Tim Minchin Quotes

Isn't this enough? Just this world? Just this beautiful, complex wonderfully unfathomable world? How does it so fail to hold our attention that we have to diminish it with the invention of cheap, man-made myths and monsters?

To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are.

I don't go in for ancient wisdom
I don't believe just 'cos ideas are tenacious it means they're worthy

If I had a religion, its deity would be Audysseus, the sound God, and He would be a vengeful god, dishing out eternal damnation to people with cheap stage monitors.

I don't know what it is about "magic happens"-stickers on cars but every time I see one I wanna get out my permanent marker and sneak over and write underneath it "so does cot death".

Understanding that you can't truly take credit for your successes, nor truly blame others for their failures will humble you and make you more compassionate.
Empathy is intuitive, but is also something you can work on, intellectually.

Tim Minchin's musings on Tony, the first 'fish' ever to have feet:
Imagine what Tony would think, standing there on his brand new feet on the brink of the beginnings of mankind as we know it ... if he could look forward just a few short ... hundreds of millions of years ... to see one of his descendants ... an Israeli Jew by the name of Jesus, having a nail hammered through his feet ... the very feet that Tony provided him with, as a punishment for having a, sort of, schizophrenic discourse with a God who was created by Mankind to explain the existence of feet in the absence of the knowledge of the existence of Tony.

There are children in Africa, starving to death, and you don't hear them whinging.

Only a ginger, can call another ginger Ginger.

Sticks and stones may break your bones but words can break hearts.

[O]nce you reject evidence as a source of knowledge, you don't gotta believe nothin' you don't like.

I am no nihilist. I am not even a cynic. I am, actually, rather romantic. And here's my idea of romance: You will soon be dead. Life will sometimes seem long and tough and, god, it's tiring. And you will sometimes be happy and sometimes sad. And then you'll be
old. And then you'll be dead.

It's the fine balance of caffeine and alcohol that bookends my days

Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be NOT magic..

The day they discover yoga mats are carcinogenic will be the happiest day of my life.

Burning a book is like burning a bra. After the adrenalin rush of the symbolic moment wears off, all you're left with is a pile of ashes and unsupported boobs.

It's an incredibly exciting thing, this one meaningless life of yours

Arts degrees are awesome. And they help you find meaning where there is none. And let me assure you, there is none. Don't go looking for it. Searching for meaning is like searching for a rhyme scheme in a cookbook: you won't find it and you'll bugger up your soufflé.

A famous bon mot asserts that opinions are like arse-holes, in that everyone has one. There is great wisdom in this ... but I would add that opinions differ significantly from arse-holes, in that yours should be constantly and thoroughly examined.
We must think critically, and not just about the ideas of others. Be hard on your beliefs. Take them out onto the verandah and beat them with a cricket bat ... Be intellectually rigorous. Identify your biases, your prejudices, your privilege.

Science adjusts its views based on what's observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.

You know what they call alternative medicine that's been proved to work? - Medicine.

The more you know, the harder you will find it to make up your mind, it doesn't really matter if you find it. You can't see which grass is greener, chances are it's neither and either way it's easier to see the difference when you're sitting on the fence.