The Very Best of Robin Williams: Memories of a Comedy Legend (2 page)

BOOK: The Very Best of Robin Williams: Memories of a Comedy Legend
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'Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves?'

 

 

 

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'In England, if you commit a crime, the police don't have a gun and you don't have a gun. If you commit a crime, the police will say, "Stop, or I'll say stop again"'

 

 

 

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'We've had cloning in the South for years. It's called cousins.'

 

 

 

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'Ah, yes, divorce . . . from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet.'

 

 

 

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'The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery!'

 

 

 

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'You know, you get that tattoo of barbed wire when you’re 18, but by the time you’re 80, it’s a picket fence.'

 

 

 

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'Gentiles are people who eat mayonnaise for no reason.'

 

 

 

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During an awards ceremony in 2014, Williams joked about the glasses he was wearing, saying:

 

'My god! I have on nothing but Google Glass. And I'm downloading as we speak.'

 

 

 

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'People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.'

 

 

 

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‘They call it freebasing. It's not free, it costs you your house! It should be called homebasing! Three signs you're addicted to cocaine: First of all, if you come home to your house and you have no furniture and your cat's going "I'm outta here, prick!," Warning! Number two: If you have this dream where you're doing cocaine in your sleep and you can't fall asleep, and you wake up and you're doing cocaine, BINGO! Number three: if on your tax form it says, "$50,000 for snacks," MAYDAY!’

 

 

 

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'Do you think Adam said to Eve, “Back up, I don't know how big this gets”?'

 

 

 

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“I would like to do for you now, a Japanese science fiction movie: "Attack of the Killer Vibrators."

 

 

 

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'In the midst of all this ranting, you can’t forget that in New York harbour, there is a statue that says, “Give me your tired, your poor…” And that doesn’t mean, “…for two weeks, to do light housework”.'

 

 

 

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'Being a famous print journalist is like being the best-dressed woman on radio.'

 

 

 

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'A woman would never make a nuclear bomb. They would never make a weapon that kills. They’d make a weapon that makes you feel bad for a while.'

 

 

 

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Speaking about being creative:

 

‘And you get that little endorphin buzz, it's great. Why do you think Einstein looked like that? I don't think he was going "You know this is some dynamite weed! It's all relative you know."

 

 

 

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On his financial dispute with Disney over Aladdin:

 

'The only reason Mickey Mouse has four fingers is because he can't pick up a cheque'

 

 

 

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‘Beer commercials usually show
big
men, manly men, doing manly things: "You've just killed a small animal. It's time for a light beer." Why not have a realistic beer commercial, with a realistic thing about beer, where someone goes, "It's five o'clock in the morning. You've just pissed on a dumpster. It's Miller time."’

 

 

 

 

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“Before I go on, I want to ask if there are any Hell's Angels here tonight?
[after no response]
… Those pussy-whipped faggots!”

 

 

 

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‘I wonder what chairs think about all day: "Oh, here comes another asshole."’

 

 

 

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‘The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, “give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses”. She’s got a baseball bat and yelling, “you want a piece of me?”’

 

 

 

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‘Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some get it as a graduation gift.’

 

 

 

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'Mickey Mouse to a three-year-old is a six-foot-tall rat!'

 

 

 

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‘You could talk about same-sex marriage, but people who have been married (say) “It’s the same sex all the time”.’

 

 

 

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“I'd like to start the show by showing you something I'm very proud of. You'll have to step back, though.”

 

 

 

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‘And if you want a linguistic adventure, go drinking with a Scotsman. Cause you can't fucking understand them
before
!’

 

 

 

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‘If women ran the world we wouldn’t have wars, just intense negotiations every 28 days.’

 

 

 

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'Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.'

 

 

 

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'Is it rude to Twitter during sex? To go "omg, omg, wtf, zzz"? Is that rude?'

 

 

 

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'The French have a bomb, too. The Michelin Bomb – only destroys restaurants under four stars.'

 

 

 

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'Everyone has these two visions when they hold their child for the first time. The first is your child as an adult saying "I want to thank the Nobel Committee for this award". The other is "You want fries with that?"

 

 

 

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‘When in doubt, go for the dick joke.’

 

 

 

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‘Okra is the closest thing to nylon I've ever eaten. It's like they bred cotton with a green bean. Okra, tastes like snot. The more you cook it, the more it turns into string.’

 

 

 

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‘Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it “all the money,” but they changed it to 'alimony.' It's ripping your heart out through your wallet.’

 

 

 

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‘My favorite athletes of any Olympics are always the African distance runners. You

never
have to drug test an African distance runner:

 

"Are you on drugs?"

"No, I'm looking for food."’

 

 

 

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‘Spring is nature's way of saying, “Let's party!”’

 

 

 

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‘You know the difference between a tornado and divorce in the south? Nothing! Someone is losing a trailer.’

 

 

 

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'We're dealing with fundamentalists. The Amish are fundamentalists, but they don't try and hijack a carriage at needlepoint. And, if you're ever in Amish country and you see a man with his hand buried in a horse's ass, that's a mechanic. Remember that
.'

 

 

 

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‘I was once on a German talk show, and this woman said to me, 'Mr. Williams, why do you think there is not so much comedy in Germany?' And I said, 'Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?'

 

 

 

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‘Ballet: Men wearing pants so tight that you can tell what religion they are.’

 

 

 

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Talking about his film Popeye:

 

‘If you watch it backwards, it has a plot.’

 

 

 

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‘They're talking about partial nuclear disarmament, which is also like talking about partial circumcision - you either go all the way or forget it.’

 

 

 

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‘Australians are basically English rednecks. If Darwin had landed in Australia, he would have gone: "I'm wrong".’

 

 

 

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