Tom Lehrer Quotes

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Tom Lehrer

Profession : Musician

Birth : April 9, 1928

My last public performance for money was in 1967. For free, it was 1972, with the exception of two little one-shot, one-song things. But that's just for friends, out of friendship for the people involved, and also because it was fun.

Tom Lehrer

Laughter is involuntary. If it's funny you laugh.

Tom Lehrer

Bad weather always looks worse through a window.

Tom Lehrer

It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.

Tom Lehrer

Life is like a sewer: what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Tom Lehrer

Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

Tom Lehrer

I went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity.

Tom Lehrer

I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!

Tom Lehrer

The Army has carried the American ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on ability.

Tom Lehrer

I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up.

Tom Lehrer

If a person feels he can't communicate, the least he can do is shut up about it.

Tom Lehrer

If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend or, perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.

Tom Lehrer

Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize.

Tom Lehrer

Eddie Izzard is wonderful, I think, but I've only seen that one HBO special he did. He's one of the few people who talk about stuff other than girlfriends and relationships and flatulence and genitalia. There are very few of them who actually talk about real stuff.

Tom Lehrer

It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year.

Tom Lehrer

I was immersed in popular songs of the time, of the '30s and '40s. I was writing songs, making fun of the attitudes of those songs, in the musical style of the songs themselves; love songs, folk songs, marches, football.

Tom Lehrer

Be prepared, and be careful not to do your good deeds when there's no one watching you.

Tom Lehrer

When I was in college, there were certain words you couldn't say in front of a girl. Now you can say them, but you can't say 'girl.'

Tom Lehrer

Political satire became obsolete when they awarded Henry Kissinger the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tom Lehrer

I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them.

Tom Lehrer