There's no job in show business that's harder than any other job outside show business.
— Penn Jillette
I've never revved my car at a light for an attractive woman or an auto-rival, not even as a joke.
I was about 12 when I heard my first Lenny Bruce record. He was already dead. But it changed my life and really did change the world.
Bacon is so good by itself that to put it in any other food is an admission of failure. You're basically saying, 'I can't make this other food taste good, so I'll throw in bacon.'
My whole family is missing that sports gene. I hope I didn't screw that up by marrying a great golfer.
When I was a kid, politicians wanted to avoid talking about religion if they could. John F. Kennedy couldn't duck the issue, being Catholic and all. So how did he address it? By reminding Americans that religion shouldn't be an issue, that he was concentrating on big things like poverty and hunger and leading the space race.
I didn't learn fire-eating to conquer my fears. I learned fire-eating because I desperately wanted to be in show business.
We know what racist people look like. They don't deny it. They just don't!
When someone is trying to interpret something for you, they always have an agenda.
I'm totally against straight marriage - even though I'm married. I don't think heterosexual marriage is any of the government's business.
TV networks are dying. The death throes of religion give us jihads. The death throes of television give us reality shows.
I think it's pretty cruel to give a kid a name that others are going to have. I think it's very important to have a unique name within any group you're likely to be in.
My mom, if you asked her if she was interested in whether or not people gambled, would say no.
A lot of people, to attack an outspoken atheist, one of the things they'll do is say, 'You are as bad as the fundamentalist Christians.' And my answer is always, 'I hope so.'
I read a lot of books to my children, and they all seem really good. I think people have gotten really good at children's books.
Jay-Z, he knows precisely who he's going for - 14-year-old white suburban girls.
I live in Vegas, and I see people by the side of the road with cardboard signs who seem like they might have tried that spending their way out of debt thing.
The only secret of magic is that I'm willing to work harder on it than you think it's worth.
Cars mean nothing to me. I'm not a car guy.
I love the feeling of shredded wheat. I love healthy bird food with a fun-to-eat feel. Then you spray them with sugar, and I'm there.
World War II proves there's no God.
A lot of older parents worry about being older parents. I hear people say, 'I don't want to be too old to play baseball with my son.' They worry that their kids will be embarrassed by their parents' age.
America was founded on Christians not trusting each other, and they sometimes seemed more willing to reach out to the godless than to someone from another sect.
Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.
You can't believe how pro-gay and pro-freedom-of-speech I am. I'm way out beyond anyone on the Left.
Don't waste too much time wishing, hoping, and being envious; it'll make you bugnutty.
Tommy Smothers is a hero of mine.
Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around.
I will not counter the insanity of the PATRIOT Act with an overblown fear of my rights being taken away.
Bob Barr is not crazy enough for my taste.
I hate that not everything ever written is on iBooks. Man, I hate paper.
The purpose of art is to collide the intellectual and visceral together at the highest speed possible.
Everybody prefers to see a nut - they're more fascinating.
Counterintuitive actions prove we can trust real knowledge and do the opposite of what we feel makes sense.
Having a Hummer is stupid. It's stupid to waste that much gas. It's stupid to waste that much money on gas. It's stupid to parade your insecurities on public roads. Hummers are stupid-looking.
One thing you learn doing magic tricks for a living is how close every performance of every magic trick is to disaster. There are no robust magic tricks. They're all hanging from a thread - sometimes literally.
Cheerios bring back memories. I actually don't think I ate them much as a kid, though; maybe it's some sort of Jungian memory, I don't know. But they have so much sugar, it's great.
From 1985 to 1994, I lived in Manhattan in a big old loft right off Times Square. I could walk to work, which was in a couple of Broadway theaters, to Howard Stern's studio, and to 30 Rock for 'Letterman' and 'SNL.' Even in New York, walking to work is homey and folksy, like living in a small town.
My body really, really wanted to reproduce when I was 15. It took a lot of civilization, socialization, willpower and some emulsion polymerization technology for me not to reproduce at 15.
The definition of a stupid thing is something that if you do everything right, you still get hurt. Fire-eating and love are stupid things.
I don't believe the majority always knows what's best for everyone.
You have two choices with Obama. You either believe that he is a man of Christ... or you think he's a liar. And I'm surprised by the number of atheist free thinkers that support Obama, and their argument is essentially, 'He's lying about being religious 'cause you have to do that to get elected.' It's a horrible reason to like somebody.
The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.
My tolerance for crazy people is, I think, high a tolerance as you're ever going to find. I love being around David Allen Coe. I would have loved to hang out with Tiny Tim. I can listen to Sun Ra on a tape-recording rant.
One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we're in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality. That is the subject that, if you have a brain in your head, is always dealt with in magic. The smarter the tricks you're doing, the more that' s an important thing.
Every poker player is smarter than me.
I'm an amazing mama's boy.
I don't want everyone to read anything; I like us all reading different books.
I had e-mail in 1984! I had an e-mail address then, which means that all you could write to was Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. There were three of us, writing to each other.
I think one of the things about Donald Trump that's interesting is he lives in a rarified atmosphere where it's possible that he doesn't get enough feedback, enough people rolling their eyes at him. It's a danger more in show business than it is with wealth.
