Once you take away the struggle for food, clothing and shelter, work is the one four letter word that offends everyone.
I wanted out of the navy so bad in ’45, I faked homo to get a discharge. It didn’t matter that the Germans surrendered, I knew we were heading to Japan and I was done with that scene.
I was surprised when Nixon passed the test and showed up in heaven, but, I guess Hitler threw off the curve for our century.
I was a Jew talking about Goyim religion. If I had just stuck to Moses, everything would have been cool. But, copping to being part of the whole Christ murder conspiracy got everyone goose-stepping again.
The reason I’m in this business, I assume all performers are – it’s Look at me, Ma! It’s acceptance, you know – Look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma. And if your mother watches, you’ll show off till you’re exhausted; but if your mother goes, Ptshew!
If I get busted in New York, the freest city in the world, that will be the end of my career.
I want to perform an unnatural act.
Wouldn’t it be nice if all the people who are lonesome could live in one big dormitory, sleep in beds next to each other, talk, laugh, and keep the lights on as long as they want to?
If you can take the hot lead enema, then you can cast the first stone.
Marijuana is rejected all over the world. Damned. In England heroin is alright for out-patents, but marijuana? They’ll put your ass in jail. I wonder why that is? The only reason could be: To Serve the Devil – Pleasure! Pleasure, which is a dirty word in Christian culture.
I’m not a comedian. I’m Lenny Bruce.
There is only what is and that’s it. What should be is a dirty lie.
Even if you are Catholic, if you live in New York you’re Jewish. If you live in Butte, Montana, you are going to be goyish even if you are Jewish.
All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.
Satire is tragedy plus time.
I don’t want a sharp chick who quotes Kerouac; I just want to hear my old lady say, “Get up and fix the toilet, it’s still making noise.
There is only what is.
There is nothing sadder than an aging hipster.
With overpopulation, human misery, and the threat of war increasing, we need rather more adult performances from society.
I was not born in a vacuum. Every thought I have belongs to someone else.
Now, if anyone in this room or the world finds those two words decadent, obscene, immoral, amoral, asexual, the words ‘to come’ really make you feel uncomfortable, if you think I’m rank for saying it to you, you the beholder think it’s rank for listening to it, you probably can’t come. And then you’re of no use, because that’s the purpose of life, to re-create it.