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George Carlin (1937 - 2008)

Monday, June 23, 2008 | 06:00 AM

in Video

Seven Words You Can't Say on Television

And the Supreme Court decision relating to the above: FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION v. PACIFICA FOUNDATION, 438 U.S. 726, 98 S.Ct. 3026 (1978).

Other videos after the jump . . .

GeorgeCarlin.com Home Page:

Other remembrances:

George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71 (NYT)

Say It Ain't So: George Carlin Dies (Village Voice)

George Carlin: American Radical (The Nation)

How George Carlin Changed Comedy (Time)

From our files: The nonconforming George Carlin (Christian Science Monitor)

George Carlin's Last Interview (Psychology Today)

The complete works of George Carlin

Baseball versus Football

The 10 Commandments

On "Soft Language"

Modern Man

A Place For Your Stuff

Voting

On Religion

Pro Life is Anti-Woman

Quotes from George Carlin
(I'll bet half of these are not Carlin)

"Thank you Mr. Twain. Have your people call my people."

"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating......and you finish off as an orgasm."

“By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth”

As a matter of principle, I never attend the first annual anything.

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy.

I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

“Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”

“The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.”

“What does it mean to pre-board? Do you get on before you get on?”

“Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist”

“You know the good part about all those executions in Texas? Fewer Texans”

“If God had intended us not to masturbate he would've made our arms shorter”

“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.”

“When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat.”

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect.

If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted?

It's never just a game when you're winning.

Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.

The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done."

There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.

There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning.

Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?

Religion convinced the world that there's an invisible man in the sky who watches everything you do. And there's 10 things he doesn't want you to do or else you'll go to a burning place with a lake of fire until the end of eternity. But he loves you! ...And he needs money! He's all powerful, but he can't handle money!

When someone asks you, A penny for your thoughts, and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?

I don't have hobbies; hobbies cost money. Interests are quite free.