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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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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
Regarded
Preaching
Usually
Afraid
Audience
Even
Always
Titillating
Converted

More quotes by 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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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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And we will all go together when we go. What a comforting fact that is to know. Universal bereavement, An inspiring achievement, Yes, we will all go together when we go.
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Bad weather always looks worse through a window.
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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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Base eight is just like base ten really, if you're missing two fingers.
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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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!
Tom Lehrer
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You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes ... but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.
Tom Lehrer
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And although I'm all for freedom of expression and against censorship, there are certain things I'm not willing to go to jail for.
Tom Lehrer
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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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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
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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.
Tom Lehrer
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Disclaimer: If anyone disagrees with anything I say, I am quite prepared to not only retract it, but also to deny under oath I ever said it.
Tom Lehrer
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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.
Tom Lehrer
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I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!
Tom Lehrer
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Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.
Tom Lehrer
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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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If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.
Tom Lehrer
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Don't write naughty words on the wall if you can't spell!
Tom Lehrer