Everything is so weird in politics that it's very hard to be funny about it, I think. Tom Lehrer More Quotes by Tom Lehrer More Quotes From Tom Lehrer No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant. Tom Lehrer arrogantatheistthinking Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good. Tom Lehrer writingsongthinking You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes ... but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good. Tom Lehrer stupidfunthinking Step up and shake the hand Of someone you can't stand, You can tolerate him if you try! Tom Lehrer stepstryinghands Be it ever so decadent, there's no place like home. Tom Lehrer home Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? Tom Lehrer who-caresrocketscare The poor folks hate the rich folks, and the rich folks hate the poor folks. All of my folks hate all of your folks, it's American as apple pie. Tom Lehrer applespiehate The civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it, owing to the nature of the laws, as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on. But we know what's really involved, dirty books are fun. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that. Tom Lehrer funbookdirty From the three, you then use one to make eight ones. You add those ones to the three, and you get one-three base eight, or, in other words, In base ten you have eleven, and you take away seven. And seven from eleven is four. Now go back to the sixty-fours, you're left with two. Tom Lehrer eightaddtwo You can raise welts like nobody else, as we dance to the Masochism Tango. Tom Lehrer tangoraisesdancing My last public performance for money was in 1967. For free, it was 1972, with the exception of two little one-shot, one-song things. But that's just for friends, out of friendship for the people involved, and also because it was fun. Tom Lehrer songfuntwo I have always found it interesting... that there are people who regard copyright infringement as a form of flattery. Tom Lehrer flatterypeopleinteresting There's ten stuffed heads in my trophy room right now, two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow. Tom Lehrer gamesanimaltwo The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines...I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them. And that's not funny....OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire. Tom Lehrer realwritingsong Filth, I'm glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder. When correctly viewed, everything is lewd. Tom Lehrer filthmindsex Comedy is very important. For one thing, it keeps you sane. But it's not really a conversion. I mean, it's marginally a conversion, because if people tune in or go to a nightclub or even watch television, and hear that a lot of other people are laughing at something you thought was not funny, at least it'll force you to reconsider. Tom Lehrer laughingmeanpeople I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, three thousand dollars a year just teaching. Tom Lehrer fightingteachingmean People are stupider than anybody. Tom Lehrer people To me, being funny is more important than making a point, but I don't know. Most politicians are so interested in making points that they don't ... I'd rather be funny myself, and I'd rather listen to somebody with a little sense of humor. Tom Lehrer sense-of-humorpoliticianimportant And although I'm all for freedom of expression and against censorship, there are certain things I'm not willing to go to jail for. Tom Lehrer censorshipjailexpression
