“I hope we're not just human garbage drifting toward a big sewer. But I think so.”
Quote collection
Thinking Quotes — page 941 of 4756
“I think the trend to control speech - and therefore thought - continues. Because of the freer flow of information now, there's more on the side of free thought.”
“I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word "cynic" has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. "George, you're cynical." Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?”
“If Helen Keller had psychic ability, would you say she had a fourth sense? What year did Jesus think it was?”
“When I'm not actually doing my work, I'm planning it or thinking about it or reading things that on some level are transformed into performance fantasies. I have no active interests.”
“I think self-expression is present at all times, and whether or not you're talking about the outside world or your responses to it depends on the moment and the subject.”
“Anyone who's onstage is going to attract a certain number of misguided people. But I was never very interested in groupies. Instead of thinking about the sex, I'd always think about the clap and the crabs those people have.”
“I don't have to tell you it goes without saying there are some things better left unsaid. I think that speaks for itself. The less said about it the better.”
“I tell ya, if I hadn't chosen the career of being a performer, I think linguistics would have been a natural area that I'd have loved - to teach it, probably, Language has always fascinated me. There's a genetic inheritance there a good language gene, which I inherited [from my mother and grandfather] and she fostered that in me as he fostered that in her.”
“The two big mistakes were the belief in a sky god - that there's a man in the sky with 10 things he doesn't want you to do and you'll burn for a long time if you do them - and private property, which I think is at the core of our failure as a species. That's the source of my indignations, my dissatisfactions, however it comes out on the stage. I feel betrayed by the people I'm part of, these creatures, these magnificent creatures.”
“The Class Clown album was done totally sober. I'd realized what a hell I'd made for myself and I cleaned up completely for three months. You can hear the clarity of my thinking and of my speech on that album.”
“The only good thing about religion is the music. Because nature is filled with balances and opposites, there are always exceptions to the overall rules, whether the overall rules are bleak or otherwise. If you propound a joyous theory of existence, I will find an exception to that. If I propound a bleak theory, someone will find a joyous exception. That's just nature being nature, I think, and I don't think it offers a lot of hope. It's sort of a respite along the way.”
“I think there's a little more attention to human needs than to property rights. But I don't think much of political activism. It's so shortsighted. Most people are interested in their own personal comfort. I've said that about environmentalists. I think they care about bike paths and places to park their Volvos, not the planet as an abstraction.”
“Sometimes, after I'd gone at the coke like one of those snow plows moving up First Avenue, I'd think my heart was over on the dresser, pounding, and I was watching it. I asked some of the doctors who drifted through the intensive-care unit what kind of effect total cocaine abuse has on the heart and they said things like, "Well, there's not enough valid information...." That kind of answer.”
“I suspect there really was more to my accident than bad luck. I think it was God's way of punishing my nose.”
“But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!”
“Everything that you know about yourself comes from thinking back, and I think I saw religion as the first big betrayal of me.”
“I was trying to get out of the night clubs and was thinking maybe I'll go to the colleges now; that's where you can speak your mind.”
“Ah, I often think it's wi' th' old folks as it is wi' the babies; they're satisfied wi' looking, no matter what they're looking at. It's God A'mighty's way o' quietening 'em, I reckon, afore they go to sleep.”
“I have no courage to write much unless I am written to. I soon begin to think that there are plenty of other correspondents more interesting - so if you all want to hear from me you know the conditions.”