George Carlin Quotes

I think it would be interesting if old people got anti-Alzheimer's disease where they slowly began to recover other people's lost memories.

Looking back, I realize that my life has been a series of incidents where one person has said to another, "Get this asshole outta here!"

I wanted to get a job as a gynecologist, but I couldn't find an opening.

When it comes to God's existence, I'm not an atheist and I'm not agnostic. I'm an acrostic. The whole thing puzzles me.

Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.

Hey! Who stole my collection of used bandages?! And they also got away with my nude pictures of Ernest Borgnine!

More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason.

Valentine's Day is devoted to love. Why don't we have a day devoted to hatred? The raw, visceral hatred that is felt every hour of the day by ordinary people, but is repressed for reasons of social order. I think it would be very cathartic, and it would certainly make for an exciting six o'clock news.

Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.

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.

You wouldn't know it, from some of the things I've said over the years, but I like people. I do. I like people, but I like them in short bursts. I don't like people for extended periods of time. I'm all right with them for a little while, but once you get up past around... a minute, minute and a half, I gotta get the fuck out of there.

Primitive societies, or social groupings, had shamans, and some of them even more recent in time. Shamans were tricksters. There was a tradition of the trickster, and the trickster was a clown, a humorous fellow. His task was to trick the gods, to humor the gods into laughing, so that there was access to the divine - because laughter is a moment when we are completely ourselves.

Political discourse has been reduced to "Where's the beef?" "Read my lips," and "Make my day." Where are the assassins when we really need them?

The mayfly lives only one day. And sometimes it rains.

I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it.

I think it keeps the child alive in me. There's a thrill when you steal something in plain view of other people.

There is a certain amount of righteous indignation I hold for the American culture, because to get back to the real root of it, to get broader about it, my opinion that is my species - and my culture in America specifically - have let me down and betrayed me. I think this species had great, great promise, with this great upper brain that we have, and I think we squandered it on God and Mammon. And I think this culture of ours has such promise, with the promise of real, true freedom, and then everyone has been shackled by ownership and possessions and acquisition and status and power.

Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

I was looking in the mirror the other day and I realized I haven't changed much since I was in my twenties. The only difference is I look a whole lot older now.

Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.

Electricity is really just organized lightning.

There was about a two-year period at the end of the '60s, when I realized I was in the wrong place and entertaining the wrong people with the wrong material and that I was not being true to myself. I went through a metamorphosis into something more authentic for me, a more authentic stage voice and writing voice.

Obviously, there are people who constrict themselves and build walls around themselves, whether it's from a moral standpoint or a patriotic standpoint, or just plain old conformity, and who therefore live in those little prisons, and when things breach those walls, it's shocking for them.

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.

Picture your grandmother in Hell, baking pies... without an oven.

Life is a series of dogs.

Sex always has consequences. When Hitler's mother spread her legs that night, she effectively canceled out the spreading of fifteen to twenty million other pairs of legs.

How come when it's us, it's an abortion, and when it's a chicken, it's an omelette? Are we so much better than chickens all of a sudden? When did this happen; that we passed chickens in goodness? Name six ways we're better than chickens. See, nobody can do it! You know why? 'Cause chickens are decent people.

I think everyone should treat one another in a Christian manner. I will not, however, be responsible for the consequences.

The reason I talk to myself is that I'm the only one whose answers I accept.

The best thing about living at the water's edge: You only have assholes on three sides of you, and if they come this way you can hear them splash.

No, there's no God, but there might be some sort of an organizing intelligence, and I think to understand it is way beyond our ability. It's certainly not a judgmental entity. It's certainly not paternalistic and all these qualities that have been attributed to God.

Number one, one, one on wonderful WINO.

Religion is a self-conferred intellectual decision; it's not something you get at birth and is unchangeable. You're collusive with the religion when you accept it; you have a choice.

You show me something that doesn't cause cancer, and I'll show you something that isn't on the market yet.

Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?

I believe myself to be a worthwhile and inventive performer in my own right. But I'm not in a league with Lenny [Bruce], certainly not in terms of social commentary.

I've been a performer for a long time and I know when people are laughing from their guts, from the inside, and when their tuxedos are laughing.

I'm not collegial, I don't hang out. I'm soloist, I like my solitude, I don't really hang around with comedians.

The only good thing about religion is the music. Because nature is filled with balances and opposites, there are always exceptions to the overall rules, whether the overall rules are bleak or otherwise. If you propound a joyous theory of existence, I will find an exception to that. If I propound a bleak theory, someone will find a joyous exception. That's just nature being nature, I think, and I don't think it offers a lot of hope. It's sort of a respite along the way.

Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.

Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails.

It turned out I was pretty good in science. But again, because of the small budget, in science class we couldn't afford to do experiments in order to prove theories. We just believed everything. Actually, I think that class was called Religion. Religion class was always an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning you were being taught in all the other classes.

Religion cruelly exploits our need to feel connected.

Grudges are a waste of perfect happiness. Laugh..apologiz e..let go of what you can't change.

Thall shall keep thy religion to thy selves.

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

I'm a believer that things happen. Fate is what happens.