Tom Lehrer Quotes

67 Sourced Quotes

"Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.

Tom Lehrer
Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good. I have become, you might call it mature — I would call it senile — and I can see both sides. But you can't write a satirical song with 'but on the other hand' in it, or 'however'. It's got to be one-sided.

Tom Lehrer
You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes … but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.

Tom Lehrer
Don't say that he's hypocritical,
Say rather that he's apolitical.
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

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. And that's not funny. … OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire.

Tom Lehrer
One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness … Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack.

Tom Lehrer
With audiences nowadays I see it with these late-night people, Jay Leno, David Letterman and so on the audience applauds the jokes rather than laughs at them, which is very discouraging.

Tom Lehrer
In my youth there were words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can't say 'girl'.

Tom Lehrer
I didn't feel the need for anonymous affection, for people in the dark applauding. To me, it would be like writing a novel and then getting up every night and reading your novel. Everything I did is on the record and, if you want to hear it, just listen to the record.

Tom Lehrer
In all probability
I'll lose my virility
And you your fertility
And desirability,
And this liability
Of total sterility
Will lead to hostility
And a sense of futility,
So let's act with agility
While we still have facility,
For we'll soon reach senility
And lose the ability.

Tom Lehrer
During National Brotherhood Week various special events are arranged to drive home the message of brotherhood — this year, for example, on the first day of the week, Malcolm X was killed, which gives you an idea of how effective the whole thing is.
I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings — and I hate people like that!

Tom Lehrer
Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Tom Lehrer
We will all go together when we go,
All suffused with an incandescent glow.

Tom Lehrer
Remember the war against Franco?
That's the kind where each of us belongs.
Though he may have won all the battles,
We had all the good songs.

Tom Lehrer
One of the many fine things one has to admire is the way the Army has carried the American democratic ideal to its logical conclusion, in the sense that not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed, and color, but also on the grounds of ability.

Tom Lehrer
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.
On Christmas Day you can't get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There's time to cheat him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Tom Lehrer
Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks.
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It's American as apple pie.

Tom Lehrer
His rivals used to say quite a bit
That as a monarch he was most unfit.
But still in all they had to admit
That he loved his mother.

Tom Lehrer
When the air becomes uranious, we will all go simultaneous.

Tom Lehrer
Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice,
Unless you get a good percentage of her price.

Tom Lehrer
How I ache for the touch of your lips, dear,
But much more for the feel of your whips, dear,
You can raise welts,
Like nobody else,
As we dance to the Masochism Tango!

Tom Lehrer
I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize!
Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize...
Only be sure always to call it please "research".

Tom Lehrer
But don't panic. Base eight is just like base ten really — if you're missing two fingers.

Tom Lehrer
It's only for a week so have no fear!/
Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!

Tom Lehrer
Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife. Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life. Oooh.

Tom Lehrer
Oh we will all fry together when we fry.
We'll be french fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery
When the world is our rotisserie,
Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

Tom Lehrer
I hold your hand in mine, dear,
I press it to my lips.
I take a healthy bite
From your dainty fingertips.
My joy would be complete, dear,
If you were only here,
But still I keep your hand
As a precious souvenir.

Tom Lehrer
I'd like to take you now, on wings of song as it were, and try and help you forget for a while your drab, wretched lives.

Tom Lehrer
That's what happened to Lenny Bruce. He got angry, and then he wasn't funny any more. You have your choice there.

Tom Lehrer
Oh, the white folks hate the black folks,
And the black folks hate the white folks;
To hate all but the right folks
Is an old established rule.

Tom Lehrer