I. Frost's Selected Quotations

Everything at Amazon by and about: Lenny Bruce

"I'm sorry I haven't been funny. I am not a comedian. I am Lenny Bruce."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

Certain things are complete superstition and have no validity at all in the Bible. Yeah. They're just the antithesis of everything that is correct intellectually.
-- Lenny Bruce, at Carnegie Hall, February 4, 1961

The reason I'm in this business, I assume all performers are - it's "Look at me, Ma!" It's acceptance, you know - "Look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma." And if your mother watches, you'll show off till you're exhausted; but if your mother goes, Ptshew!
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

Now a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as descended from that tribe. That's what it says in the dictionary; but you and I know what a Jew is -- One Who Killed Our Lord.... And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagan or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce....
-- Lenny Bruce, "The Jews"

A lot of people say to me, "Why did you kill Christ?" "I dunno... it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know." "We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

Miami Beach is where neon goes to die.
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing else to do."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"If you live in New York, even if you're Catholic, you're Jewish."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"The truth is what is, not what should be. What should be is a dirty lie."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"I've been accused of bad taste, and I'll go down to my grave accused of it and always by the same people, the ones who eat in restaurants that reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"If something about the human body disgusts you complain to the manufacturer."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"If a titty is pretty, its dirty but not if its bloody and maimed."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"Now the problem I had in understanding the law was because of the language of the law. Instead of taking each word and finding out the case that the word related to, once in a while I got lazy and I would apply common sense. And then I got really screwed up."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds"

- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government"
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls"
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"I sort of felt sorry for the damn flies. They never hurt anybody. Even though they were supposed to carry diseases I never heard of anybody saying they caught something form a fly. My cousin gave two guys the clap and nobody ever whacked her with a paper."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write essays like 'What I'm Going to be If I Grow Up.'"
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"If Christ had died in the 20th century, Catholics would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks"
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

It's the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)


"The difference between Jewish and gentile girls is that a gentile girl won't 'touch it once', whereas a Jewish girl will kiss you and let you touch it-your own that is."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"I dedicate this book to all the followers of Christ's teachings - particularly a true Christian -Jimmy Hoffa -for he hired ex-convicts as, I assume, Christ would have."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

An active homosexual is the one who does the doing, and the passive is the one who just lies back. If you were a kid and you were hitchhiking and some faggot came on with you and you let him do whatever his do was, he was an active homosexual, and you are a passive homosexual. You'll never see this in an AAA manuel, but there it is..
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"four naval psychiatrists worked me over at Newport Naval Hospital: 1ST officer:"Lenny have you ever actively engaged in any homosexual practice?" Lenny:No sir."
2ND officer:Do you enjoy the company of women?" Lenny:"Yes sir." 3RD officer:"Do you enjoy intercourse with women?" Lenny:"Yes sir." 4TH officer:"Do you enjoy wearing women's clothing?" Lenny:"Sometimes." All four:When is that?" Lenny:"When they fit."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"When I got divorced a couple of major magazines asked me, five years later, the dumb question:"What happened to your marriage?" "What happened to my marriage? It was broken up by my mother-in-law." And the reporter laughed:"Mother-in-law ha ha ha. what happened?" "My wife came home from work early and she found us in bed together." "In bed - that's perverse!" "Why? It was her mother not mine."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"You know there's no crooked politicians. There's never a lie because there is never any truth..."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"Marijuana will be legal someday, because the many law students who now smoke pot will one day be Congressmen and they will legalize it to protect themselves."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"I don't smoke pot, and I'm glad because then I can champion it without any special pleading. The reason I don't smoke pot is because it facilitates ideas and heightens sensations - and I got enough shit flying through my head without smoking pot."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"They beat the crap outta me but I proved I was a man. They kept beating me but I didn't give them no names." "What names schmuck, you were arrested for exposing yourself."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

I've figured out a way you'll score every time: "Look I'd like very much to go out with you but there can be no sex between us. You see I don't do it. I'm celebate. But we will go out and have a good time, I just thought I'd tell you up front because the last dates I was on they got mad and said I had ruined it for them.
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

DA:"Could Lenny Bruce be a psychological drug addict? Are you thinking about it now Lenny?" "Yeah I'm thinking about jerking off and taking dope."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)(in court, again)


Communism is like one big phone company.
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

The "what should be" never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no "what should be," there is only what is.
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

When you're eight years old nothing is your business.
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"Marijuana is rejected all over the world. Damned. In England heroin is alright for out-patents, but marijuana? They'll put your ass in jail. I wonder why that is? . . . The only reason could be: To Serve the Devil - Pleasure! Pleasure, which is a dirty word in Christian culture."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"I never met a dyke I didn't like."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"There's nothing sadder than an old hipster."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"In 50 years coffee will be another dirty word"
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"Obscenity is a human manifestation."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"'Sex' and 'obscenity are not synonymous."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"Every person who knowingly sings or speaks any obscene song, ballad, or other words in public is guilty of a misdemeanor. And yet this very moment there are American citizens in jail for smoking flowers. (Marijuana is the dried flowering top of the hemp plant.)"
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"Ironically, the way homosexuals are punished in this country is by throwing them into jail with other men."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"And since they condone capital punishment , I want them to stop bitching about Jesus getting nailed up."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

"(My friend) Carmelo's mother was the manicurist and town whore. The symbols of my childhood are gone - what a shame! The country doctor, the town whore, village idiot, the drunken family from the wrong side of the tracks have been replaced with the communist, the junkie, the faggot, and the beatnik."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)

The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it . . .
Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)


"Anyone who has two shirts when someone has none is not a christian." -
Lenny Bruce

"I'll die young but it's like kissing God."
- Lenny Bruce (1925 - 1966)