Penn Jillette Quotes

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Penn Jillette

Profession : Entertainer

Birth : March 5, 1955

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.

Penn Jillette

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.

Penn Jillette

My love of computers, besides being practical, is very direct and visceral. I love the way things look on the screen.

Penn Jillette

If you don't pay your taxes and you don't answer the warrant and you don't go to court, eventually someone will pull a gun. Eventually someone with a gun will show up. I want everything the government does to be done, I just want it to be done voluntarily.

Penn Jillette

The only secret of magic is that I'm willing to work harder on it than you think it's worth.

Penn Jillette

It's amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral, self-righteous, bullying laziness.

Penn Jillette

'Moxie' is a name that was created by an American for the first national soft drink and then went on to mean chutzpah, and that's nice.

Penn Jillette

People like Bill Maher, who brags about being a cynic, it sickens me. I am the least cynical person I know, and I am very, very skeptical.

Penn Jillette

The medium is not the message - the message is the message.

Penn Jillette

To drive a car in rural America is freedom. Before I had a car, I'd never seen a rock and roll show, I'd never seen a comic or a show.

Penn Jillette

The fact is that violence gives you a rush.

Penn Jillette

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

Penn Jillette

I don't believe in vengeance. Really, when all is said and done, I probably don't believe in punishment.

Penn Jillette

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

Penn Jillette

Juggling is very, very straightforward; very, very black and white; you're manipulating objects, not people. And that's always appealed to me.

Penn Jillette

When you're watching Psycho, there' s that moment when you have a visceral reaction to watching someone being stabbed. And then you have the intellectual revelation that you're not, and that's where the celebration comes in.

Penn Jillette

You have two choices with Obama. You either believe that he is a man of Christ... or you think he's a liar. And I'm surprised by the number of atheist free thinkers that support Obama, and their argument is essentially, 'He's lying about being religious 'cause you have to do that to get elected.' It's a horrible reason to like somebody.

Penn Jillette

There is this tremendous amount of arrogance and hubris, where somebody can look at something for five minutes and dismiss it. Whether you talk about gaming or 20th century classical music, you can't do it in five minutes. You can't listen to 'The Rite of Spring' once and understand what Stravinsky was all about.

Penn Jillette

When you look at the actual numbers, the number of people who died after 9/11 was greater than the number of people who died in 9/11, even if you are talking Americans. But you know, I don't like to talk Americans. I want to talk everybody. More innocent people died after 9/11 because of 9/11 than died in 9/11.

Penn Jillette

The only place we were really told to tone it down - where other people would use the word censorship, but I wouldn't - was when we did MTV right after the Beavis and Butt-head thing.

Penn Jillette