Comedians From The United States

"They were brought out of Africa and into chains in America. Or they were born into slavery here. Yes, I am talking about the first African-Americans to reach these shores, but I am also describing the animals now enslaved in circuses. The species and continents are different, but the stories are tragically similar. The animals in circuses are held against their will by chains and domination. They are forced to perform a series of acts by coercion and violence because they would never normally do these things on their own. They can never choose their own partners, their own homes, their own food or have control over any aspect of their lives. I don't care how this is dressed up by promoters with music and lights, it is still slavery."

"You gotta be cool when you're macho man, cuz you can't be sensitive and care about someone having a good time in bed, cuz that's too scary... When you don't use sensitivity when you're having sex, or share some of your soul, nothing gonna happen, because men really get afraid. Men really get scared in bed."

"I'd like to die like my father died... My father died fucking. My father was 57 when he died. The woman was 18. My father came and went at the same time."

"Have you ever noticed how quiet you get when you go in the woods? It's almost like you know that God's there."

"I don't want to go through life as a Wonder Wheel murderer!"

"Richard Pryor's Mudbone is one of the greatest pieces of comedy I've ever seen anyone do on a stage."

"I'm chasing Richard Pryor, man. I have not done—I still haven't done my version of his Long Beach concert. I've done some good stuff, but Richard Pryor in Long Beach? That's the greatest piece of stand-up ever done."

"As Richard Pryor jokes: "I was a kid until I was eight. Then I became a Negro.""

"I think my chances of getting into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame are about as good as Milli Vanilli's."

"What kind of bananas do you have working at newspapers in Austin that would base an entire review of an artist's performance on whether or not they had a good seat?"

"I have very mixed feelings about [Napster]. On one hand, I'm concerned that the rampant downloading of my copyright-protected material over the Internet is severely eating into my album sales and having a decidedly adverse effect on my career. On the other hand, I can get all the Metallica songs I want for FREE! WOW!!!!!"

"I wrote "Eat It" because I wanted to buy a banana boat for Christmas. It worked."

"That's something the kids should know about. Reading is a gateway to witchcraft and lesbianism."

"Alanis Morissette and I actually used to date. I especially liked it when we went to the movies."

"Shoppin' online for deals on some writable media I edit Wikipedia"

"I'm nerdy in the extreme Whiter than sour cream"

"I sued Taco Bell 'Cause I ate half a million Chalupas And I got fat! I sued Panasonic They never said I shouldn't use their microwave To dry off my cat!"

"Oh, you don't wanna mess with the R-I-double-A They'll sue you if you burn that CD-R It doesn't matter if you're a grandma, or a seven-year-old girl They'll treat you like the evil, hard-bitten, criminal scum you are"

"Never had a date That you couldn't inflate"

"We only torture the folks we don't like You're probably gonna be okay."

"If money can't buy happiness, I guess I'll have to rent it."

"Many years ago I found out something about hamburgers that really grossed me out. You may not know this, so I hope I don't make you sick, but it turns out hamburgers are actually made out of dead cows. I am not making this up. Needless to say, as soon as I discovered that, I gave up meat entirely."

"Right now I'm listening to a lot of Top 40 music, because THAT'S MY JOB."

"My brothers and sisters all hated me 'cause I was an only child."

"I'll never forget the first thing she said to me, she said: "Hey - you've got weasels on your face." Right then I knew it was true love."

"Look If you had one shot to sit on your lazy butt and watch all the TV you ever wanted until your brain turned to mush Would you go for it? or just let it slip? Yo"

"I guess we were kinda poor when we were kids, but we didn't know it. That's because my dad always refused to let us look at the family's financial records."

"MAYBE in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself. Basically, it's made up of two separate words — "mank" and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind."

"IF YOU GO through a lot of hammers each month, I don't think it necessarily means you're a hard worker. It may just mean that you have a lot to learn about proper hammer maintenance."

"TO ME, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?" you can say, "Sorry, got these sacks.""

"IF YOU ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let 'em go, because man, they're gone."

"It takes a big man to cry, but it takes an even bigger man to laugh at that man."

"If a kid asks where rain comes from, I think a cute thing to tell him is "God is crying." And if he asks why God is crying, another cute thing to tell him is "Probably because of something you did.""

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it."

"If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason."

"And then the next morning, I awoke at 8 o'clock and turned on the TV, and watched as my beloved country... lost its goddamn mind. There they were, every news station: "HOLY GOD! Did you see what happened at the halftime show yesterday?! Janet Jackson's breast was exposed, it was horrifying—let's take a look at it! It was terrible! Let's look at it again! It was disgusting! Can we see that tit again?! The Goodyear Blimp flew over and we got a shot of the tit right from the Blimp, let's look at that tit! It's 5:02, we haven't seen the tit since 5:00, let's look at that again!" And then Congress—which doesn't do SHIT—stops on a dime! "HOLY GOD! Did you see the tit?! Let's talk about the tit!" And they locked themselves in, and they probably got huge pictures of the tit so they can get a closer look at the tit—"See how big that tit is?! It's insane how big that tit is!" They spent so much time looking at that tit that I actually thought Osama bin Laden was hiding in it!"

"The image was not on the screen long enough for it to hit your eye and go to the back of your brain and register "nipple". 'Cause without the nipple, you ain't got no titty. What you have is a shoulder without bone structure."

"And I will tell you, because I was six feet from the TV set, that no one—no one—saw a tit. There was no titty to be seen. I know that's a fact, because I'm a guy that, if there's a titty, I'm the first one to look. And if you actually thought that you saw a titty, then... you were desperate to see one. Much like someone crossing a desert might see the mirage of water."

"The Catholics have it right. I love what they do. That whole "the pope's infallible" thing is tremendous. Let's face facts: If you took somebody with no religious leanings whatsoever and locked that person in a psych ward with nobody around and no stimuli, the Catholic church is exactly what he'd come up with. "Listen to this. There's this old guy in a dress, see? He wears all these great costumes and wherever he says about anything from birth control to what to watch on television, that's it, 'cause pope knows best. He can't lift his head up, but, fuck, he's a genius."

"There are things about the Jewish religion that I carry with me to this day. Chief among them is Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, as it's so happily called. It had a profound effect on my innocent young mind. The service opens with the organ playing "Kol Nidre," one of the spookiest pieces of music ever written. You hear it and literally are surprised bats and shit aren't flying around."

"I don't believe pumpkin pie is even made from pumpkin. I mean, how can something that smells that shitty make a pie so sweet? There's not enough sugar in the universe."

"I'm not big on Halloween. I never have been. As a kid my parents would send me out to collect for UNICEF, which just screws up the whole holiday. You're wearing a costume and people are giving you pennies and you're going, "Well, give me some candy, you fuck." And the grown-ups tell you, "Absolutely not. You've got your pennies. Now go build a village, you little shit." It still brings a tear to my eye."

"The only thing dumber than a Democrat or a Republican is when those pricks work together. You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I can make it shittier.""

"How our government works... it doesn't."

"This book is dedicated to all of my friends who helped me get to where I am today - you know who you are.... and when I find you I am going to kill you."

"Now, most of the time you couldn't be too sure of the quality of the drug. Although, in my experience the stuff was always of a very high quality, because back then we didn't have business majors peddling lower-quality stuff in an effort to increase profits."

"[on Public Works Projects] You see what I felt they should have done for our first public works project is build a giant wall across the entire border of Canada...because THAT'S where the cold air comes from!"

"And even if they hadn't told me, I would have known it was the coldest winter ever. Because I have not had one thought! I have not been able to complete a sentence in my own head! I find myself walking around going "You know what, I should really... FUCK, IT'S COLD!""

"It was the coldest winter ever! I thought last winter was the coldest winter ever, but I was fucking wrong, wasn't I? You see, because I travel all the time. So last winter, I'd be in the midwest, and the blizzard would hit. And then I'd fly home, AND THE BLIZZARD WOULD HIT AGAIN!"

"Can I say that curse word now?"