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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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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
Song
Vatican
Would
Gather
People
Offended
Perform
Type
Records
Hear
Came

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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.
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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 sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.
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If the hoods don't get you, the monoxide will.
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It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.
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When someone makes a move Of which we don't approve, Who is it that always intervenes? U.N. and O.A.S., They have their place, I guess, But first send the Marines!
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Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down ? That's not my department.
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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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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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The reason most folksongs are so atrocious is that they were written by the people.
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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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Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!
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Laughter is involuntary. If it's funny you laugh.
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I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!
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