Penn Jillette Quotes

It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more.

Technology adds nothing to art.

The characters and events depicted in the damn bible are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

If I go out to dinner with you and you order wine, I leave. I won't be around drugs and alcohol at all.

Every time something really bad happens, people cry out for safety, and the government answers by taking rights away from good people

The First Amendment says nothing about your getting paid for saying anything. It just says you can say it. I don't believe that if a corporation pulls all the money out of you or a network pulls their money away or you get fired, you're being censored.

If the bible were published as fiction, no reviewer would give it a passing grade. There are some vivid scenes and quotable phrases but there's no plot, no structure, a tremendous amount of filler and the characters are painfully one dimensional. Whatever you do, don't read the bible for a moral code. It advocates prejudice, cruelty, superstition and murder. Read it because we need more atheists.

Poker would have never gotten on TV when we only had three networks.

I'm an amazing mama's boy.

If you've gotten yourself into a situation when Clay Aiken is going to talk about his feelings with you, it's time to kill yourself.

As much as I disagreed with every second of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' the fact that it is out made me jump for joy.

As I’m fond of saying, if you want to find utopia, take a sharp right on money and a sharp left on sex and it’s straight ahead.

The fact is that violence gives you a rush.

I'm really happy with all the art that was inspired by religion, and I think I'd be tickled to little tiny pieces if art in the future was inspired by other things.

My parents were teetotalers and my grandparents were - it's all the way back. It's New English puritanical tradition.

If you are doing something for reward or punishment, you do not have morality.

I don't speak for all Libertarians any more than Sean Penn speaks for all Democrats.

Religion cannot and should not be replaced by atheism. Religion needs to go away and not be replaced by anything. Atheism is not a religion. It's the absence of religion, and that's a wonderful thing.

We all have friends we love dearly that couldn't pass for human in a strict Turing test.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

We celebrities are desperate pigs.

Whereas you have someone like Houdini, who works really, really hard to get really, really famous, and then has actual intellectual ideas that he puts into the culture that stay there.

Even if I disagree with Obama on many, many things, he is certainly qualified to be president. He is certainly competent to be president.

I'm a big fan of gospel music, and you cannot be a fan of rock and roll, you cannot be a fan of country western music, and you can't really be a fan of jazz without listening to a lot of music that's religious.

I've never revved my car at a light for an attractive woman or an auto-rival, not even as a joke.

The fact that the majority wants something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don't want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, it's not really a very good idea. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up on the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving.

Penn & Teller don't know jack about global warming.

If there are two things Penn & Teller stand for, it's the truth & lying, although not necessarily in that order.

I like to read in the dark. I like to go into the bathtub, turn out all the lights, and in the dark, read my books.

In my private life, I'm not around any drugs or alcohol.

My hair is way, way long. I've hitchhiked across the country a zillion times. I've ridden in every car. I was never a hippie. It takes more than long hair.

Cheerios bring back memories. I actually don't think I ate them much as a kid, though; maybe it's some sort of Jungian memory, I don't know. But they have so much sugar, it's great.

I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more.

There is this tremendous amount of arrogance and hubris, where somebody can look at something for five minutes and dismiss it. Whether you talk about gaming or 20th century classical music, you can't do it in five minutes. You can't listen to 'The Rite of Spring' once and understand what Stravinsky was all about.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family and indeed all the suffering in the world isn't caused by any omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

This I believe: I believe there is no God.

Trey Parker did 'Book of Mormon.' It's the best Broadway show I've ever seen. He does 'South Park.' It's wonderful.

If you want to talk about magic, the stuff that blows me away is the stuff that's done close up.

I intend to do the Penn & Teller show until they pry my cheesy magic wand from my cold dead fingers.

America was founded on Christians not trusting each other, and they sometimes seemed more willing to reach out to the godless than to someone from another sect.

Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

I didn't learn fire-eating to conquer my fears. I learned fire-eating because I desperately wanted to be in show business.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.

God works in mysterious, inefficient, and breathtakingly cruel ways

I have no evidence that libertarianism leads to a better life. I just think it is morally right.

The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.

In reality, many people let go of religion later in life.