Mort Sahl Quotations

Washington couldn't tell a lie, Nixon couldn't tell the truth, and Reagan couldn't tell the difference.

Professional comedians, surprisingly, have a lack of humor. They're insensitive to the insanity of our times.

I didn't think that anything is beyond humor - not profane humor, but a good, honest approach to humor.

Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen.

I'm a radical, and I always have been.

I never met a man I didn't like until I met Will Rogers.

A conservative is someone who believes in reform. But not now.

People tell me there are a lot of guys like me, which doesn't explain why I'm lonely.

I used to go to two movies every week for the Saturday matinee when I was a kid.

Reagan won because he ran against Jimmy Carter. If he ran unopposed he would have lost.

If you were the only person left on the planet, I would have to attack you. That's my job.

When people write comedy from neutrality, it just gets kind of silly.

Obama says his recreation consists of reading the Constitution... looking for a loophole.

I don't believe in good people and bad people. I believe in the better parts of people.

Television is never more false than when it's openly sincere.

A political satirist's job is to draw blood. I'm not so much interested in politics as I am in overthrowing the government.

You know what I want you to do? I want you to blow out the candle and curse the darkness.

This matter of two sides to every question is bad logic and bad practice: sometimes there are no sides; sometimes there are a hundred.

The distance between taking social action and having the knowledge is as wide as the mouth of the Mississippi.

I went to computer class with my Dell and I was bullied by a guy with a Mac.

The bravest thing that men do is love women.

That feeling of hopelessness only serves your masters.

You know me, I love lost causes.

I don't think crucifixion is the answer. I believe in the resurrection. I like that part of the story.

Everything I tell you is true, but this is factual.

I used to go out with actresses and other female impersonators.

Every time the Russians throw an American in jail, the Committee throws an American in jail to get even.

There's so much Botox around now that you can't tell when a Jewish girl is angry!

I'm not a liberal, I'm a radical!

If anybody comes up to you and says, My kid is a conservative - why is that? you say, Remember in the 60′s when we told you if you kept using drugs your kids would be mutants?

We all know that America is the worst country in the world, except for all the others.

I don't think fascism is dying for.

If you can't join them, beat them.

you don't know what you think unless you say it.

The New York Times is the official leak of the State Department.

A conservative doesn't want anything to happen for the first time; a liberal feels it should happen, but not now.

My whole life is a movie. It's just that there are no dissolves. I have to live every agonizing moment of it. My life needs editing.

Bush is the face on the can. But who canned that soup?

You haven't lived until you've died in California

We claim we believe in compassion, which is an abstract, and when it's personified we discredit the man

In the forties, to get a girl you had to be a GI or a jock. In the fifties, to get a girl you had to be Jewish. In the sixties, to get a girl you had to be black. In the seventies, to get a girl you've got to be a girl.

Obama is running again for spite.

Remember when movies were just good or bad, before auteurs, film festivals, and guys from USC who were the first to shoot underwater?

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas - except the drone.

New book on Malcolm X says we don't know how he was killed. Want to bring in the FBI. Maybe they were in already.

The beat generation is a coffeehouse full of people expectantly looking at their watches waiting for the beat generation to come on.

Most people past college age are not atheists. It's too hard to be in society, for one thing. Because you don't get any days off. And if you're an agnostic you don't know whether you get them off or not.

There are Russian spies here now. And if we're lucky, they'll steal some of our secrets and they'll be two years behind.

I took benzedrine - I got clairvoyance. With benzedrine you can have a very wide view of the world, like you can decide the destiny of man and other pressing problems, such as which is the left sock?

Obama said he went to Libya because of his conscience. Did anyone ever wrestle with his conscience and lose?

Women want their men to be cops. They want you to punish them and tell them what the limits are. The only thing that women hate worse from a man than being slapped is when you get on your knees and say you're sorry.

Nixon's the kind of guy that if you were drowning fifty feet off shore, he'd throw you a thirty foot rope. Then Kissinger would go on TV the next night and say that the President had met you more than half-way.

I made the mistake early in my career, when I moved to Hollywood, of being attracted to actresses. I used to go out exclusively with actresses and other female impersonators.

One thing about being narrow-minded: you'll never be lonely.

I'm for capital punishment. You've got to execute people. How else are they going to learn?

Those who the gods would make rich and famous on TV, they first drive mad.

Will Rogers…used to come out with a newspaper and pretend he was a yokel criticizing the intellectuals who ran the government. I come out with a newspaper and pretend I’m an intellectual making fun of the yokels running the government.

If you maintain a consistent political position long enough, you'll eventually be accused of treason.

I found people looked better when they laughed

I watched Ken Burns' Civil War series on PBS. My favorite segment is when Bob Hope entertains the troops at Gettysburg.

A Yuppie is someone who believes it's courageous to eat in a restaurant that hasn't been reviewed yet.

We would have broken up except for the children. Who were the children? Well, she and I were.

Now that Obama is at war in a 3rd country, does that mean he has to give back his Nobel Peace Prize?

If someone were to ask me for a short cut to sensuality, I would suggest he go shopping for a used 427 Shelby-Cobra. But it is only fair to warn you that of the 300 guys who switched to them in 1966, only two went back to women.

There's a danger our fiscal bankruptcy might overtake our moral bankruptcy.

The fact is that you can't have a good relationship with a girl who hasn't settled things with her father.

Hillary's explanation of the Libyan action to Congress was so good, I wonder who explained it to her?

Remember that no matter how selfish, how cruel, how unfeeling you have been today, every time you take a breath, you make a flower happy.

When Obama ran, he said, We can change the world! The world: can you change it back?!

I've arranged with my executor to be buried in Chicago. Because when I die, I want to still remain active politically.

There were four million people in the American Colonies and we had Jefferson and Franklin. Now we have over 200 million and the two top guys are Clinton and Dole. What can you draw from this? Darwin was wrong!

My life needs editing.