Best 226 quotes of Penn Jillette on MyQuotes

A famous monk once said, I don't always know what the right thing to do is, my Lord, but I think the fact that I want to please you pleases you.

All David Blaine is is a good-looking magician.

A lot of older parents worry about being older parents. I hear people say, 'I don't want to be too old to play baseball with my son.' They worry that their kids will be embarrassed by their parents' age.

A lot of people, to attack an outspoken atheist, one of the things they'll do is say, 'You are as bad as the fundamentalist Christians.' And my answer is always, 'I hope so.'

America was founded on Christians not trusting each other, and they sometimes seemed more willing to reach out to the godless than to someone from another sect.

As I’m fond of saying, if you want to find utopia, take a sharp right on money and a sharp left on sex and it’s straight ahead.

As much as I disagreed with every second of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' the fact that it is out made me jump for joy.

Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Atheism is the absence of religion. We don’t really need atheism. We just need to get rid of religion.

A two-party system is way too good for those two parties.

Bacon is so good by itself that to put it in any other food is an admission of failure. You're basically saying, 'I can't make this other food taste good, so I'll throw in bacon.'

Barack Obama is way smarter than Bush - so way, way smarter than me. Obama is way more charismatic than me.

Before you can read, you know the difference between a story and reality. And, of course, by the time you're old enough to do any real damage with an Uzi, you've learned that difference.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality. Morality is not bribery or threats. Religion is bribery and threats. Humans have morality. We don't need religion.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family and indeed all the suffering in the world isn't caused by any omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate.

Better to be uneducated than educated by your government.

Bob Barr is not crazy enough for my taste.

Bob Saget is the dirtiest comic who's ever lived. Nobody touches him.

Building a professional relationship on respect as opposed to affection is a very good idea. Running your art projects the way you'd run a dry-cleaning business is also a really good idea. You shouldn't go into work like you're going on a date, like you're hanging out with friends.

But it's much more exciting to make Die Hard. One of the reasons that I think that movie is so successful is it deals with those very important blue-collar relationship themes. But it's more visually beautiful to show things blowing up. It just gives you more on the screen.

'Celebrity Apprentice' has more integrity and is the most straightforward show I've ever seen.

Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving.

Cheerios bring back memories. I actually don't think I ate them much as a kid, though; maybe it's some sort of Jungian memory, I don't know. But they have so much sugar, it's great.

'Christian' used to be a throwaway word. People didn't used to use it much. People didn't start self-labeling or getting labeled Christian until the last part of the 20th century. Before that, you might identify as a Baptist, or a Southern Baptist or a Methodist. But there wasn't one identifier that put you in a fold with all the other believers.

Comedy is taken care of by a free market.

Computers absolutely changed my life. Before I had a computer, I had never written one thing. Not one thing. I'm a very bad speller and I was embarrassed by that. When I would type, the little mistakes would make me nutty, and I would never edit anything.

Counterintuitive actions prove we can trust real knowledge and do the opposite of what we feel makes sense.

Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It's just ganging up against the weird kid, and I'm always the weird kid.

Direct confrontation, direct conversation is real respect. And it's amazing how many people get that.

Don't waste too much time wishing, hoping, and being envious; it'll make you bugnutty.

Even if I disagree with Obama on many, many things, he is certainly qualified to be president. He is certainly competent to be president.

Everybody is designing magic iPhone apps that do things that are really, really beautiful, but a really important thing about magic is that the gimmick has to be ugly.

Everybody prefers to see a nut - they're more fascinating.

Everybody wants clean, safe energy. Some people think nuclear is the way to go. Some people think coal is the way to go. Some people think wind is the way to go. And there's always balances on that.

Everyday is an atheist holiday.

Every day, TV, newspapers, and the Internet bombard us with a message that we're destroying the earth. Ice caps are melting, rivers are dying, polar bears are drowning, and trees are doing something.

Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around. If you're looking for violent rape imagery, the Bible's right there in your hotel room. If you just want to look up ways to screw people up, there it is, and you're justified because God told you to.

Every nut who kills people has a Bible lying around.

Everyone's goals are the same with very small differences. I mean, the goal of a socialist and the goal of a libertarian are exactly the same. The goals are happiness and security and freedom, and you balance those.

Every poker player is smarter than me.

Every time something really bad happens, people cry out for safety, and the government answers by taking rights away from good people

Exploration of space is worth it because humans need to explore. Knowledge is always good, and it's a really cool thing to see.

Fear is the politicians dance partner.

For better or worse, in the 21st century, reality shows are the variety show.

For the most part, any serious magic show is not using very much technology newer than theatrical lights.

From 1985 to 1994, I lived in Manhattan in a big old loft right off Times Square. I could walk to work, which was in a couple of Broadway theaters, to Howard Stern's studio, and to 30 Rock for 'Letterman' and 'SNL.' Even in New York, walking to work is homey and folksy, like living in a small town.