“It’s a great country but it’s a strange culture. This is a country where gun store owners are given lists of people with bad credit cards but not a list of convicted felons. Where tobacco kills millions of people every year and they ban artificial ingredients because a rat died. And now they want to ban toy guns and they’re going to keep the fucking real ones!”

“They're against street crime as long as that street isn't Wall Street”.

“Catholic - which I was, until I reached the age of reason”.

“I don't have pet peeves, I have major psychotic fucking hatreds!”

"Fussy eater" is a euphemism for "big pain in the ass".

“Children are not our future, and I can prove it with my usual, flawless logic. Children can't be our future, because by the time the future arrives, they won't be children anymore”.

“One guy, about a month ago, was given three consecutive life terms plus two death penalties. How the fuck do you serve that? Even David Copperfield can't do that shit. In order to do that, you'd have to be a Hindu”.

“Here's another bunch of ignorant shit: school uniforms. Bad theory. The idea that if kids wear uniforms to school it helps keep order. Don't these schools do enough damage making all these kids think alike? Now they're going to make them look alike too? And it's not a new idea. I first saw it in newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand because the narration was in German!”

“Some of you might be familiar with some of my more famous tips from the past. How to get rid of counterfeit money? Put it in the collection plate at church.”

“Religion has actually convinced people…that there's an invisible man…living in the sky…who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of 10 things he does not want you to do! And if you do any of these 10 things, he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry, forever and ever, until the end of time…but he loves you! He loves you. He loves you and he needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing and all-wise, but somehow - just can't handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story…holy shit.”

“Millions of dead motherfuckers, all because they gave the wrong answer to the god question. Do you believe in god? No. Boom! Dead. Do you believe in god? Yes. Do you believe in my god? No. Boom! Dead. My god has a bigger dick than your god!”

“The Aztecs loved human sacrifice. And they were good at it. Well, they got a lot of practice. For instance, right around the year 1500, the Aztecs sacrificed 80,000 people in one ceremony. Okay? 80,000 people, one ceremony. You know what the occasion was? They were opening a new temple. Nothing like religion for a little entertainment, huh?”

“So what if some civilian contractor from Oklahoma gets his head cut off in Iraq? Fuck him! If you don't want to get your head cut off, stay the fuck in Oklahoma! But if you're going to go into someone else's country carrying a weapon, you better expect some fucking action!”

“I'd like to begin by saying fuck Lance Armstrong. Fuck him and his balls and his bicycles and his steroids and his yellow shirts and the dumb empty expression on his face. I'm tired of that asshole. And while you're at it, fuck Tiger Woods too! There's another jack off I can do without. I'm tired of being told who to admire in this country. Aren't you? Aren't you sick of being told who your heroes ought to be? Being told who you ought to look up to. I'll choose my own heroes, thank you very much. And fuck Dr. Phil too!”

“About this time, somebody is telling you to get on the plane. "Get on the plane, get on the plane." I say, "Fuck you, I'm

The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us. They say, "Hey, don't worry, don't be afraid ever, because – this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok. Jesus, murdered; Martin Luther King, murdered; Malcolm X, murdered; Gandhi, murdered; John Lennon, murdered; Reagan … wounded. But it doesn't matter, because – it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.

- Bill Hicks

“I get a kick out of being an outsider constantly. It allows me to be creative. I don't like anything in the mainstream and they don't like me.”

"As long as one person lives in darkness then it seems to be a responsibility to tell other people."

"I hate patriotism. I can’t stand it, man — makes me fuckin’ sick. It’s a round world last time I checked."

“We all pay for life with death, so everything in between should be free.”

“Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.”

"The Loch Ness monster is actually a submarine. Driven by Bigfoot."

"I actually did that act one night in the south. Then, after the show, these three rednecks came up to me. "Hey, buddy! We're Christians and we didn't like what you said." I said, "Then forgive me."

“I love the Pope, I love seeing him in his Pope-Mobile, his three feet of bullet proof plexi-glass. That's faith in action folks! You know he's got God on his side.”

“Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don't know one child with a full time job and children.”

“I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'”

“People are bringing shotguns to UFO sightings in Fyffe, Alabama. I asked a guy, "Why do you bring a gun to a UFO sighting?" Guy said, "Way-ul, we didn' wanna be ab-duc-ted." If I lived in Fife, Alabama, I would be on my hands and knees every night praying for abduction.”

"And I'll tell you something too. That's starting to annoy me about UFOs, the fact that they cross galaxies or universes to visit us, and always end up in places like … Fyffe fucking Alabama. Maybe these aren't super-intelligent beings, you know what I mean?"

"When two or more people agree on an issue, I form on the other side."

"Childbirth is no more a miracle than eating food and a turd coming out of your ass."

"If the FBI's motivating factor for busting down the Koresh compound was child abuse, how come we never see Bradley tanks smashing into Catholic churches?"

"People come up to me and say, "What's wrong?" "Nothing." "Well, it takes more energy to frown than it does to smile." "Yeah, you know it takes more energy to point that out than it does to leave me alone?"

“God help me. I'm so tired. I need my sleep. I make no bones about it. I need eight hours a day, and at least ten at night. . . .”

"Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration and that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and you are the imagination of yourself. Here's Tom with the weather..."

"You know if you play New Kids on the Block albums backwards they sound better. "Oh come on, Bill, they're the New Kids, don't pick on them, they're so good and they're so clean cut and they're such a good image for the children." Fuck that! When did mediocrity and banality become a good image for your children? I want my children to listen to people who fucking ROCKED! I don't care if they died in puddles of their own vomit! I want someone who plays from his fucking HEART!"

- Bill Hicks