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Alas, irreverence has been subsumed by mere grossness, at least in the so-called mass media. What we have now - to quote myself at my most pretentious - is a nimiety of scurrility with a concomitant exiguity of taste.

Tom Lehrer

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Tom Lehrer
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: April 9
Lyricist
Mathematician
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Thomas Andrew Lehrer
Thomas Lehrer
Called
Quote
Funny
Alas
Mere
Mass
Grossness
Taste
Subsumed
Television
Concomitant
Media
Irreverence
Least
Pretentious

More quotes by Tom Lehrer

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Laughter is involuntary. If it's funny you laugh.
Tom Lehrer
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From the three, you then use one to make eight ones. You add those ones to the three, and you get one-three base eight, or, in other words, In base ten you have eleven, and you take away seven. And seven from eleven is four. Now go back to the sixty-fours, you're left with two.
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To me, being funny is more important than making a point, but I don't know. Most politicians are so interested in making points that they don't ... I'd rather be funny myself, and I'd rather listen to somebody with a little sense of humor.
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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.
Tom Lehrer
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Base eight is just like base ten really, if you're missing two fingers.
Tom Lehrer
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In my youth there were words you couldn't say in front of a girl now you can't say 'girl.'
Tom Lehrer
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It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.
Tom Lehrer
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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.
Tom Lehrer
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Filth, I'm glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder. When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.
Tom Lehrer
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Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down ? That's not my department.
Tom Lehrer
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When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.
Tom Lehrer
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So long, Mom I'm off to drop the bomb So don't wait up for me But while you swelter Down there in your shelter You can see me On your TV
Tom Lehrer
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I've heard it quoted that I was dead. You can't believe anything you read. That was just an off-hand remark somebody picked up, and now it's been quoted and quoted, and therefore misquoted.
Tom Lehrer
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Plagiarize! Plagiarize, Let no one else's work evade your eyes, Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, So don't shade your eyes, But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure always to call it please research.
Tom Lehrer
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I went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity.
Tom Lehrer
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Everything is so weird in politics that it's very hard to be funny about it, I think.
Tom Lehrer
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If the hoods don't get you, the monoxide will.
Tom Lehrer
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The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted.
Tom Lehrer
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Well, you ask a silly question, and you get a silly answer.
Tom Lehrer
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I didn't feel the need for anonymous affection, for people in the dark applauding. To me, it would be like writing a novel and then getting up every night and reading your novel. Everything I did is on the record and, if you want to hear it, just listen to the record.
Tom Lehrer