George Carlin Quotes

“With the proper training, I could've been an evil genius.”

“You know an odd feeling? Sitting on the toilet eating a chocolate candy bar.”

“When Thomas Edison worked late into the night on the electric light, he had to do it by gas lamp or candle. I'm sure it made the work seem that much more urgent.”

“Language is a tool for concealing the truth. If we could read each other's minds, this would be a horror show.”

“When will all the rhetorical questions end?”

“Now, some people do this for shock value. Shock is just another uptown word for surprise. Granted it has a different quality to it, but a joke is about surprising someone. I'm a great believer in context. You can joke about anything. I do like finding out where the line is drawn, deliberately crossing it and bringing some of them with me across the line, and having them be happy that I did.”

“I think we overrate ourselves in terms of our abilities and capacities. I mean, just because you can build a really swell bridge doesn't, to my way of thinking, mean that you're an advanced civilization.”

“I went through the usual stages: imp, rascal, scalawag, whippersnapper. And, of course, after that it's just a small step to full-blown sociopath.”

“The things they don't tell you in schools these days, geez. Have a look at your owners. The politicians are put there to give you the idea you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice; you have owners. They own you. They own everything.”

“What exactly is "midair"? Is there some other part of air besides the "mid" part?”

“I like to control my environment, because I feel if I have my physical space in order, then I'm free to dream. So there is some compulsion involved. But the dividend I get is the freedom to be totally disorderly in my dreamworld.”

“I'm in favor of personal growth as long as it doesn't include malignant tumors.”

“Let's not have a double standard. One standard will do just fine.”

“Government want to tell you things you can't say because they're against the law, or you can't say this because it's against a regulation, or here's something you can't say because its a... secret; "You can't tell him that because he's not cleared to know that." Government wants to control information and control language because that's the way you control thought, and basically that's the game they're in.”

“They [the Reagan Administration] want to put street criminals in jail to make life safer for the business criminals. They're against street crime, providing that street isn't Wall Street.”

“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.”

“Someone once said, if you scratch a cynic, and you'll find a disappointed idealist. That really rang a bell with me - because I recognized that, within me, there is this flame, of wishing it were better, wishing people had better lives, that there was more of an authentic sharing and harmony with nature.”

“The only thing high-definition television will do is provide sharper images of the garbage.”

“Conservatives say if you don't give the rich more money, they will lose their incentive to invest. As for the poor, they tell us they've lost all incentive because we've given them too much money.”

“History is not happenstance: it is conspiratorial. Carefully planned and executed by people in power.”

“In some hotels they give you a little sewing kit. You know what I do? I sew the towels together. One time I sewed a button on a lampshade. I like to leave a mark.”

“Being a Dodgers fan led to my first Air Force court-martial, but that's another story.”

“... the important thing is to, first of all, question everything you read or hear or see or are told. Question it, and try to see the world for what it actually is, as opposed to what someone or some company or some organization or some government is trying to represent it as, or present it as, however they've mislabeled it or dressed it up or told you.”

“The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice, there are two political parties, there are a handful insurance companies, there are six or seven information centers.. but if you want a bagel there are 23 flavors. Because you have the illusion of choice!”

“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.”