One of the strongest feelings you can get in life – one of the most rewarding feelings – is the feeling of an “Aha, I finally understand.”
The definition of a stupid thing is something that if you do everything right, you still get hurt. Fire-eating and love are stupid things.
There never was a God. ‘God is dead’ is a halfway measure I won’t go with.
Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It’s just ganging up against the weird kid, and I’m always the weird kid.
TV networks are dying. The death throes of religion give us jihads. The death throes of television give us reality shows.
I don’t believe the majority always knows what’s best for everyone.
Love and respect all people. Hate and destroy all faith.
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 think one of the things about Donald Trump that’s interesting is he lives in a rarified atmosphere where it’s possible that he doesn’t get enough feedback, enough people rolling their eyes at him. It’s a danger more in show business than it is with wealth.
I was always a little embarrassed when there was an act on television that requires a great deal of skill but is a little goofy, and the host comes over and acts like the person doing this skill is some sort of fool for having learned to do something that’s very, very difficult.
You have to be careful as a libertarian because you can sound very Republican.
God works in mysterious, inefficient, and breathtakingly cruel ways.
You don’t have to be brave or a saint, a martyr, or even very smart to be an atheist. All you have to be able to say is “I don’t know”.
I’m not bothered by the idea of getting old, or I guess you could say by having arrived at old. I was 10 when my mom turned 55. For 1955, she was a very old mom.
One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we’re in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality.
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.
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.
So many people say, ‘You know, your taxes aren’t taken by force,’ and that’s foolish. If you don’t pay your taxes and you don’t answer the warrant and you don’t go to court, eventually someone will pull a gun. Eventually someone with a gun will show up.
We have to fight for the freedom to be stupid, and smoking is one of the best ways to fight for your freedom, to be just as stupid as you can be.
Bacon is so good by itself that to put it in any other food is an admission of failure. You’re basically saying, ‘I can’t make this other food taste good, so I’ll throw in bacon.’