Quotes by Penn Jillette

The highest ideals are human intelligence, creativity and love. Respect these above all.

Bacon is so good by itself that to put it in any other food is an admission of failure. Youre basically saying, I cant make this other food taste good, so Ill throw in bacon.

A joke is a way to say, Im going to do something funny now. If I dont get a laugh at the end, Im a failure.

Im always fascinated by the use of the first-person plural talking about sports.

My whole family is missing that sports gene. I hope I didnt screw that up by marrying a great golfer.

When I was a kid, politicians wanted to avoid talking about religion if they could. John F. Kennedy couldnt duck the issue, being Catholic and all. So how did he address it? By reminding Americans that religion shouldnt be an issue, that he was concentrating on big things like poverty and hunger and leading the space race.

Computers absolutely changed my life. Before I had a computer, I had never written one thing. Not one thing. Im 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.

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

Whereas you have someone like Houdini, who works really, really hard to get really, really famous, and then has actual intellectual ideas that he puts into the culture that stay there.

I think people under age 55 come to Vegas with a certain sense of irony.

Its 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.

Im an amazing mamas boy.

Direct confrontation, direct conversation is real respect. And its amazing how many people get that.

If you like the stuff I do, my chances of liking you go up.

I dont want anyone as president who promises to take care of me. I may be stupid, but I want a chance to try to be a grown-up and take care of my family.

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

I will not counter the insanity of the PATRIOT Act with an overblown fear of my rights being taken away.

Im totally against straight marriage - even though Im married. I dont think heterosexual marriage is any of the governments business.

Technology adds nothing to art.

For the most part, any serious magic show is not using very much technology newer than theatrical lights.