Penn Jillette Quotes

If every trace of any single religion were wiped out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.

One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we're in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality.

Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving.

If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell—or not getting eternal life or whatever—and you think that, well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward. . . . How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O, and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

You get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right.

If you are doing something for reward or punishment, you do not have morality.

In music, if you hit a wrong note, people forgive you. In magic when something goes wrong, the entire art is destroyed.

Atheism is the absence of religion. We don’t really need atheism. We just need to get rid of religion.

If the bible were published as fiction, no reviewer would give it a passing grade. There are some vivid scenes and quotable phrases but there's no plot, no structure, a tremendous amount of filler and the characters are painfully one dimensional. Whatever you do, don't read the bible for a moral code. It advocates prejudice, cruelty, superstition and murder. Read it because we need more atheists.

I think voting for the lesser of two evils in game theory always leads to more evil.

Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

But it's much more exciting to make Die Hard. One of the reasons that I think that movie is so successful is it deals with those very important blue-collar relationship themes. But it's more visually beautiful to show things blowing up. It just gives you more on the screen.

Religion cannot and should not be replaced by atheism. Religion needs to go away and not be replaced by anything. Atheism is not a religion. It's the absence of religion, and that's a wonderful thing.

Much better than the feeling of having things is the feeling of having earned things.

Everyone's goals are the same with very small differences. I mean, the goal of a socialist and the goal of a libertarian are exactly the same. The goals are happiness and security and freedom, and you balance those.

Better to be uneducated than educated by your government.

Behaving morally because of a hope of reward or a fear of punishment is not morality.

It's 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.

I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we're compassionate we'll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

Every time something really bad happens, people cry out for safety, and the government answers by taking rights away from good people

We are only here for a little while, and our bodies belong to ourselves and no one else.

I believe that the best way to become an atheist is to read the bible

If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell . . . how much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?

I'm a hardcore libertarian - I want everything legal - but I also believe that you have the right to free association.

God works in mysterious, inefficient, and breathtakingly cruel ways

One of the strongest feelings you can get in life--one of the most rewarding feelings--is the feeling of an "Aha, I finally understand."

I had e-mail in 1984! I had an e-mail address then, which means that all you could write to was Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. There were three of us, writing to each other.

The only difference between Obama and Bush is that Obama is killing more people. He’s about double the numbers now. Can you imagine if McCain had won and did precisely what Obama has done, with every speech and every political maneuver overseas? There’d be riots in the streets about the people we’re killing. And yet because it’s Obama, and he’s better looking and better at reading the teleprompter, we let him get away with it.

Only Atheists have morals, the religious have reward and punishment. That's not morality, that's sucking up.

We need a president who realizes that there's no government business in show business.

Everyday is an atheist holiday.

That whole 99% thing, they are all in the 1% of the world. Every one of them pays a cellphone bill that is the yearly income for a family in much of the rest of the world.

Reading the Bible is the fast track to atheism. Reading the Bible means starting at "In the beginning..." and throwing it down with disgust at "...the grace of the lord Jesus be with all. Amen." I'm sure there are lots of religious people who've read the Bible from start to finish and kept their faith, but in my self-selected sample, all the people I know who have done that are atheists.

My favorite thing about the Internet is that you get to go into the private world of real creeps without having to smell them.

A lot of older parents worry about being older parents. I hear people say, 'I don't want to be too old to play baseball with my son.' They worry that their kids will be embarrassed by their parents' age.

As I’m fond of saying, if you want to find utopia, take a sharp right on money and a sharp left on sex and it’s straight ahead.

How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize?

The medium is not the message - the message is the message.

Comedy is taken care of by a free market.

TV networks are dying. The death throes of religion give us jihads. The death throes of television give us reality shows.

I believe the fast track to atheism is reading the Bible. I've read it three times all the way through. It's a big part of our culture, a big part of our history. I don't just read things I agree with.

The first thing I said to myself on 9/11 was, 'There go our civil rights.' I found out by comparing notes later that George Carlin and I both said that at the exact same time. That's the first thing that popped into our head.

Tolerance is you saying something crazy and me smiling and saying, 'That's nice.'

If entertainment ran grocery stores, we'd NEVER get oil cured olives or blue cheese, it would be JUST Coke.

Modern American magic, late 20th century magic, is tremendously disrespectful of the audience.

I was always a little embarrassed when there was an act on television that requires a great deal of skill but is a little goofy, and the host comes over and acts like the person doing this skill is some sort of fool for having learned to do something that's very, very difficult.

From 1985 to 1994, I lived in Manhattan in a big old loft right off Times Square. I could walk to work, which was in a couple of Broadway theaters, to Howard Stern's studio, and to 30 Rock for 'Letterman' and 'SNL.' Even in New York, walking to work is homey and folksy, like living in a small town.

You have to be careful as a libertarian because you can sound very Republican.