Lenny Bruce

“Take away the right to say ‘fuck’ and you take away the right to say ‘fuck the government.”

“إذا كنت تؤمن أنّ هناك من إله، إلهٍ صنع لك جسدك، ولكنّك لازلت تحسب أنّك تستطيع عمل أيّ شيءٍ قذرٍ بذلك الجسد، العيب يقع إذاً في المصنِّع”

“People are leaving the church and going back to God.”

“I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like "What I'm Going to be If I Grow Up”

“I am influenced by every second of my waking hour. ”

“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.”

“Communism is like one big phone company.”

“There is only what is and that's it. What should be is a dirty lie.”

“…Catholicism is like Howard Johnson, and what they have are these franchises and they give all these people different franchises in the different countries but they have one government, and when you buy the Howard Johnson franchise you can apply it to the geography - whatever's cool for that area - and then you, you know, pay the bread to the main office.”

“You are a white. The Imperial Wizard. Now, if you don't think this is logic you can burn me on the fiery cross. This is the logic: You have the choice of spending fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or a white woman. Fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping real close on hot nights. With a black, black woman or a white, white woman. The white woman is Kate Smith. And the black woman is Lena Horne. So you're not concerned with black or white anymore, are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty. Then let's really get basic and persecute ugly people!”

“Liberals can understand everything but peoplewho don't understand them.”

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.”

“There are never enough 'I love you's.”

“The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it...try to fake three laughs in an hour -- ha ha ha ha ha -- they'll take you away, man. You can't.”

“The 'what should be' never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no 'what should be,' there is only what is.”

“If you can't say "Fuck" you can't say, "Fuck the government.”

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.”

“Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.”