Tom Lehrer Quotes
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Laughter is involuntary. If it's funny you laugh.
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I figure I wrote 37 songs in 20 years, and that's not exactly a full-time job. It wasn't that I was writing and writing and writing and quit.
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Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics/ And the Catholics hate the Protestants/ And the Hindus hate the Muslims/ And everybody hates the Jews.
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No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.
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If you visit American city, You will find it very pretty. Just two things of which you must beware: Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air. Pollution, pollution, They got smog and sewage and mud. Turn on your tap and get hot and cold running crud. See the halibuts and the sturgeons Being wiped out by detergents. Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly, But they don't last long if they try. Pollution, pollution, You can use the latest toothpaste, And then rinse your mouth with industrial waste.
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Political satire became obsolete when they awarded Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Filth, I'm glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder. When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.
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I have always found it interesting... that there are people who regard copyright infringement as a form of flattery.
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I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, three thousand dollars a year just teaching.
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Don't write naughty words on the wall if you can't spell!
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If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.
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Be careful not to do your good deeds when there's no one watching you.
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I'm not an original composer. The tunes are not stolen from other tunes necessarily except in a few cases, but they're in the style of songs that I grew up with.
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People would go anywhere to see a famous person in the flesh, no matter what they do.
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I'm very proud of myself on my, whatever the literacy is, I'm pretentious, totally pretentious. I like to say 'hmm', for example.
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The people who came to hear me perform or to buy my records were not the type who would be offended by the song 'The Vatican Rag'. But I gather that there were other people who were offended.
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We are the folk song army, every one of us cares. We all hate poverty, war, and injustice unlike the rest of you squares.
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The Army has carried the American... ideal to its logical conclusion... Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on the grounds of ability.
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When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.
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I would do nightclubs and concerts - particularly concerts, which is mostly what I did - and only people who already agreed with me would show up. People weren't going to come and inadvertently turn on their television set and find this offensive stuff coming out.
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Comedy is very important. For one thing, it keeps you sane. But it's not really a conversion. I mean, it's marginally a conversion, because if people tune in or go to a nightclub or even watch television, and hear that a lot of other people are laughing at something you thought was not funny, at least it'll force you to reconsider.
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I went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity.
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Always predict the worst, and you'll be hailed as a prophet.
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Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, Advertising wondrous things!