George Carlin Quotes

Before they give you a lethal injection, they swab your arm with alcohol. It's true. Well, they don't want you to get an infection, and you can see their point. They don't want some guy go to hell and be sick.

When I listen to those tapes now, the real cocaine shows; there's just nothing special about their content.

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

Sudden total weight loss.

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

There's a thing about cocaine - when I was doing it secretly, it didn't make me very sociable. I forget how others were, but it made me very inner-directed. So being in a sketch and rehearsing and the "hail fellow well met" camaraderie and all that stuff, I couldn't fake that or force that. It was painful.

A lot of times when they catch a guy who killed twenty-seven people, they say, He was a loner. Well, of course he was a loner; he killed everyone he came in contact with.

If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.

The effect of the coke on our relationship [with my wife Brenda] was very sick. Now that it's over, those were actually funny times. Looking for each other's coke, hiding it, finding it, doing some, not telling the other. Then fighting over it.

Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.

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

Why are a 'wise man' and a 'wiseguy' opposites?

A scary dream makes your heart beat faster. Why doesn't the part of your brain that controls your heartbeat realize that another part of your brain is making the whole thing up? Don't these people communicate?

Personally, when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true. I think either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all. Personally I lean towards unlimited rights, I feel for instance I have the right to do anything I please, BUT! If I do something you don't like I think you have the right to kill me.

Writing books isn't a drastic departure from writing for the stage.

There are some people that aren't into all the words. There are some people who would have you not use certain words. Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them that you can't say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to seven. They must really be bad. They'd have to be outrageous, to be separated from a group that large. All of you over here, you seven. Bad words. That's what they told us they were, remember? 'That's a bad word.' You know bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions.

I don't have a fear of heights. I do, however, have a fear of falling from heights.

I have a suggestion that I think would help fight serious crime. Signs. There are lots of signs for minor infractions: No Smoking, Stay Off the Grass, Keep Out, and they seem to work fairly well. I think we should also have signs for major crimes: Murder Strictly Prohibited, NO Raping People, Thank You for Not Kidnapping Anyone. It's certainly worth a try. I'm convinced Watergate would never have happened if there had just been a sign in the Oval Office that said, Malfeasance of Office Is Strictly Against the Law, or Thank You for Not Undermining the Constitution.

One can never know for sure what a deserted area looks like.

The wisest man I ever knew taught me something I never forgot. And although I never forgot it, I never quite memorized it either. So what I’m left with is the memory of having learned something very wise that I can’t quite remember.

Interesting form of murder we come up with: Assassination. We assassinate people who've told us to live together in harmony and try to love one another. Apparently we are not ready to live together.

These days many politicians are demanding change. Just like homeless people.

George Washington’s brother, Lawrence, was the Uncle of Our Country.

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

There are an awful lot of things in the cut of street drugs that eventually make you sick. I reached a point where the skin around the edges of my fingernails used to hurt all the time. And it would peel away easily. Now, that must have been from some poison in the cut.

I've never owned a telescope, but it's something I'm thinking of looking into.

I did LSD and peyote in the late Sixties, before I got into cocaine. That was concurrent with my change from a straight comic to the album and counterculture period, and those drugs served their purpose. They helped open me up.

Somehow I enjoy watching people suffer.

Politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't.

Some people think of the glass as half full. Some people think of the glass as half empty. I think of the glass as too big.

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.

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, 'Where's the self-help section?' She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

One great thing about getting old is that you can get out of all sorts of social obligations just by saying you're too tired.

We are a nation of sheep, and someone else owns the grass.

Avoid people with gold teeth who want to play cards

I don't have to tell you it goes without saying there are some things better left unsaid. I think that speaks for itself. The less said about it the better.

Two things happened. The creative side of my career was harmed. When I'd sit down and write under the influence of coke, the ratio of pages kept to pages thrown out declined drastically. But onstage, when rapping about a feeling I already owned, I would sometimes get a burst of eloquence.

I don't vote. We're led to believe we're free through the exercise of ineffective freedoms.

They say that instead of cursing the darkness, one should light a candle. Nothing is mentioned, though, about cursing a lack of candles.

I do something about the weather. I stay home.

The following statement is true. The previous statement is false.

I enjoy watching a woman with really bad teeth and a good sense of humor struggling to use her lips and tongue to hide her teeth when she's laughing. I just stand there and tell her joke after joke after joke.

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

I, myself, have killed six people. All random, all undetected, no way to trace them to me. And, let me tell you, there's nothin' like it. It's a great feeling. Yeah, I know, you're thinking. 'Aw, he's a comedian. He's just sayin' that stuff.' Good. That's exactly what I want you to think.

Why is it called 'after dark' when it really is 'after light'?

McDonald's breakfast for under a dollar is actually more expensive than that. You have to factor in the cost of bypass surgery.

They're only words. You can't be afraid of words that speak the truth, even if it's an unpleasant truth.

Age is a hell of a price to pay for wisdom.

I think the trend to control speech - and therefore thought - continues. Because of the freer flow of information now, there's more on the side of free thought.

If you live long enough, sooner or later everybody you know has cancer.

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 was a loner as a child. I had an imaginary friend - I didn't bother with him.

If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.

I try not to see new comics - their acts or their films. Part of that is professional. I don't want to be influenced. But another part is fear and jealousy. I'm afraid to see how good they might be. I don't like that emotion, but it's part of me.

That's basically what the drive is: "I want to be famous, I want to be noticed, and I want to be approved of." That's basically what you're after. "Give me attention, give me applause, give me an audience. A. A. A. Straight As." That's all you're looking for.

At 68 I'm every age I ever was. I always think of that. I'm not just 68. I'm also 55 and 21 and three. Oh especially three.

If the cops didn't see it, I didn't do it!

There are two types of people: One strives to control his environment, the other strives not to let his environment control him. I like to control my environment, because I feel if I have my physical space in order, then I'm free to dream.

Movies and television don't make you violent; all they do is channel the violence more creatively.

Little-known fact: When the stock exchange closes, the guy who comes out on the balcony with that big hammer slams it on the head of the person who lost the most money that day.