Lenny Bruce

The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is what should be. Now, if you're taught to live up to a what should be that never existed -- only an occult superstition, no proof of this should be -- then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!

— Lenny Bruce

Today's comedian has a cross to bear that he built himself. A comedian of the older generation did an act and he told the audience, This is my act. Today's comic is not doing an act. The audience assumes he's telling the truth. What is truth today may be a damn lie next week.

— Lenny Bruce

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.

— Lenny Bruce

Communism is like one big phone company.

— Lenny Bruce

The reason I'm in this business, I assume all performers are -- it's Look at me, Ma! It's acceptance, you know -- Look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma. And if your mother watches, you'll show off till you're exhausted; but if your mother goes, Ptshew!

— Lenny Bruce

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

— Lenny Bruce

All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.

— Lenny Bruce

The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds.

— Lenny Bruce

A lot of people say to me, Why did you kill Christ? I dunno... it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know. We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him.

— Lenny Bruce

Now a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as descended from that tribe. That's what it says in the dictionary; but you and I know what a Jew is -- One Who Killed Our Lord. And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagan or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce.

— Lenny Bruce

In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.

— Lenny Bruce

The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them.

— Lenny Bruce

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.

— Lenny Bruce

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.”

— Lenny Bruce

If God made the body and the body is dirty, the fault lies with the manufacturer.

— Lenny Bruce