Norm Macdonald Quotes

Death is a funny thing. Not funny haha, like a Woody Allen movie, but funny strange, like a Woody Allen marriage.

The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you’re not careful it’s too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.

I could not ignore their withering glances. They looked at me the way real vampires look at Count Chocula.

Women are attracted to funny men, it is often said. This is not true. It only appears this way because women laugh at everything a very handsome man says. So this gives the very handsome men the idea that they are funny.

As long as the red dice are in the air, the gambler has hope. And hope is a wonderful thing to be addicted to.

A moth goes into a podiatrist’s office, and the podiatrist’s office says, “What seems to be the problem, moth?” The moth says “What’s the problem? Where do I begin, man? I go to work for Gregory Illinivich, and all day long I work. Honestly doc, I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t even know if Gregory Illinivich knows. He only knows that he has power over me, and that seems to bring him happiness. But I don’t know, I wake up in a malaise, and I walk here and there… at night I…I sometimes wake up and I turn to some old lady in my bed that’s on my arm. A lady that I once loved, doc. I don’t know where to turn to. My youngest, Alexendria, she fell in the…in the cold of last year. The cold took her down, as it did many of us. And my other boy, and this is the hardest pill to swallow, doc. My other boy, Gregarro Ivinalititavitch… I no longer love him. As much as it pains me to say, when I look in his eyes, all I see is the same cowardice that I… that I catch when I take a glimpse of my own face in the mirror. If only I wasn’t such a coward, then perhaps…perhaps I could bring myself to reach over to that cocked and loaded gun that lays on the bedside behind me and end this hellish facade once and for all…Doc, sometimes I feel like a spider, even though I’m a moth, just barely hanging on to my web with an everlasting fire underneath me. I’m not feeling good. And so the doctor says, “Moth, man, you’re troubled. But you should be seeing a psychiatrist. Why on earth did you come here?” And the moth says, “‘Cause the light was on.

The plain truth is that Adam Eget is an alcoholic and that’s why he doesn’t drink. Me, I’m not an alcoholic and that’s why I do drink. Life sure is funny that way.

That’s where I found him, making a living underneath the Queensboro Bridge, jerking off punks for fifteen dollars a man.

Earlier this week, Marlon Brando met with Jewish leaders to apologize for comments he made on Larry King Live, among them that “Hollywood is run by Jews.” The Jewish leaders accepted the actor’s apology and announced that Brando is now free to work again.

Now that all hope is gone, a deep relief has taken its place, and I allow myself to enjoy it before the despair sets in.

Sometimes a writer's strike is good. Maybe if we had a writer's strike now, people would have to read Shakespeare instead of James Patterson.

The only time having a cult following is a great thing is when you are actually in a cult.

It's true what they say. Never meet your heroes. It turns out they're all a bunch of fucking assholes. They're probably the reason you turned into such a fucking asshole - because they were your heroes and you spent all your time trying to be like them.

I hate when people say “touché” after you say something funny. I don’t know what it means, but I know that I hate it.

I remember a psychiatrist once telling me that I gamble in order to escape the reality of life, and I told him that’s why everyone does everything.

I'll admit that I'm deeply closeted, but I'll never admit that I'm gay.

She said she could no longer live in New York, that she was being tormented day and night by some obsessive stalker. This caught me completely by surprise, as I had taken to hanging around Sarah’s apartment, hiding in the bushes day and night, watching her come and go, and I had never seen any signs of a stalker.

As Adolf Hitler once said, all publicity is good publicity.

It was like a broken calculator... It just didn't add up.

I understood then that it takes a powerful imagination to see a thing for what it really is.

Death is a funny thing. Not funny haha, like a Woody Allen movie, but funny strange, like a Woody Allen marriage.

Well, the results are in, and once again Microsoft CEO Bill Gates is the richest man in America. Gates says he is grateful for his huge financial success, but it still makes him sad when he looks around and sees other people with any money whatsoever.

Once I learned this truth, I began to see examples of it everywhere. A picture hung on the wall of our parlor. In it, a woman was taking a shirt from a clothesline. She had clothespins in her teeth and it was windy and a boy was tugging at her dress. The woman looked like she was in a hurry and the whole scene gave me the idea that, just outside the frame, full, dark clouds were gathering. But that was not what it was. It was paint. So I decided right then and there to see the picture as it really was. I stared at the thing long and hard, trying to only see the paint. But it was no use. All my eyes would allow me to see was the lie. In fact, the longer I gazed at the paint, the more false detail I began to imagine. The boy was crying, as if afraid, and the woman was weaker than I had first believed. I finally gave up. I understood then that it takes a powerful imagination to see a thing for what it really is.

an addiction is a deep hook, and sometimes the harder you wriggle to escape her, the deeper she goes.

And you’d correct him, but the thing is, you’re not sure you remember it a hundred percent accurately yourself. It turns out your memory isn’t the precise court stenographer you think it is, getting every word down just so. It’s more like the sketch artist way at the back of the courtroom who is doing his level best to capture images that no longer are.

and I always considered Elton John to be a great singer as well as a hot piece of ass.

How did I suddenly get so goddamn funny?

It’s funny how something as small as the news of a teenager being slaughtered and tossed in a ravine can be enough to lift the spirits of an entire set full of important Hollywood people.

When it's unexpected, death comes fast like a ravenous wolf and tears open your throat with a merciful fury. But when it's expected, it comes slow and patient like a snake, and the doctor tells you how far away it is and when, exactly it will be at your door. And when it will be at the foot of your bed. And when it will be on your flesh. It's all right there on the clipboards.

Long after I left the segment, the term “fake news” became the ordinary way to describe what was done on SNL as well as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. So who’s the idiot now?

Before I was famous I had a whole bunch of jobs where all I needed was boots. People would look right past me, or if they did look at me, it was with a mean look. But when I got famous, people would look at me and smile and wonder where they knew me from. If they flat-out recognized me, they'd laugh and dance like they'd won a prize, and I'd just stand there and smile and feel warmth from their love. So the fame made the world, which is a real cold place, a little less cold.

And he was standing there, reading one of those big books. You know the kind. Usually you can’t even understand their stupid titles, and when you try to read them you get one word in and get really sleepy. And it’s so stupid to try anyway, because if the stupid book is any good they’ll make a TV movie out of it and then you can watch that instead

On the final night, Adam Sandler told me the following season would be a rough, divisive one, and he wanted to know which side I’d take. I told him I wanted to be on the side of the guy who had shoved the baby tomatoes up his ass. Adam smiled.

The biggest laughs you'll ever hear in life are like at a Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of loved ones. And nothing funny is said, and it just comes from love.

Then he unsmiled his lips and got real plural on me. “We’ll let you know.

And suddenly I found myself an old man standing in a doorway as Mr. Macdonald spoke of how he didn’t trust Eskimos and never would. I had never felt such instant animus toward anyone

Well, the thing is, Norm, you are absolutely correct,” said Lorne. “Jim is nonpareil.” Then he just looked at me. A long time passed—maybe forty-five minutes—until I finally said, “All right, all right. What’s that word mean?

Oh, I thought everybody knew you jerked off punks underneath the Queensboro Bridge for fifteen dollars a man.” “Don’t say that anymore.” “Okay, sorry. I didn’t know you told me in confidence.” “Don’t you remember I was crying when I told you?

Norm, I’m gonna be straight with you, because I’ve been in this business a long time. If the star of a movie has a personal assistant who, during the production of that movie, butchers over a dozen teenagers, that’s gonna hurt at the box office.

When I was right beside Ben Matlock, I threw the Archie comic away and grabbed the biggest, thickest book I could find and turned to a random page. Then I loudly said, “What the fuck? I certainly didn’t see that shit coming.” Ben Matlock turned his back to me.

I drank a handle of bourbon that night, alone and in glory.

Hey, don't call me a cynic but I'm starting to think these blood drinking, moloch worshiping pedophiles who run our government might not have our best interests in mind.

I didn't like my head but I loved unskilled labor, manual labor. That kind of work let my mind alone, let it be free.

It’s the greatest gig in the world, being alive. You get to eat at Denny’s, wear a hat, whatever you wanna do.

Smart man says nothing is a miracle. I say everything is.

The idiot sees the world as Good vs Evil. The cynic sees the world as Evil vs Evil. The truth that no one seems able to see is that the world is, and always has been, a battle of Good vs. Good.

If my job was to shovel, and shovel until eight hours had passed, then my body worked on its own. It had no use for my mind. So my mind would take off to a world of imagination. And that's where stand-up comedy started.

These legislated acts of colonial violence were aimed directly at eradicating Indigenous independence, economic self-sufficiency, social and governing structures, cultural norms, spiritual practices, and family and community cohesion through the large-scale kidnapping of the children. During the parliamentary debates surrounding the proposal to make attendance at residential schools mandatory, and to give priority to them over community-based schools, Sir John A. Macdonald explained his support of residential schools by saying: "When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with his parents who are savages; he is surrounded by savages...he is simply a savage who can read and write.

People were beginning to talk about me, and that’s always good news. As Adolf Hitler once said, all publicity is good publicity.

What woman was going to choose Alfred Einstein over Humphrey Bogart?

Has-been” stenciled on his forehead.

A lot of comics over the years have been compared to Mark Twain, but I think Norm is the only one who actually matches the guy in terms of his voice and ability.

Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.

Norm is brilliant and thoughtful, and there is sensitivity and creative insight in his observations and stories. But

To be a second grade teacher you just have to be smarter than a second grade student

Well, you’d think he was a generous hatter and I was the tallest man in the whole wide world, the way he gave me the high hat that day. I

Having nothing and having something are exactly the same thing

A stewardess took a special and personal interest in me. She was a little bigger than they usually are, and a little older than the norm. She was styled for abundant lactation, and her uniform blouse was not. She had a big white smile and she was mildly bovine,

I didn’t like to use my head, but I loved unskilled, manual labor. That kind of work let my mind alone, let it be free.

I’m pretty sure, I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure if you die, the cancer dies at the same time. That’s not a loss. That’s a draw.

I cannot find Norm’s essence. It is a problem I’ve never encountered as a ghost, and I need to truly become him to finish the book. It has always been my great gift, the ability to find a person’s essence. But Norm evades me. It must be because I hate him with such intensity.

I will say this about the young boy in the tiny white coffin. Despite the doctor’s dire predictions, the boy was too tough, resolute, and courageous to let something as small as a deadly disease defeat him. No, the boy was made of stronger stuff than that and it took much more to defeat him. It took a three-ton municipal bus moving at forty miles per hour and driven by one Cecil Richard Anderson to defeat this boy.” I heard the deepest of sobs and looked down to see a man wearing some sort of bus driver’s uniform being held up by two women.

Our trip has cost Adam Eget his apartment and his job. But it will all soon be over and he’ll be a ranch hand in Montana, and the head ranch hand too. I haven’t told him yet, but I plan on buying him a hat. A cowboy hat.

everywhere, and

All former shoeshine boys tell fictitious tales and resort to petty thievery.