Al Franken Quotes

I've never understood why we would want to deny all the joys - and the challenges - of marriage to anyone. Which is why I think any loving, committed couple - gay or straight - should be able to get married.

I ask the American people not to fall victim to disinformation. There are no death panels. The Affordable Care Act cuts the deficit.

I think the government has a role in protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens.

There's an appeal to the American sense of exceptionalism, that we're morally superior, as way to not be self-critical. I think that's a bit dangerous.

I want to reclaim 'liberal.' I'm a liberal, and I think most Americans are liberals.

My spiritual life is ... sometimes I have access to it and sometimes I don't. When I do have access to it, it's usually a sense of my understanding what the best course of action or the best thing for me to do. By best, I mean when I have a real sense of doing the right thing and doing good for people and the connected universe of everybody.

I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me.

The reason I wrote political satire was because I thought it - politics - was important ... that public policy was important. Then I transitioned into books, then into radio.

Net neutrality has been in place since the very beginning of the Internet.

We owe an historic debt to American Indians. They have a unique set of concerns that haven't been addressed, and I'd like to stand with them. Also, I'd like to get their views on immigration.

As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field. Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.

Well, I think that there's a value to comedy in and of itself.

I listen to NPR when I listen to the radio, but I don't listen to the radio that much. You know, I listen to Garrison Keillor, I listen to 'Prairie Home Companion.'

I'm from the Vietnam generation. I didn't serve.

Service dogs raise their masters' sense of well-being.

If you use a cell phone - as I do - your wireless carrier likely has records about your physical movements going back months, if not years.

But now we seem to have entered an era where getting caught lying openly and shamelessly, lying in a manner that insults the intelligence of both your friends and foes, lying about lying, and lying for the sake of lying have all lost their power to damage a politician. In fact, the "Trump Effect" yields the opposite result: Trump supporters seem to approve of the fact that he lies constantly, including to them.

We need to start by having a conversation about climate change. It would be irresponsible to avoid the issue just because it's uncomfortable to talk about.

The government must give proper weight to both keeping America safe from terrorists and protecting Americans' privacy. But when Americans lack the most basic information about our domestic surveillance programs, they have no way of knowing whether we're getting that balance right. This lack of transparency is a big problem.

My daughter became a teacher right out of college.

My dad never graduated high school. He was a printing salesman. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. We weren't rich - but we felt secure.

Bob Dole used to be really funny. Barney Frank can be kind of funny. Bob Kerrey has a good sense of humor.

Anybody who deliberately propagandizes with lies should be held up to scorn and ridicule.

Let's keep the Internet weird. Let's keep the Internet free.

There are as many forms of advice as there are colors of the rainbow. Remember that good advice can come from bad people and bad advice from good people. The important thing about advice is that it is simply that. Advice.

I think if you're going to do a movie about Reagan, you do it about the fact that he created the huge deficit, that he armed the Mujahideen, that he armed Saddam, that he armed Iran, that he armed two-thirds of the Axis of Evil, and that he funded terrorists in Central America. He was, in my mind, a terrible president.

So I've always been interested in politics. And I thank my parents for that. As you can see, there's a strong element of moral indignation behind this interest, and indignation is well and good in doses, but I noticed fairly early in life that some people live to find stuff to be indignant about. And it's pretty unattractive. That's why I decided to become a wiseass.

Humor and seriousness are not in opposition to each other.

I think the Internet has developed at this incredibly rapid pace because of net neutrality, because of the free nature of it, because a YouTube can start the way YouTube started.

I think Hell exists on Earth. It's a psychological state, or it can be a physical state. People who have severe mental illness are in Hell. People who have lost a loved one are in Hell. I think there are all kinds of different hells. It's not a place you go to after you die.

If 98 out of 100 doctors tell me I've got a problem, I should take their advice. And if those two other doctors get paid by Big Snack Food, like certain climate deniers get paid by Big Coal, I shouldn't take their advice.

You can't change your fingerprints. You have only ten of them. And you leave them on everything you touch; they are definitely not a secret.

The Founders who crafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights were careful to draft a Constitution of limited powers - one that would protect Americans' liberty at all times - both in war, and in peace.

No one is more sensitive to the issue of overeating than the creator of Stuart Smalley.

I complained about it to Tim Kaine. "Flake gave me this stupid hat. This is the worst Secret Santa gift ever. What was he thinking?"
"Staff error," said Tim. He's really smart. And would make a great vice president. Goddammit. Now I'm depressed. Let's move on.

If we don't start caring about whether people tell the truth or not, it's going to be literally impossible to restore anything approaching reasonable political discourse.

Minnesotans know the difference between the job of satirist and the job of senator. And so do I.

You know, Lincoln was funny. I don't think F.D.R. was very funny. But Lincoln was funny. Lincoln was really funny. But I think you should get elected first, and then show that you're funny.

My parents were really political. The news was very important in our home. We basically had dinner every night while watching the news, and then we'd discuss it with our parents.

The point is that there is tremendous hypocrisy among the Christian right. And I think that Christian voters should start looking at global warming and extreme poverty as a religious issue that speaks to the culture of life.

We need to prepare our kids for a 21st Century economy, and we're not doing it with our schools.

The thing that interests me least about the radio business is the radio business. But I've had to learn a little bit about it. It's not rocket science: You get ratings, that's good.

I believe in not attacking a country pre-emptively unless you're sure of what you're doing and you're working with allies.

Yeah, we shot ourselves in the foot right out of the gate. The guy who ran it at first misled pretty much everybody about how much capital we had. He said we had enough to go three years without making money, and we had enough to go three weeks.

To make the argument that the media has a left- or right-wing, or a liberal or a conservative bias, is like asking if the problem with Al-Qaeda is do they use too much oil in their hummus.

Call-time has renewed my faith in the need for public financing of elections. 'Call-time' is where I as the candidate, sit in a room with my 'call-time manager,' and a phone. Then I call people and ask them for money. For hours. Apparently, I'm really good at it.

It's hard for a liberal to go on between Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, because it's like doing country music after hip-hop. I mean, just, the audience doesn't go from one to the other.

I'm sure I've devoted enough thought to Rush Limbaugh for one lifetime.

Today I will masterbate!
Okay, that was a mistake. I should have written Today I will masterbate
if I want to!

If we have George W. Bush as president, we're going to go back to the kind of policies we had when his father and Ronald Reagan were president.

If Republicans eliminate Medicare, America will become a country in which you can never retire - and once you physically can no longer work, you are desperately poor until you die.

I believe people have a right to know what's going on with their information and how it's collected, how it's stored and who gets it.

I'm part of the mushball middle. I consider 'confused' the majority position because, thankfully, most people would rather be uncertain some of the time than 100% positive all the time - even when they're wrong.

Minnesotans lost their jobs because the credit rating agencies didn't do the only job they're supposed to have, the only job they had, which is to give accurate, objective ratings to financial products.

Most Americans don't think about antitrust law when they look at their cable bill, flip channels on TV, or worry about what their favorite website knows about them. But they should.

I'm a bit of a shill for the Clinton Administration, which has its perks. I'm invited to all the inaugural balls.

It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.

I hope you realize, in a democracy, laughter is assent.

Comedy to the Senate? Well, there certainly hasn't been a satirist or a political satirist who's done that. So, that really was uncharted territory during the campaign. But I think it's a good thing. Some people thought that it was an odd career arc, but to me it made absolute sense.

If you control the flow of information, you can control the conversation around important issues. If you can control the conversation, you can change this country.

It's not preppies, cause I'm a preppie myself. I just don't like homosexuals. If you ask me, they're all homosexuals in the Pudding. Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia.

I know this seems quaint, but back in 2008, Republicans did not consider "demeaning and degrading women" to be senatorial, let alone presidential.

Progressives, in a way, are the new conservatives. We want to conserve what we fought to build.

The next thing I am doing is moving back home to Minnesota and getting involved in politics. I'm looking at a run for Senate in 2008, but in the meantime I am focused on knitting together the progressive network in the upper Midwest.

There's plenty of room for humor in politics, God knows, but it's a serious business.

I'm the New York Jew who actually grew up in Minnesota.

It's hard to have that debate around secret programs authorized by secret legal opinions issued by a secret court. Actually, it's impossible to have that debate.

I've spent my entire career being a satirist.

I also focus on Bush and his administration - who do a lot of lying - and how a right-wing media has allowed them to get away with a lot of stuff that, in a different media environment, they probably wouldn't be able to get away with.

Some of George W. Bush's friends say that Bush believes God called him to be president during these times of trial. But God told me that He/She/It had actually chosen Al Gore by making sure that Gore won the popular vote and, God thought, the Electoral College. 'That worked for everyone else,' God said.

What you see on the campaign trail is me. It's easy being me.

To ask whether the mainstream media has a conservative or liberal bias is like asking whether al-Qaida uses too much oil in their hummus. It's - I think they might use too much oil in their hummus - but it's the wrong question.

My dad didn't graduate from high school, ended up being a printing salesman, probably never made more than $8,000 a year. My mom sold real estate and did it part time.

And I think that being able to make people laugh and write a book that's funny makes the information go down a lot easier and it makes it a lot more fun to read, easier to understand, and often stronger. So there's all kinds of advantages to it.

If I put myself on the ballot and even 50 people voted for me, it'd be a travesty.

I don't think I'm an angry person. I think I'm a person who's angry. I'm angry at the Bush administration; I'm angry at the right wing media. And by that I don't mean the media is right wing. I mean, there is a part of the media that's not the mainstream media. That's Fox, that is 'The Wall Street Journal' editorial page.

Mistakes are a part of being human. Precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.

Liberals don't hate America. We love America more than Ann Coulter does. I love it enough to engage my readers honestly.

Bill Clinton is the greatest president of the 20th century because I played touch football with him.

National security laws must protect national security. But they must also protect the public trust and preserve the ability of an informed electorate to hold its government to account.

Sometimes if I tell people, 'I'm afraid that I'm really a fraud,' or 'I have a lot of self-doubt,' they go, 'Oh, no, you're kidding.' I go, 'No, I'm really honest.'

My views about God come from my dad. Dad told me that he believed Nature, which to him included humankind, to be so beautiful, so magnificent, that there had to be something behind it all.

I do personal attacks only on people who specialize in personal attacks.

At 'SNL,' I wrote political stuff, but I never felt the show should have an axe to grind. But when I left in '95, I could let my own beliefs out.

Demagoguery sells. And therefore radio stations will put it on. But that doesn't mean that you can't do something else and also make it sell. You know, when I look at an Ann Coulter or I look at a Rush or I look at a Sean Hannity, I think to myself, 'What kind of self-image do you have?'

Having an actual income can expand your romantic horizons toward the more appealing end of the spectrum.

The nature of the Internet and the importance of net neutrality is that innovation can come from everyone.

Being a comedian, you're under pressure. You have to deal with stress and pressure to perform - to deal with pressure without stress.

I'm crushed by the responsibility of writing a satirical book.

In our political system, money is power. And that means a few can have a lot more power than the rest. That's bad news for everyone else - and for our democracy itself.

Liberals like me love America. We just love America in a different way.

I got interested in politics during the civil rights movement and then Vietnam.

When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both.

Some of my colleagues seem more interested in using every procedural method possible to keep the Senate from doing anything than they are in creating jobs or helping Americans struggling in a difficult economy.

Most of us here in the media are what I call infotainers ... Rush Limbaugh is what I call a disinfotainer. He entertains by spreading disinformation.

I don't know how many of you have been to New York, but if a building is two blocks away from anything, you can't see it.

I think that the default for collecting any kind of personal data should be opt-in consent.

If you hear, day after day, liberals are rooting against armed forces, that is eventually going to have an effect on soldiers and troops who are actually going to believe that and it's wrong. It's just wrong.

Ralph Nader is a hero. I know Ralph, and I call him up occasionally. He's helped me out on a couple of occasions when I've given speeches to corporations where he'd have a good ... He'd give me some good information.

I don't know what happens to you after you die. I'm not banking on there being, like, a heaven.