Lewis Black
Grammy Award-winning American stand-up comedian, author, playwright and actor.
I'd rather go ice fishing, which is the dumbest thing a man can do. You're sitting essentially in an out house and it's 30 below. You've cut a hole in the ice, and you're fishing for fish that you shouldn't eat, ‘cause any fish that is down there is fucking stupid.
The only thing dumber than a Democrat or a Republican is when those pricks work together. You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Republican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I can make it shittier."
There are things about the Jewish religion that I carry with me to this day. Chief among them is Yom Kippur, or the Day of Atonement, as it's so happily called. It had a profound effect on my innocent young mind. The service opens with the organ playing "Kol Nidre," one of the spookiest pieces of music ever written. You hear it and literally are surprised bats and shit aren't flying around.
[talking about hunting quail] You shoot them with bird shot! Not like a BB gun, which would do the job. No, bird shot which is just a spray of fucking metal and shit, just [does hand gesture and blows raspberry].
Here's why I think there's something a little odd with George [Bush]. Because a lot of the times when he speaks, his words don't match his face. Something is askew. You can't talk about the war with a smile on your face. He does it constantly. IF you're the President, you should go "We're going to talk about the war, I must have a frowny face." The only time you can smile when you're talking about the war in Iraq is when you go, "Well, two Iraqis walk into a bar, hahaha."
[On Yom Kippur] The rabbi intones that today is the day that God will put your name in the Book of Life... or the Book of DEATH. I'm five, and I'm going, "Uhhh, what the fuck is that? The book of WHAT?!?" Death? Death was not anything that had ever occurred to me. My greatest fear was that my parents were going to leave me in a grocery store.
Health clubs aren't healthy. In New York City, which has the most stairs of anywhere in the country, people pay money to go to a health club and use a stair master. When you live in a city, that has nothing but stairs and you pay money to use special stairs, that is not healthy behavior. It's fucking PSYCHOTIC!
The Catholics have it right. I love what they do. That whole "the pope's infallible" thing is tremendous. Let's face facts: If you took somebody with no religious leanings whatsoever and locked that person in a psych ward with nobody around and no stimuli, the Catholic church is exactly what he'd come up with. "Listen to this. There's this old guy in a dress, see? He wears all these great costumes and wherever he says about anything from birth control to what to watch on television, that's it, 'cause pope knows best. He can't lift his head up, but, fuck, he's a genius.
"Equestrian," by the by, is the gayest word in the English language. In fact, I thought Brokeback Mountain should have been called "Two Equestrians."
There's no such thing as soy milk. It's soy juice. But they couldn't sell soy juice, so they called it soy milk. Because anytime you say soy juice, you actually... start to gag. And they put Soy Milk in with my Moo-Cow fuck milk, and it doesn't belong there, because we all know there's no such thing as Soy milk 'cause there's no soy titty, is there?
The toughest thing about performing here is, where do you go from here? Next week, I'm at the Fort Lauderdale Performing Arts Center.
You don't want to go to Miami. Everybody's always delighted with it--no! Listen! The temperature down there is always over ninety and the humidity--and here's the problem--is way over 100%, way. And you know how it's over 100% humidity? When you're walking down the street for five minutes thinking to yourself, "You know, I should have put deodorant on my balls." That's over a hundred. Because that's not something you'd think of on your own.
I would love to have the faith to believe that the world was created in seven days... but I have thoughts... and that can really fuck up the faith thing, just ask any Catholic priest.
If you don't drink 56 bottles of water a week, scientists say you should take a garden hose at the end of the week and shove it up your ass.
Michael Jackson? That's all I gotta say. ...He's become a punchline. He has! Michael Jackson is a punchline. To any joke you want. If you ever forget the punchline to a joke, just say 'Michael Jackson.' "Two Jews walk into a bar...Michael Jackson!" "Why did the chicken cross the road? Michael Jackson!" "So the farmer brings his daughter to the dinner table--Michael Jackson!" It works for fucking anything!
It [The Weather Channel] is the most watched cable channel in America. I'll repeat that. It is the most watched cable channel in America. They were worried about the terrorists immobilizing us, and a portion of our countrymen watch weather. 'Kay, you don't get any more immobile than that... unless you're in a goddamn coma. That means you're saying, "I'd go to the window, but it's too far." If you want to know what the weather is you go to a window and stick your hand out and if you want to know what the temperature is you drive by a bank.
Everyone of you has a health that is unique and totally different from everybody else. Completely! Because we... are all like snowflakes.
You know what would help the instruction form? Verbs! Verbs would be nice! Because they help you get to the end of a thought!
If I wanted to be bored by 6,000 pages of unreadable dreck, I'd read War and Peace four times.
The reason you should go to Las Vegas is because, for only the second time, the second time, ever, they have rebuilt Sodom and Gomorrah. It's back!! And you have the opportunity to see it before it turns to salt. And you wanna get out there before the Christian Right finds out what we're up to and shits all over it.