Tom Lehrer Quotes

When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.

Angels we have heard on High Tell us to go out and Buy.

Once all the Germans were warlike and mean But that couldn't happen again We taught them a lesson in nineteen eighteen And they've hardly bothered us since then

I figure I wrote 37 songs in 20 years, and that's not exactly a full-time job. It wasn't that I was writing and writing and writing and quit.

The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted.

And although I'm all for freedom of expression and against censorship, there are certain things I'm not willing to go to jail for.

Don't write naughty words on the wall if you can't spell!

Step up and shake the hand Of someone you can't stand, You can tolerate him if you try!

Don't solicit for your sister, it's not nice. Unless you get a good percentage of her price.

So long, Mom I'm off to drop the bomb So don't wait up for me But while you swelter Down there in your shelter You can see me On your TV

Everything is so weird in politics that it's very hard to be funny about it, I think.

I'm not an original composer. The tunes are not stolen from other tunes necessarily except in a few cases, but they're in the style of songs that I grew up with.

People would go anywhere to see a famous person in the flesh, no matter what they do.

If the hoods don't get you, the monoxide will.

I wasn't really a performer by temperament.

Well I wasn't really attacking the religious beliefs [in the song 'The Vatican Rag'], I was attacking the formality of the rituals of the Catholic church; however, people took it wrongly.

In my youth there were words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can't say 'girl.'

And we will all go together when we go. What a comforting fact that is to know. Universal bereavement, An inspiring achievement, Yes, we will all go together when we go.

Oh we will all fry together when we fry. We'll be french fried potatoes by and by. There will be no more misery When the world is our rotisserie, Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

The Lord's our shepherd, says the psalm. But just in case, we better get a bomb.

You cant be satirical and not be offensive to somebody.

I think that if people are having trouble communicating with one another, the least they can do is SHUT UP.

The people who came to hear me perform or to buy my records were not the type who would be offended [by the song 'The Vatican Rag']. But I gather that there were other people who were offended.

If after hearing my songs just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend or perhaps to strike a loved one it will all have been worth the while.

Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize.

It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years.

I know that thete are people who do not love their fellow man and I hate people like that!

It's a sobering thought: When Mozart was my age he had been dead for two years.

Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.