Janeane Garofalo Quotes

Listen, young people, I understand narcissism - clearly. But at least I have the decency to hate myself. And that's what's missing from the young people. They don't have the debilitating self-loathing and the second guessing.

I feel like the American people are being lied to and manipulated. President Bush is trying to force 9/11 and Saddam together.

Leaving your ears open to the suggestions of others only closes the mind's eye, thereby creating a type of spiritual glaucoma.

I would prefer to be well-liked in any and all situations.

I'm a walker. I enjoy walking, which I think psychologically expresses my feelings of wanting liberation without exerting myself too much.

I would have to say loneliness is next to uncleanliness.

My dream would be to be on a show that shoots in New York, because I live here, and then I could walk to work.

I mostly get takeout, I have to admit - I don't know if that's something to be ashamed of. I'm not much of a cook.

I don't know that I would need to be famous as a Middle East policy expert to see that unilateral imperialism is bad policy.

Is being an idiot like being high all the time?

Anthony Weiner deserves to be supported and hopefully he will be mayor of New York one day. I'm serious. He is a Democrat [who] actually fights for the things liberals and progressive and rational people care about. I don't know why he's being thrown under the bus. He hasn't done any - he hasn't broke any laws,

TV, it's a director's medium, and they wanna make it look interesting. To be rehearsing mostly for the sake of where you're standing so they can do the lighting, that's what I don't like.

I'm not religious anymore, but I think it's like papal infallibility, which is a ridiculous man-made tenet, like what I believe most religious tenets to be, are man-made after the fact.

People think that you are a nasty, selfish person if you don`t want to have children.

Yes, I think lots of people are eager to obtain weapons of mass destruction. But there's no evidence that he (Hussein) has weapons of mass destruction. There's been no evidence of him testing nuclear weapons. We have people that are in our face with nuclear weapons. We've got Iran and North Korea. We've got a problem with Pakistan. You know, I don't know what to say about that. There's a whole lot of people that are going nuclear. And I think that Saddam Hussein is actually, with the evidence, the least able to use nuclear weapons and the least obvious offender in that area at this moment.

The reason a person is a republican is because something is wrong with them. Again, that's science - that's neuroscience. You cannot be well adjusted, open-minded, pluralistic, enlightened and be a republican.

To me, there is no greater act of courage than being the one who kisses first.

I have yet to meet very many people in the press who are really, truly interested in writing a good story or getting at the truth. Most press people, when they come into an article, have an angle that they want already, so they need points to support that angle, whatever the angle may be.

This dress exacerbates the genetic betrayal that is my legacy.

I was thrilled to work opposite Carl Reiner and Robert De Niro. Mr. Reiner was very chatty and delightful, but I learned that if you want Robert De Niro to like you, don't speak at all, and he'll be friendly to you.

We got married drunk in Vegas ... We dated for a year, and we got married at a drive-through chapel in a cab. [We thought] you have to go down to the courthouse and sign papers and stuff, so who knew? We were married, and apparently now that [Rob] is getting married for real, his lawyer dug up something.

Without liberals we wouldn't have unions. We wouldn't have environmental protections. We wouldn't have seat belts or birth control or the ACLU! Any of these things!

It's mentally exhausting, feeling bad about something you can do nothing about.

Pedestrian's rights - because we live in California, I've got to address this issue. I don't know where on the fence I am about that. I suppose if I'm walking, I'm all for it, but if I'm driving, that's a whole other can of worms.

There is no way any rational, reasonable person can say
that the Bush Administration has been good for America.

Let's put it this way: I don't have a good work ethic. I have a real casual relationship with hours. I don't understand why, in entertainment, the hours are as long as they are. It seems like everything takes forever, and no one can tell you why, exactly.

Anybody who French bashes just might as well wear a badge that says 'I am a follower! I don't think for myself and I have no idea what I'm talking about.' That would be a French basher.

I think that by staying out of shape at the age of 33 I'm doing myself a huge favor for my future. There will never be anyone commenting on how I've 'let myself go.' I've gone. It's gone. It's not going, it's GONE.

What has Iraq done to us?

You know, there's nothing more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at a speech they're not quite certain what he's saying.

I absolutely realize that a celebrity spokesperson is not ideal.

I feel bad that people think that "feminism" is a dirty word. I don't understand that at all, I'm proud to be labeled a feminist. I consider myself a person who has throughout my entire life stood up for myself. It's never been my ambition to be someone who takes a backseat to anything. I'm not a male basher at all. I divide people into assholes and non-assholes, and that's genderless. I encounter sexism everyday.

The right, like Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbauggh, use women and the black man and the Hispanic immigrant and the gay man as a scapgoat for society's ills. They pretend it's about traditional family values, but that's a bullshit phrase that means nothing to me. They like to use us all. They use pro-life as a way to hate women and slam women, dressed up in the nobility of saving unborn fetuses. I think it's just misogyny.

I am not a person that is particularly tethered to fashion, which I think is obvious to anyone who's seen me.

For some reason I get advertised when I travel as a political comedian, which I'm not. Sometimes I talk about it and sometimes I don't.

Last night, I went to a birthday party, and this girl brought a cake and a cheesecake. And the other girls that lived in the apartment, I swear to God, all night long: 'You're taking that cake with you when you go. That cake's not staying in this house.' Like it's this evil, Hope Diamond, nuclear, horrifying cursed thing.

I do not enjoy when people don't like me.

There is no blacklist. In the first place, in the entertainment business, money talks, bullshit walks. So Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins won't be blacklisted because they are bankable stars. In the second place, if you are a woman, the only things you're going to be blacklisted for in Hollywood are body fat and aging.

I say at this point, for different reasons, Bush and Hussein are both very threatening to world peace and to deny that is to be incredibly naive.

Sometimes the critics review me harshly for not being critical of government but it's not me who has said I was political.

I don't think that the administration is being particularly honest with the American people about what this is going to cost in life and in dollars, what the dangers are, retaliatory strikes, once it happens. This is not a war that needs to happen immediately, if ever.

For my stand-up, I always have my notebook with me and if something strikes me, I'll write it down.

Historically the mainstream media has never been particularly friendly to any socially progressive ideas.

A lot of the hate mail I get is clearly misogynist. I am a proud liberal, feminist woman, and the hate mail I get about those three things is not about me.

I hate high fashion. I hate that we reward people for being genetic freaks. You hear the guys announcing the runway shows saying, 'A pretty face is your best asset this season.' And what? Ugly girls had a free ride last year?

Until as women we all say, No! We are not going to starve ourselves, nothing is going to change. We're our own worse enemies sometimes but I still blame men.

He [God] just seems so man-made to me. There are so many theories, and not everyone can be right. It's human nature to need a religious crutch, and I don't begrudge anyone that. I just don't need one.

German accents and Hassidic accents aren't that romantic. They're more harsh. Although Hebrew, when spoken by certain people, sounds beautiful. There's this beautiful woman I know who speaks Hebrew, and when she speaks, it's so attractive. Maybe it's who's speaking it.

Herman Cain is probably well-liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican Party, conservative movement and tea party movement. People like Karl Rove like to keep the racism very covert and so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity so he can say, 'Look: This is not a racist anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look: We have a black man.' And look he's polling well and he won a straw poll.

I think I failed miserably on NewsRadio. I was very nervous because of the caliber of the cast - especially Dave Foley - so I think I did a terrible job.

I actually was class clown, but I don't know how that happened because I've never been considered an outwardly funny person.

My hell is going to be the stairmaster wing of Dante's inferno, where they're gonna tape my feet to the pedals and the only music I get is Michael Bolton karaoke style.

I'm a sucker for any guy with an accent with any kind.

I can do most anything and not have a problem with it. The only time I have negative attention is when I run naked through the streets brandishing a handgun.

Every year my family would pile into the car for our vacation and drive 80 trillion miles just to prove we couldn't get along in any setting.

Because we don't have a Fairness Doctrine, and because we have further media consolidation, and because we have a craptastic corporate media, WE DON'T HAVE NEWS! We don't have an informed populous and we don't have a democracy ... Everyone in the world knows that America, (in its current state, because of right-wingers) that the right wing arm of this country (that speaks for this country unfortunately) has no credibility when it comes to human rights or independent media.

I got mugged. And they got my knapsack with my comedy notebook in it. So if anybody see two cholos bombing at the Funny Bone chain, that would be them. Just give me a jingle.

Taking into account the public's regrettable lack of taste, it is incumbent upon you not to fit in.

We're our own worst enemies a lot of the time, but I still blame men.

It's been hard in entertainment as a 45-year-old woman to find jobs. They get fewer and far between if you're older, unless you're one of the few lucky ones who work constantly, like Meryl Streep.

A war is going to destroy our economy even further. It's going to be a threefold humanitarian disaster.

Listening to your tape, I was reminded of this poem. It has the central question: Is it harder to count on someone or to know that you're being the one counted upon? Anyway, there's this part that goes: if equal affection cannot be, then let the more loving one be me. Have you ever read that one? It's one of my favorites.

I was a 36C or D, and at 5' 1', I knew that being a small person with big boobs standing in front of an audience was not going to be easy. It would be really hard to get people to pay attention to me without mocking me. Getting a breast reduction to prepare for my career was no different from people who work to get good grades to get into a good college to get into a good graduate school to get a good job. I went down to a B cup, and it was the best thing in the whole world.

Men are allowed to age. Men are allowed to gain weight. Men are allowed to be quirky looking.

You young people with your twittering and your creating of content. Or what is it - queefing? I don't know what you young people are calling it.

When I see the American flag, I go, 'Oh my God, you're insulting me.'

Being a feminist means that you believe in civil rights and social justice.

The term 'celebrity' makes my skin crawl.

I've seen other comics, with great pleasure, watching their own specials, and I don't know how or why they do it.

I truly believe a woman's weight is a political issue, and if one young woman out there can see me and not feel crummy about herself, that's a good thing.

I'm grateful for any opportunity to act.

He said that faith is like a glass of water. When you're young, the glass is small, and it's easy to fill up. But the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and the same amount of liquid doesn't fill it anymore. Periodically, the glass has to be refilled.

When Pat Buchanan came out against the Beijing Women's Conference and there were women standing next to him, smiling and laughing when he was making fun of it, I was so embarrassed. I don't mind when the more liberal or moderate Republican women talk about smaller government or money issues and things of that nature. But when I see a conservative Republican woman in line with the Christian right or coming out against abortion and day-care issues and for taking away womens' aid, I see a self-hating, unenlightened woman, like a self-hating Jew. That blows my mind. I don't get it at all.

So, apparently, if you are a pre-sentient mass of cells, this country will protect you and your rights to the n-th degree. If you have made the mistake of becoming an Iraqi citizen, apparently we can just drop bombs on you with impunity.

When Communist U.S.S.R. was a superpower, the world was better off. The right-wing media is trying to marginalize the peace movement.

There's been times when I have actually had sex indoors. And then you kind of sober up a little when it's over. I become like a bartender at 2 AM. OK, people, let's move it out! Yeah, you don't have to go home but you can't stay here.

I despise in others my own characteristics.

Sex is the quickest way to ruin a friendship.

Silence does not equal patriotism. Obedience is not the American way.

You have to have a lot more dedication to what I'll call 'the machine,' ... I have 20 percent dedication. What's needed is 110 percent. You can't have it with the level of apathy I have.

Not that I was ever an asshole but I used to be much more of a bulldozer.

Sometimes people say I'm a political comedian, which, actually I'm not. I'm a comedian who sometimes discusses politics, culture - again, the word 'politics' to me is just life.

This world is bullshit. And just because I appear in music video wherein I am in my underwear, and make young women feel not good enough so that they become anorxeic; and okay, maybe because of that I became popular more quickly than other singers who are, I don't know, maybe more talented or better songwriters. That doesn't matter because, and ... um ... my boyfriend is a magician, and he can pull a quarter out of your ear and say things like 'We have not met before have we?' Go with yourself.