Penn Jillette Quotes
-
I grew up as a Christian. I suppose at some level I wanted to believe someone was watching over me.
-
Penn & Teller stopped doing practical jokes, and the reason is we got much too good at it.
-
I think voting for the lesser of two evils in game theory always leads to more evil.
-
The skills that we have are the actual magic skills - not the performing skills. We have to separate those. But the actual skills that make the tricks work, we don't get to use again.
-
I'm not misunderstood. I am brash. I make my living being brash.
-
'Morality, Religion And Bullsh*T: An Interview With Penn Jillette' by Ryan Shaffer, at the American Humanist Association (December 2012)
-
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.
-
This is going to sound horrible, but I don't even know how much I make in a year. It must be, you know, a couple of million dollars, a few million. I know it's more money than my dad, a jail guard, made in his lifetime; more money than I'll ever need.
-
I've always wanted to make the world a more rational place. I'm still working on it.
-
I started out as a juggler, so I know what it means to spend eight hours a day, seven days a week practicing something that people just dismiss with a wave of hand.
-
Someone who is a good person should have no fear of the government whatsoever.
-
People like Bill Maher, who brags about being a cynic, it sickens me. I am the least cynical person I know, and I am very, very skeptical.
-
Before you can read, you know the difference between a story and reality. And, of course, by the time you're old enough to do any real damage with an Uzi, you've learned that difference.
-
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.
-
It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral, self-righteous, bullying laziness.
-
I like to read in the dark. I like to go into the bathtub, turn out all the lights, and in the dark, read my books.
-
Counterintuitive action makes a fellow feel smart.
-
Religion is faith. Faith is belief without evidence. Belief without evidence cannot be shared. Faith is a feeling. Love is also a feeling, but love makes no universal claims. Love is pure.
-
The vast majority of people who have guns never hurt anybody.
-
Religion is often just tribalism: pride in a group one was born into, a group that is often believed to have 'God' on its side.
-
'Zolten' is a common Hungarian name, it's my wife's maiden name and most importantly, it's the name of Dracula's dog.
-
People still seem to think that they should vote themselves money. They seem to think there is stuff which they think is the government's job, when it's really the individual's job.
-
A two-party system is way too good for those two parties.
-
Teller and I worked Renaissance Festivals and street performing - actually more real, no kidding around, Philadelphia street performing than we did Renaissance Festivals.