a desk waiting for you in the Senate."

"100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (and Al Franken is #37)"

"I consider myself to be an old-fashioned liberal. I'm a liberal the way liberals used to be when they were like John F. Kennedy and when they were like Hubert Humphrey. When they were upbeat and enthusiastic and mainstream. I am not a liberal the way liberals are today at least as exemplified by Al Franken and Michael Moore, where they're angry, nasty, closed minded, and not mainstream, but fringe."

"He was between me and the door, and he was coming at me to kiss me. It was very quick, and I think my brain had to work really hard to be like ‘Wait, what is happening?’ But I knew whatever was happening was not right, and I ducked,” the former aide said in an interview. “I was really startled by it, and I just sort of booked it towards the door, and he said, ‘It’s my right as an entertainer.’"

"The election process and recount in Minnesota have lived up to the state's reputation for organization, transparency, and bipartisanship. The officials have been meticulous and every ruling has been unanimous. While Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of the hardest working members of the United States Senate, Minnesotans deserve their full representation. Once the Minnesota Supreme Court has issued its final ruling in this case, the President and I look forward to working with Mr. Franken on building an economy for the 21st century."

"Franken didn’t apologize — in fact, he cast doubt on his accusers — and the only regret he expressed was for “having to walk away from this job.” But after a political career premised on exposing the depravity of Republicans, Franken himself stood exposed. For years, he had built his brand on always being in the right. Even as he relinquished his Senate seat, he couldn’t let go of his sense of moral superiority."