George Carlin Quotes

It's the American view that everything has to keep climbing: productivity, profits, even comedy.

The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other in opposite directions.

You get to play with people's little danger zones.

Conservatives want live babies so they can train them to be dead soldiers.

When I was a kid, if a guy got killed in a western movie I always wondered who got his horse.

Flowers are one of the few things we buy, bring home, watch die, and we don't ask for our money back.

The next time a prostitute solicits your business, ask for the clergyman's rate.

The base of evil in the world is religion of any kind

The phrase surgical strike might be more acceptable if it were common practice to perform surgery with high explosives.

Most of the note-taking happens while I'm watching television. It's a broad window on the world, and a lot of things are already established in my mind as things I say, things that I'm interested in, things that are fodder for my [stand-up] machine. And when I see something that relates to one of them, I know it instantly and if it's a further exaggeration and a further addition, or an exception - if it plays into furthering my purpose, I jot it down.

Hallucinogens are a value changer...like it or not, it changes your values, it opens up windows (doors of perception.)

I respect animals. I have more sympathy for an injured or dead animal than I do for an injured or dead human being, because human beings participate and cooperate in their own undoing. Animals are completely innocent. There are no innocent human beings.

Why is there such controversy about drug testing? I know plenty of guys who'd be willing to test any drug they can come up with.

I've never been quarantined. But the more I look around the more I think it might not be a bad idea.

I like to say two things in life that mean the most: genetics and luck. When you look at it realistically, genetics is luck too. Because you could have been born in some really terrible situation and never had a chance to realize yourself or see who you were. And so the luck of genetics and then after that, circumstances, those are the two guiding things.

In the Navy, there is no wrong hole. In the Marines, there is always a hole.

I'm kinda like herpes, I just keep coming back.

Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time.

I never eat sushi. I have trouble eating things that are merely unconscious.

Dogs lead a nice life. You never see a dog with a wristwatch.

It's never just a game when you're winning.

Every time you're exposed to advertising in America you're reminded that this country's most profitable business is still the manufacture, packaging, distribution, and marketing of bullshit. High-quality, grade-A, prime-cut, pure American bullshit.

I think it's important to break taboos for the same reason it's important to break laws and rules - because either you're a slave to them, or you're taking matters into your hands.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

I don't believe there's any problem in this country, no matter how tough it is, that Americans, when they roll up their sleeves, can't completely ignore.

I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.

If someone loves you and they leave and don't come back, it was never meant to be. If someone loves you and they leave and come back, set them on fire.

First I was a mimic. Practically from the moment I began talking, I did impersonations of the people in my neighborhood - the storekeepers, the policemen, my teachers.

At a formal dinner party, the person nearest death should always be seated closest to the bathroom.

If no one knows when a person is going to die, how can we say he died prematurely?

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday!

They mention that it's a nonstop flight. Well, I must say I don't care for that sort of thing. Call me old fashioned, but I insist that my flight stop. Preferably at an airport.

The Golden Gate Bridge should have a long bungee cord for people who aren't quite ready to commit suicide but want to get in a little practice.

I am not a complete vegetarian. I eat only animals that have died in their sleep.

With humans it's abortion, but with chickens it's an omelet.

If you're looking for self-help, why would you read a book written by somebody else?

Art, music, and philosophy are merely poignant examples of what we might have been had not the priests and traders gotten hold of us.

I don't have hobbies; hobbies cost money. Interests are quite free.

To me the cynics are the ones in the boardrooms with the reports from the focus groups.

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone.

I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.

Have you ever started a path? No one seems willing to do this. We don't mind using existing paths, but we rarely start new ones. Do it today. Start a path. Even if it doesn't lead anywhere

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your f**kin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street.

If you ask me, we could do with a little less motivation. - The people who are causing all the trouble seem highly motivated to me. - Serial killers, stock swindlers, drug dealers, Christian Republicans.

So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

What exactly is 'viewer discretion'? If viewers had discretion, most television shows would not be on the air.

Don't confuse my point of view with cynicism. The real cynics are the ones who tell you that everything's gonna be all right.

I'm never critical or judgmental about whether or not a movie is any good. The way I look at it, if several hundred people got together every day for a year or so - a number of then willing to put on heavy makeup, wear clothes that weren't their own and pretend to be people other than themselves - and their whole purpose for doing all this was to entertain me, then I'm not gonna start worrying about whether or not they did a good job. The effort alone was enough to make me happy.