dirty lenny, the pornographer

"what's wrong with appealing to the prurient interest? we appeal to the killing interest. i really want the supreme court to stand up and tell me that fucking is dirty and no good."

"i would rather my child see a stag film than the ten commandments or king of kings-because i don't want my kids to learn to kill christ when he comes back. that's what they see in those films - that violence."

"first convict: i'm a strung out junkie. i started out smoking pot, that's the way i started. by the way cellmate, how did you get to be a murderer of eighteen people and the horrible gambler that you are?
second convict: i started gambling with bingo in the catholic church.
first convict: i see."

"goddamn the priests and the rabbis. goddamn the popes and all their hypocrisy. goddamn israel and its bond drives. what influence did they exert to save the lives of the rosenbergs, guilty or not? the ten commandments doesn't say "thou shalt not kill sometimes."

"would you sell out your country? who comes first, you or your country? i don't have to think twice; i know me jim, the flag goes right down the toilet!"

"i'm not gonna buy any time for radio free europe. frig that. why not? cause i have nothing to tell europe, man, at all. i'm not gonna moralize with you. if communism cooks for you, solid man. but i'm not gonna try to free anybody. not when the governor of georgia closed the schools. nah, i can't tell them. it's dopey talk already. and people talk about freedom. you know, i can go anywhere in europe tonight. i'd walk in any country, i wouldn't need a visa. but i would shit to walk in mississippi with a sign on my back: "i'm from new york, ha ha ha."

"politician: we have never been, and never will be, a war like nation. we demand russia disarm.
bruce: that's pretty wild."

"i don't get involved with politics as much as mort sahl does, because i know that to be a successful politician, you must be what all politicians have always been: chameleonlike."

"i grew up in new york and i was hip that i was corrupt and the mayor was corrupt. i have no illusions. you believe politicians, what they say? it's a device to get elected. if you were to follow stevenson from new york to alabama, you would shit from the changes. it's like two syndicates man, but morals don't enter into it."

"the south...you know, we pissed away a million dollars on radio free europe and never gave them a nickel."

"bruce: hey man, i was a liberal.
black man: i'm tired of hearing that bullshit, you were a liberal."
bruce: you don't understand me. i was with - i was before bayard rustin. i was with marcantonio. i schlepped my ass off. i'll show you cancelled checks.
black: that's it - i don't want to hear about it. i don't want to hear about one more liberal. every german you talked to loved the jews, and they're all dead. guilty by omission - forget it."

"if moses were to come down from heaven, wouldn't he order all the rabbis in their frank lloyd wright shules to sell their prayer shawls for rags and melt down the mezuzahs for bail money for all the caryl chessmans who sit in gas chambers or electric chairs or walk in the blue-gray shadow of the gallows? would not moses say "why have you mocked the ten commandments? what is your interpretation of thou shalt not kill? it's not "thou shalt not kill but..."

"christ and moses would be confused, because their route took them through spanish harlem. and they would wonder what forty puerto ricans were doing living in one room, and cardinal spellman has a ring on that's worth eight grand."

"fighting my court cases seems as futile as asking barry goldwater to speak at a memorial to send the rosenberg kids to college."

that's my name in jewish, louis schneider.
why haven't you got louis schneider up there on the marquee?
well, cause it's not show business. it doesn't fit.
no, no, i don't wanna hear that. you jewish?
yeah.
you ashamed of it?
why you ashamed you're jewish?

"my defense: i was a soldier. i saw the end of a conscientious day's effort. i saw all of the work that i did. i watched through the portholes. i saw every jew burned and turned into soap. do you people think yourselves better because you burned your enemies at long distance...without ever seeing what you had done to them?"

c. wright mills from "the power elite."

"it is much safer to celebrate civil liberties than to defend them; it is much safer to defend them as a formal right than to use them in a politically effective way. it is easier still to defend someone else's right to have used them years ago than to have something yourself to say now and to say it now forcibly. the defense of civil liberties, even of their practice a decade ago, has become the major concern of many liberal and once leftward scholars. all of which is a safe way of diverting intellectual effort from the sphere of political reflection and demand."

long live lenny bruce and c. wright mills.