Paul Krassner Quotes & Sayings

The more repression there is, the more need there is for irreverence toward those who are responsible for that repression. But too often sarcasm passes for irony, name-calling passes for insight, bleeped-out four-letter words pass for wit, and lowest-common-denominator jokes pass for analysis. Satire should have a point of view. It doesn't have to get a belly laugh. It does have to present criticism. — Paul Krassner

There is indeed a business like show business. It's the news. — Paul Krassner

English is my second language. Laughter is my first. — Paul Krassner

I think [audiences are] more aware now of the contradictions in mainstream culture, the phony piety that permeates society, the inhumane hypocrisy. — Paul Krassner

I guess I'm a spiritual secularist, if that's not an oxymoron. My paths of secularism and spirituality are the same: I try to do the appropriate thing at each moment. — Paul Krassner

Avoid internalizing society's sexism, racism, ageism - pick an ism, any ism. — Paul Krassner

As long as the government can arbitrarily decide which substances are legal and which are illegal, then those who remain behind bars for illegal substances are political prisoners — Paul Krassner

False humility is better than no humility at all. — Paul Krassner

Pope John Paul would be more popular if he called himself Pope John Paul George and Ringo. — Paul Krassner

I had become an atheist at the age of thirteen, when atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. — Paul Krassner

I Used To Believe In Reincarnation, But That Was In a Past Life. — Paul Krassner

One - about cigarettes - I was pleased to see that anticigarette ad on the back issue of Hustler. I'm more offended by seeing ads for cigarettes in magazines than pictures of vaginas, because one kills and the other gives life - and I think that's an important difference. — Paul Krassner

Since I was both an atheist and an absurdist, I had decided that the most absurd thing I could do would be to develop an intimate relationship with the God I didn't believe in. — Paul Krassner

For years, reality has been nipping at the heels of satire. Now, it's finally caught up. I don't need to make this stuff up. — Paul Krassner

I am neither for conformity nor non-conformity. I am for individuality. If one's individuality is in effect non-conformity, then so be it. But basically, one's individuality consists of conformity
to one's self. — Paul Krassner

Irreverence is our only sacred cow. — Paul Krassner

Watch yourself as though you were observing a Martian. — Paul Krassner

Listen to the speeches, one after another telling the audience what it already knows, evoking applause with necessary cliches, no longer shocking anybody with the shocking facts of the war because you can become so jaded with horror that you develop an emotional callous. — Paul Krassner

People don't like to be lectured to, but if you can make them laugh, their defenses come down, and for the time being they've accepted whatever truth is embedded in your humor. — Paul Krassner

If you must give me a label, then label me a human being. I have no pride in being a human, though, because I have nothing to do with my becoming one.
But, whereas animals don't have a rational code of ethics, I like to think I do. Which is where I am partisan. Moral partisanship is the reason for my "anger." And if I don't protest what needed to be protested, I might just as well be an animal. — Paul Krassner