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There is only what is and that's it. What should be is a dirty lie.

Lenny Bruce

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Lenny Bruce
Age: 40 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 13
Died: 1966
Died: August 3
Actor
Comedian
Journalist
Screenwriter
Singer
Writer
Mineola
New York
Dirty
Lying

More quotes by Lenny Bruce

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Miami Beach is where neon goes to die.
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What is truth today may be a damn lie next week.
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The crooks downtown figured out that comedy is like a hammer. It can put up a barn and it can knock down a wall. So they bought it outright and marketed it as Comedy Central.
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You can't do anything with anybody's body to make it dirty to me. Six people, eight people, one person - you can do only one thing to make it dirty: kill it. Hiroshima was dirty.
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You got a million drug laws now because the bosses figured there was more money in putting people in jail than taxing something anyone can grow on a window sill.
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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
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There's always a down side with any freedom. It's not just homosexual freedom, but any sexual freedom comes at a price, and that is usually art.
Lenny Bruce
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Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
Lenny Bruce
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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
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If you can take the hot lead enema, then you can cast the first stone.
Lenny Bruce
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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
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Wouldn't it be nice if all the people who are lonesome could live in one big dormitory, sleep in beds next to each other, talk, laugh, and keep the lights on as long as they want to?
Lenny Bruce
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Children ought to watch pornographic movies: it's healthier than learning about sex from Hollywood.
Lenny Bruce
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Let me tell you the truth: The truth is what is. And what should be is a fantasy a terrible, terrible lie that someone gave the people long ago.
Lenny Bruce
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If something about the human body disgusts you, the fault lies with the manufacturer.
Lenny Bruce
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I won't say ours was a tough school, but we had our own coroner. We used to write songs like, What I'm going to do if I grow up.
Lenny Bruce
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All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.
Lenny Bruce
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I think it's about time we gave up religion and got back to God.
Lenny Bruce
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Part of the kick of making people laugh was doing something different. We were a rare breed - spotting one of us was like pinning a space alien, or abdominal snowman. There were maybe a hundred stand-ups in the whole country when I was doing it.
Lenny Bruce
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If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.
Lenny Bruce