George Carlin Quotes

May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.

Children should be taught to question everything . . . everything they read and everything they hear.

Hitler never bothered with restaurant reservations; he just dropped by. And somehow they always found him a table.

Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breaths away.

Comedy, although it is not one of the fine arts - it's a vulgar art, it's one of the people's arts, it's the spoken word, the writing that goes into it is an art form - it's certainly artistry.

I love individuals. I think people are terrific as I meet and get to know them. I like imagination. I like the freedom that this society manages to parcel out to us in the midst of the rest of what they do to you. I also like thinking about the fact that the atoms in me are the same atoms that are in all the rest of the universe, and that every one of those atoms came from the middle of a star. In other words, it's only me out there.

The fact that I didn't finish school left me with a lifelong need to prove that I'm smart, prove it to myself, maybe to the world. I [also] needed to be - not the center of attention - but I needed to be able to attract attention when I wanted it, through my stunts and my fooling around physically with faces or postures or voices I would do. Those things are important elements in the drive behind all of this [my career].

It is impossible for an abortion clinic to have a waiting list of more than nine months.

I just love it when I hear a little commotion, someone leaving. When I see those doors in the back . . .

The whole problem with the world today: private property. If no one owned anything, it would be a lot better. There's even an entire industry devoted to keeping an eye on other people's stuff. This is how stupid it's got. If you decide to get rid of a lot of your stuff, you can give it to a thrift shop or to Goodwill.

My mother and I had a lot of distance between us emotionally, although, on the surface, most of the time, we appeared good and friendly, and all that. But I was a problem. I was a street kid.

Next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you're in a science fiction movie. And whisper, 'The creature is regenerating itself.'

What occurs as you age is an accumulation of information, data, knowledge, and what I'm going to call the matrix of the mind. There's just a rich, textured, field of information and impressions that have been all networked by the brain.

You know who would make an interesting murder-suicide? Madeline Albright and Yanni.

I'd go on runs [on cocaine ], four and five days without sleep. Then I'd crash and sleep about 18 hours a day for seven to ten days. Then it would take a few more weeks to get over a vague sort of depression. Then I'd be off on another run.

In football the object is to march into enemy territory and cross his goal. In baseball the object is to go home.

Bowling is not a sport because you have to rent the shoes.

I'm always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize I'm listening to it.

So, have a little fun. Soon enough you'll be dead and burning in Hell with the rest of your family.

Barry Goldwater has definitely decided to be a candidate in '64. He will campaign in all thirteen states.

I finally accepted Jesus. not as my personal savior, but as a man I intend to borrow money from.

If a painting can be forged well enough to fool experts, why is the original so valuable?

In the 'bullshit department' a businessman can't hold a candle to a clergyman.

We're having something a little different this year for Thanksgiving. Instead of a turkey, we're having a swan. You get more stuffing

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.

The person who is most a part of me is the performer, is the standup, the guy who says, "Hey look at me, listen to this!" I do that because that's what I do, I love doing it.

A crazy person doesn't really lose his mind. It just becomes something more entertaining.

If everything that ever lived is dead, and everything alive is gonna die...where does the sacred part come in?

Anyone who's onstage is going to attract a certain number of misguided people. But I was never very interested in groupies.

I went to George Washington High School for six months before my 16th birthday, when I could legally quit. That was an even worse experience than the Catholic schools. I mean, they were still teaching fractions. But mostly, I played hooky.

All music is the blues. All of it.

What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?

The older I got, the more apparent it became that my mother was losing control over me. She fought back fiercely with black moods, silent treatments and martyrdom. And, of course, all she did was run my ass out of the house even quicker. The pressure was unbearable.

A person of good intelligence and of sensitivity cannot exist in this society very long without having some anger about the inequality - and it's not just a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal kind of a thing - it is just a normal human reaction to a nonsensical set of values where we have cinnamon flavored dental floss and there are people sleeping in the street.

How is it possible to have a civil war?

Religion is like drugs, it destroys the thinking mind.

There are women named Faith, Hope, Joy, and Prudence. Why not Despair, Guilt, Rage, and Grief? It seems only right. 'Tom, I'd like you to meet the girl of my dreams, Tragedy.' These days, Trajedi.

Irony deals with opposites; it has nothing to do with coincidence.

Avoid people with gold teeth who want to play cards

If two baseball players from the same hometown, on different teams, receive the same uniform number, it is not ironic. It is a coincidence. If Barry Bonds attains lifetime statistics identical to his father's, it will not be ironic. It will be a coincidence.

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that.

I've just completed a five-year period that can perhaps best be called a breathing spell. A time of getting my health back and gathering my strength. That time also included incredible cocaine abuse, a heart attack and my wife's recovery from both alcoholism and cocaine abuse.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

No one knows what's next, but everybody does it.

The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life.

Why do they bother with a suicide watch when someone is on death row? "Keep an eye on this guy. We're gonna kill him, and we don't want him to hurt himself."

I hope I'm beginning a new cycle of energy and creativity. If so, it'll really be my third career. The first was as a straight comic in the Sixties. The second was as a counterculture performer in the Seventies. The third will be...well, that's for others to judge.

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