Lewis Black

My parents were married for sixty-five years, and I was married for about ten minutes, my first year at Yale Drama School. Something, somehow, didn't get passed on to my generation.

My parents are the last of the middle class. My father worked for the government designing sea mines. My mother was a substitute teacher. Together, they worked really only until they were sixty.

It's a big thing now: A lot of people want to be assistants to celebrities. If you're pursuing that, you're an idiot. You're a moron. The shortest distance between two points is not a celebrity, or being next to a celebrity.

In Vegas, you have an audience you can't find anywhere else. It's from all over the country. You play Seattle, everyone's from Seattle. But in Vegas, you have six from Seattle, a bunch from L.A., some local Las Vegans and maybe a farmer from Iowa. In Vegas, you learn the ins and outs of holding a room because of that great spectrum of folks.

If you yell about one woman, you're not a misogynist. If I yell about Michelle Bachman, that doesn't make me a misogynist. If I compare all women to Michelle Bachman, then I'm a misogynist.

I've got stress like anybody else, and it builds up during the day. Like, I'll be trying to do something on the computer, and I'll get stuck ,so I go to the help section. And it just enrages me, because why even call it a help section at all? There's nothing in any way 'helpful' about it.

I've been very lucky. There are guys I know who are really terrific in this business of stand-up who have not gotten the recognition they deserve. And it's nice, if you've put in the time, to achieve that recognition.

I think comics in New York are interested in being comics. And there're comics in L.A. who are touring comics, who are certainly more interested in stand-up, but a lot of L.A. stand-ups are really looking to do something else.

I started playing golf when I was a kid, because across the street from where we lived there was a little nine-hole golf course where my father worked.

I like indoor Christmas trees. And I like people who decorate their homes with lights and all that crap. I think it's a healthy outlet for them. If they weren't covering their lawns with twinkling lights, they'd be doing something that was really, really creepy.

I like college football, but I'm a huge college basketball fan. I could sit and watch every game of March Madness and be happy. That could be a vacation.

I get an idea about something. I just start thinking about it, and then I get onstage and I talk about it, and then I think about it some more and talk about it some more, and think about it some more and talk about it some more, until it starts to take a shape.

I don't Tweet a lot because I've Tweeted things that I thought were really innocuous about subjects that are inflammatory, and the response is so insane sometimes from people.

I don't buy the 'at 60 it's great to have kids' thing. I don't buy the line that has been thrown down - 'You can have a kid at any time.' That doesn't mean you should.

I do the same gig. I might change it a little; I might slow it down if I'm in the South. I talk fast, and they're not used to people talking that fast.

I continue to work on plays, but I've always felt that you could put a note in a bottle and send it offshore, and you'd have as much chance communicating with people.

I am angry that the Democrats don't have the ability to explain to Republicans that we should be able to feed people in this country, and that is not socialism.

Everybody's always asking me about my blood pressure. They did an interview once where they hooked me up to a blood pressure machine and they'd rile me. I'd yell and scream, and then it would just go back to normal in a few minutes. Everything else is probably rotting, but the blood pressure is spectacular.

Basically I wake up in the morning and I think everything's going to be great. I'm really kind of optimistic, and I look forward to a new day. I pick up 'The New York Times,' and I look at the front page and realize that once again I'm wrong. I start to fixate on stuff.

Anybody who likes writing a book is an idiot. Because it's impossible; it's like having a homework assignment every stinking day until it's done. And by the time you get it in, it's done and you're sitting there reading it, and you realize the 12,000 things you didn't do. I mean, writing isn't fun. It's never been fun.

The whole Valentine's thing is fine, but you don't back it up right next to the biggest gift-giving holiday of the year. Unbelievable. And we find it acceptable.

If I get a week off, I'll go to a hotel that has a golf course. I like to come downstairs and go right onto the course. I'll do that five days in a row.

One of the most important things, especially when you're leaving school, is to realize you're going to be dealing with a lot of idiots. And a lot of those idiots are in charge of things, so if you're in an interview and you really want to tell the person off, don't do it.

You've got to be stupid to heckle me - I am very equipped to win.

You got to be just stupid to not be focused on alternative energy.

You don't want another Enron? Here's your law: If a company, can't explain, in one sentence, what it does... it's illegal.

When it comes to idiots, America's got more than its fair share. If idiots were energy, it would be a source that would never run out.

When a country wants television more than they want clean water, they've lost their grip.

Usually I'm too tired to apologize.

This is how sad my life is: I got a scar from scratching my chicken pox too much. That's my big scar story. I really have no major scars.