Tom Lehrer Quotes
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Once all the Germans were warlike and mean But that couldn't happen again We taught them a lesson in nineteen eighteen And they've hardly bothered us since then
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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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Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good.
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Everything is so weird in politics that it's very hard to be funny about it, I think.
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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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The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines...I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them. And that's not funny....OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire.
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Always predict the worst, and you'll be hailed as a prophet.
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When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.
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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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As for language, almost everything goes now. That is not to say that verbal taboos have disappeared, but merely that they have shifted somewhat. In my youth, for example, there were certain words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can say them, but you can't say 'girl'.
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Well I wasn't really attacking the religious beliefs in the song 'The Vatican Rag', I was attacking the formality of the rituals of the Catholic church; however, people took it wrongly.
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I went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity.
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Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
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Base eight is just like base ten really, if you're missing two fingers.
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I find that people can pass me on the street who've just seen my picture in the paper and they wouldn't recognize me. If they'd seen me on television, the heads turn. They say, "Wait a minute. I don't know who that is, but he's somebody.
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Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?
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For there is surely nothing more beautiful in this world than the sight of a lone man facing single-handedly a half a ton of angry pot roast!
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If I can't get people to commit themselves on whether or not there is a square root of two, then I won't touch on God or anything here
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But in the new (math) approach, the important thing is to understand what you're doing, rather than to get the right answer.
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Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.
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I wasn't really a performer by temperament.
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In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics: plagiarize; only be sure always to call it . . . research.
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When you attend a funeral, It is sad to think that sooner o' Later those you love will do the same for you. And you may have thought it tragic, Not to mention other adjec- Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do. (But don't you worry.
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I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?