George Carlin Thinking Quotations

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven't tried that for a while. Maybe this time it'll work.

People who say they don't care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don't care what people think.

I think it would be interesting if old people got anti-Alzheimer's disease where they slowly began to recover other people's lost memories.

I don't see much of a future for this planet. I think it's a cursed planet. The boundaries we've drawn between nations and the profit motive - those two factors have, in my opinion, brought us to the point where almost nothing can stop the utter destruction of the environment and all our earthly life-support systems.

I never take credit for anything, because it's mostly genetic to my way of thinking. Even the need to work hard with some genetic talent you're given - the need to go out and develop it, and push hard to bring it to people.

I find that an entertainer is quite content to sit still, and I think an artist always has a little motion, always going somewhere. May not know where it is, but there is some sort of unnamed destination. There is some pulling, some movement. So I just found myself in that category according to my own analysis.

We think in language. We think in words. Language is the landscape of thought.

Anyone who's onstage is going to attract a certain number of misguided people. But I was never very interested in groupies. Instead of thinking about the sex, I'd always think about the clap and the crabs those people have.

People are dreaming if they think they have rights. They've never had rights. There's no such thing.

I think there's a little more attention to human needs than to property rights. But I don't think much of political activism. It's so shortsighted. Most people are interested in their own personal comfort. I've said that about environmentalists. I think they care about bike paths and places to park their Volvos, not the planet as an abstraction.

The only good thing about religion is the music. Because nature is filled with balances and opposites, there are always exceptions to the overall rules, whether the overall rules are bleak or otherwise. If you propound a joyous theory of existence, I will find an exception to that. If I propound a bleak theory, someone will find a joyous exception. That's just nature being nature, I think, and I don't think it offers a lot of hope. It's sort of a respite along the way.

I was trying to get out of the night clubs and was thinking maybe I'll go to the colleges now; that's where you can speak your mind.

I think self-expression is present at all times, and whether or not you're talking about the outside world or your responses to it depends on the moment and the subject.

Everything that you know about yourself comes from thinking back, and I think I saw religion as the first big betrayal of me.

I'm not in show business because I don't have to go to the meetings, I'm just not a part of it, I don't belong to it. When you "belong" to something. You want to think about that word, "belong." People should think about that: it means they own you. If you belong to something it owns you, and I just don't care for that. I like spinning out here like one of those subatomic particles that they can't quite pin down.

To my way of thinking, there is every bit as much evidence for the existence of UFOs as there is for the existence of God. Probably far more. At least in the case of UFOs there have been countless taped and filmed and, by the way, unexplained sightings from all over the world, along with documented radar evidence seen by experienced military and civilian radar operators.>>

They'll get it all from you sooner or later 'cause they own this f**kin' place. It's a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good, honest, hard-working people: white collar, blue collar, it doesn't matter what color shirt you have on.

Just think, right now as you read this, some guy somewhere is gettin' ready to hang himself.

When you think about it, attention-deficit order makes a lot of sense. In this country there isn't a lot worth paying attention to.

I sort of gave up on this whole human adventure a long time ago, divorced myself from it emotionally. It gives me an artistic detachment that I find valuable. I think the human race has squandered its gift, and I think this country has squandered its promise, for the sake of cell phones and Jet Skis.

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions.

But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would!

I hope we're not just human garbage drifting toward a big sewer. But I think so.

If Helen Keller had psychic ability, would you say she had a fourth sense? What year did Jesus think it was?

I, myself, have killed six people. All random, all undetected, no way to trace them to me. And, let me tell you, there's nothin' like it. It's a great feeling. Yeah, I know, you're thinking. 'Aw, he's a comedian. He's just sayin' that stuff.' Good. That's exactly what I want you to think.

I think tobacco and alcohol warnings are too general. They should be more to the point: 'People who smoke will eventually cough up small pieces of lung.'... And 'Warning!! Alcohol will turn you into the same jerk your father was.'

I have this real moron thing I do? It's called thinking.

Y'ever notice how you never seem to get laid on Thanksgiving? I think it's because all the coats are on the bed.

If you you think there is a solution, you're part of the problem.

I should think it takes a fairly low intellect to draw pleasure from the following activity: hitting a ball with a crooked stick. and then walking after it! An then ..hitting it again!

No, there's no God, but there might be some sort of an organizing intelligence, and I think to understand it is way beyond our ability. It's certainly not a judgmental entity. It's certainly not paternalistic and all these qualities that have been attributed to God.

I've never been quarantined. But the more I look around the more I think it might not be a bad idea.

I'm thinking of buying a church and changing it around: maybe selling crack and having a few whores in the pew.

I tell ya, if I hadn't chosen the career of being a performer, I think linguistics would have been a natural area that I'd have loved - to teach it, probably, Language has always fascinated me. There's a genetic inheritance there a good language gene, which I inherited [from my mother and grandfather] and she fostered that in me as he fostered that in her.

The two big mistakes were the belief in a sky god - that there's a man in the sky with 10 things he doesn't want you to do and you'll burn for a long time if you do them - and private property, which I think is at the core of our failure as a species. That's the source of my indignations, my dissatisfactions, however it comes out on the stage. I feel betrayed by the people I'm part of, these creatures, these magnificent creatures.

I don't think we really gave barbarism a fair try.

If drumsticks are for playing drums, you would think that breadsticks would be for playing bread, wouldn't you? "Would you like some breadsticks?" "No, thank you, I don't play bread. I play drums. Perhaps I'll have a drum roll."

I think TV remotes should have a button that allows you to kill the person on the screen.

I'm not a person who thinks they can have it all, but I certainly feel that with a bit of effort and guile I should be able to have more than my fair share.

Catholics are against abortions. Catholics are against homosexuals. But, I can't think of anyone who has less abortions than homosexuals!

There are ten thousand people in the United States in a persistent vegetative state. Just enough to start a small town. Think of them as veggie-burghers.

There is nothing wrong with the planet. The planet is fine ... been here 4 1/2 billion years. We've been here, what, a 100,000 years, maybe 200,000. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry a little over 200 years. 200 years versus 4 1/2 billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat? The planet isn't going away. We are.

I've never owned a telescope, but it's something I'm thinking of looking into.

I don't have to tell you it goes without saying there are some things better left unsaid. I think that speaks for itself. The less said about it the better.

Think of how strange we'd look if all the cuts, burns, scrapes, bruises, scratches, bumps, gashes, and scabs we ever had suddenly reappeared on our bodies at the same time.

When you think about it, 12:15 P.M. is actually 11:75 A.M.

We think in language. The quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our language.

[On School Uniforms] Don't these schools do enough damage making all these kids think alike, now they have to make them look alike too? It's not a new idea, either. I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand because the narration was in German.

An entertainer is someone who pleases others, and an artist tries to please himself. An artist is on a journey: they don't know where they're going, what is going to happen, but they know they are not there yet, and there is some continuity and growth. I think of myself as an entertainer: I'm a performing entertainer, I'm a stand-up comic. But there's an artist at work here, too. One who interprets his world through his own filter.

I think it's important to break taboos for the same reason it's important to break laws and rules - because either you're a slave to them, or you're taking matters into your hands.

Do you think Sammy Davis ate Junior Mints?

I think of shock as kind of an uptown form of surprise. Comedy is filled with surprise, so when I cross a line... I like to find out where the line might be and then cross it deliberately, and then make the audience happy about crossing the line with me.

I think we overrate ourselves in terms of our abilities and capacities. I mean, just because you can build a really swell bridge doesn't, to my way of thinking, mean that you're an advanced civilization.

I love individuals. I think people are terrific as I meet and get to know them. I like imagination. I like the freedom that this society manages to parcel out to us in the midst of the rest of what they do to you. I also like thinking about the fact that the atoms in me are the same atoms that are in all the rest of the universe, and that every one of those atoms came from the middle of a star. In other words, it's only me out there.

Some people think of the glass as half full. Some people think of the glass as half empty. I think of the glass as too big.

I think we’re part of a greater wisdom that we will ever understand; a higher order, call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. It doesn’t punish, it doesn’t reward, it doesn’t judge at all. It just is.

We spend the early years feeding our brains with information and the latter half trying not to think about it all.

I credit that eight years of grammar school with nourishing me in a direction where I could trust myself and trust my instincts. They gave me the tools to reject my faith. They taught me to question and think for myself and to believe in my instincts to such an extent that I just said, This is a wonderful fairy tale they have going here, but it's not for me.

I think everyone should treat one another in a Christian manner. I will not, however, be responsible for the consequences.

Some people think that words can injure the psyche or the moral fiber. And they really can't.

It's not in the mainstream media yet, but the biggest jump in skin cancer has occurred since the advent of sunscreens. That kind of thing makes me happy. The fact that people, in pursuit of a superficial look of health, give themselves a fatal disease. I love it when 'reasoning' human beings think they have figured out how to beat something and it comes right back and kicks them in the nuts. God bless the law of unintended consequences. And the irony is impressive: Healthy people, trying to look healthier, make themselves sick. Good!

I don't like to think of laws as rules you have to follow, but more as suggestions.

Regarding jam sessions: Jazz musicians are the only workers I can think of who are willing to put in a full shift for pay and then go somewhere else and continue to work for free.

I think religion is very anti-man. I think it's a terrible distortion and exploitation of a very natural urge every human has - to be rejoined with the one somehow, to become a part of the universe. Once the high priests and the traders took over, we were lost as a species.

At 68 I'm every age I ever was. I always think of that. I'm not just 68. I'm also 55 and 21 and three. Oh especially three.

The whole idea of the pursuit of goods and possessions has completely corrupted the human experience, along with religion, which I think limits the intellect.

It turned out I was pretty good in science. But again, because of the small budget, in science class we couldn't afford to do experiments in order to prove theories. We just believed everything. Actually, I think that class was called Religion. Religion class was always an easy class. All you had to do was suspend the logic and reasoning you were being taught in all the other classes.

My tombstone? I'm thinking something along the lines of, 'Geez, he was just here a minute ago.'

I have a suggestion that I think would help fight serious crime. Signs. There are lots of signs for minor infractions: No Smoking, Stay Off the Grass, Keep Out, and they seem to work fairly well. I think we should also have signs for major crimes: Murder Strictly Prohibited, NO Raping People, Thank You for Not Kidnapping Anyone. It's certainly worth a try. I'm convinced Watergate would never have happened if there had just been a sign in the Oval Office that said, Malfeasance of Office Is Strictly Against the Law, or Thank You for Not Undermining the Constitution.

I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist.

Personally, when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true. I think either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all. Personally I lean towards unlimited rights, I feel for instance I have the right to do anything I please, BUT! If I do something you don't like I think you have the right to kill me.

One of the more pretentious political self-descriptions is 'Libertarian.' People think it puts them above the fray. It sounds fashionable, and to the uninitiated, faintly dangerous. Actually, it's just one more bullshit political philosophy.

I like good ideas. I don't want just do something for it's own sake to bother people, but if I can bother them with a logical argument about something they have agreed to in society simplistically - like children are sacred, the cult of the child, this cult of professional parenthood, and of course religion, and respect for policemen and the law, and all of these untouchable areas. I like attacking those beliefs, but in with good sound thinking, and an unusual approach.

Religion is like drugs, it destroys the thinking mind.

Valentine's Day is devoted to love. Why don't we have a day devoted to hatred? The raw, visceral hatred that is felt every hour of the day by ordinary people, but is repressed for reasons of social order. I think it would be very cathartic, and it would certainly make for an exciting six o'clock news.

Governments don't want a population capable of critical thinking, they want obedient workers, people just smart enough to run the machines and just dumb enough to passively accept their situation.You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear.

Your dog thinks you're a god. Your cat thinks the dog's an asshole.

I think you can talk about anything if the context is correctly arranged. If you set up the context and you bring the audience along carefully enough with you, you can get them to cross the line with you. What I try to do is talk about things that bother me, and I hope that in doing so I bother other people.

I don't really identify with America, I don't really feel like an American or part of the American experience, and I don't really feel like a member of the human race, to tell you the truth. I know I am, but I really don't. All the definitions are there, but I don't really feel a part of it. I think I have found a detached point of view, an ideal emotional detachment from the American experience and culture and the human experience and culture and human choices.

Catholic school gave me the tools to reject the very religion they wanted me to have. They taught me how to think for myself and to be independent.

I think of myself as an entertainer: I'm a performing entertainer, I'm a stand-up comic. But there's an artist at work here, too. One who interprets his world through his own filter.

When I'm not actually doing my work, I'm planning it or thinking about it or reading things that on some level are transformed into performance fantasies. I have no active interests. I never go anywhere or do anything that transports me outside the boundaries of my mind.