George Carlin Quotes

“I am a personal optimist but a skeptic about all else. What may sound to some like anger is really nothing more than sympathetic contempt. I view my species with a combination of wonder and pity, and I root for its destruction. And please don't confuse my point of view with cynicism; the real cynics are the ones who tell you everything's gonna be all right.”

“Next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you're in a science fiction movie. And whisper, 'The creature is regenerating itself.'”

“I never joined the Boy Scouts. I don't trust any organization that has a handbook.”

“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.”

“To my surprise, my marijuana use has been tapering off steadily.”

“If the Cincinnati Reds were really the first major league baseball team, who did they play?”

“Have you ever noticed that the lawyer always smiles more than the client?”

“It used to be cars had cool names: Dart, Hawk, Fury, Cougar, Firebird, Hornet, Mustang, Barracuda. Now we have Elantra, Altima, Acura, Lumina, Sentra, Corolla, Maxima, Tercel. Further proof that America has lost its edge.”

“Put two things together which have never been put together before, and some schmuck will buy it.”

“I don't really identify with America, I don't really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don't really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don't. All the definitions are there, but I don't really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices.”

“Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.”

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

“For an entertainer, part of the thing you do is just style. And the coke did help me get into great runs of pure form.”

“Just think, right now as you read this, some guy somewhere is gettin' ready to hang himself.”

“Leftovers make you feel good twice. First, when you put it away, you feel thrifty and intelligent: 'I'm saving food!' Then a month later when blue hair is growing out of the ham, and you throw it away, you feel really intelligent: 'I'm saving my life!'”

“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.”

“I’m a high-tech low-life. A cutting edge, state-of-the-art bi-coastal multi-tasker and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond!”

“Cancer research is a growth industry.”

“Test of Metal: Will of Iron, Nerves of Steel, Heart of Gold, Balls of Brass.”

“Bullshit is truly the American soundtrack.”

“Environmentalists changed the word jungle to rain forest, because no one would give them money to save a jungle. Same with swamps and wetlands.”

“Nothing you see on the Internet is mine unless it comes from one of my albums, books, HBO specials, or appeared on my website.”

“I love it in a movie when they throw a guy off a cliff. I love it even when it's not a movie. No, especially when it's not a movie.”

“Writing is really wonderful art. A lot of this is discovery. A lot of things are lying around waiting to be discovered and that's our job as writers is to just notice them and bring them to life.”

“When you start in the childhood period, when you begin to form a comic sense, it was the radio comedians - from the last days of radio and the first days of television. And Spike Jones. And the Marx Brothers. They represented anarchy. They took things that were nice and decent and proper, and they tore them to shreds. That attracted me.”