List of Tom Lehrer Quotes

Everything Is So Weird In Politics That It's Very Hard To Be Funny About It, I Think.

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.

Comedy Is Very Important, Yes. For One Thing, It Keeps You Sane. But It's Not Really A Conversion. I Mean, It's Marginally A Conversion, Because If People Tune In Or Go To A Nightclub Or Even Watch Television, And Hear That A Lot Of Other People Are Laughing At Something You Thought Was Not Funny, At Least It'll Force You To Reconsider.

I'm Very Proud Of Myself On My, Whatever The Literacy Is, I'm Pretentious, Totally Pretentious. I Like To Say 'hmm', For Example.

I Would Do Nightclubs And Concerts - Particularly Concerts, Which Is Mostly What I Did - And Only People Who Already Agreed With Me Would Show Up. People Weren't Going To Come And Inadvertently Turn On Their Television Set And Find This Offensive Stuff Coming Out.

People Would Go Anywhere To See A Famous Person In The Flesh, No Matter What They Do.

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.

I'm Not Tempted To Write A Song About George W.bush. I Couldn't Figure Out What Sort Of Song I Would Write. That's The Problem: I Don't Want To Satirise George Bush And His Puppeteers, I Want To Vaporise Them. And That's Not Funny.

When You Attend A Funeral, It Is Sad To Think That Sooner O' Later Those You Love Will Do The Same For You. And You May Have Thought It Tragic, Not To Mention Other Adjec- Tives, To Think Of All The Weeping They Will Do. (but Don't You Worry.

I Wasn't Really A Performer By Temperament.

If The Hoods Don't Get You, The Monoxide Will.

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