Lenny Bruce Quotes – A real pathfinder for future comedy. He talked about real issues.
Lenny Bruce could have had a great career. He was very funny. He could have played safe, performed on TV and toed the line.
He couldn’t do that. It was too soulless. He wanted something more than that. He wanted to deal with real issues. He wanted fulfilment. He became a counter-culture figure. But back in the late fifties and early sixties it was hard to talk about sex, religion and drugs. Society was extremely prudish and censorship ruled. He found himself increasingly coming into conflict and ended up being blacklisted and prosecuted. The stress created huge health problems but he still refused to shut up.
Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.
America runs on the church. Everybody goes. It was the whole system. When we went to live in the States and told our neighbours that we didn’t do religion they were genuinely shocked. I thought we would be excommunicated but we weren’t. Lenny recognised the difference between spirituality and religion. The hypocrisy of many church-goers was obvious.
In the Halls of Justice the only justice is in the halls.
The law is often an ass. It is used to persecute some people.
The liberals can understand everything but people who don’t understand them.
Conservatism is in a blinkered rut.
If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.
I thought that was hilarious when I first heard it.
There are never enough ‘I love you’s’.
Never enough.
The ‘what should be’ never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no ‘what should be,’ there is only what is.
But we do have to try to make it better, don’t we?
The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it… try to fake three laughs in an hour – ha ha ha ha ha – they’ll take you away, man. You can’t.
I think there are other art forms but I know what he means.
Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.
I think things have changed.
The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds.
The role of Lenny Bruce was to make them laugh and think.
If you would like to purchase my books on Rock Music here’s a few:
In the UK:
In the USA –