The Best of Black Humor: Some Slashingly Funny Quotes by Lewis Black

WARNING: Please keep this article out of the reach of evangelical Christians.

INGREDIENTS: Sarcasm, hyperbole, profanity, tongue-lashing, (un)common sense and absurdity of life

SUGGESTED USE: Unlimited

* This article has not been evaluated by the Comedy Administration. It is not intended to treat or prevent depression. If laughing keeps recurring after you're done reading it, contact your doctor right away or seek emergency mental treatment immediately.

Born: August 30, 1948

Hometown: Silver Spring, Maryland (There is no spring there, and no one mines for silver.)

Pseudonym: The Silver Haired Devil

Religion: Judaism (supposedly)

Education: The Yale School of Drama (almost got kicked out of school for "not writing enough")

Genres: Satire, News satire, Political satire, Observational comedy, Black comedy, Rant

Notable works and roles:

• Back in Black on The Daily Show
• The Carnegie Hall Performance
• Law And Order "Aria" (1991)
• Homicide: Life on the Street "Deception" (1997)
• Law & Order: Special Victims Unit "Obscene" (2004)
• Man of the Year (2006)
• Farce of the Penguins (2007)
• Falling for Grace (2007)
• History of the Joke (2008) (Documentary) History Channel
• Root Of All Evil (2008) (TV Series) Comedy Central

I'm not big on Halloween. I never have been. As a kid my parents would send me out to collect for UNICEF, which just screws up the whole holiday. You're wearing a costume and people are giving you pennies and you're going, "Well, give me some candy, you fuck." And the grown-ups tell you, "Absolutely not. You've got your pennies. Now go build a village, you little shit." It still brings a tear to my eye.

It was the fifties and America was booming. It was a time when father actually knew best and there was a sitcom to prove it. Elvis Presley was changing the genetic structure of America's children. There were TV dinners specially made, I guess, for watching TV.

The USSR, however, presented a bit of a problem to the idyllic suburban American lifestyle. It was our sworn enemy and it was going to bury us. They were evil - really evil, spectacularly evil. So evil, in fact, that even if you had ever been a Communist, you were tainted for life, or so said Senator Joe McCarthy. Communists apparently walked among us, like aliens, ready to convert us to their heathen ways at any opportunity. The Commies were no better than child molesters. I didn't experience that level of paranoia again until I smoked pot.

The amazing thing about computers is that they are magical, especially when you don't know shit about how they work. They're really wonderful pieces of equipment, and when they don't work, you realize just how much you need them and just how unnecessary they truly are. I would have actually written my book with a pencil if I didn't have something called a "deadline." Maybe that's why the computer broke down, just to say to me, "Why don't you take that pencil and shove it up your ass. Yeah, I may be unnessacary, but you desperately need me."

It seems the smallpox vaccine that we were given, the one we were told was going to last forever, actually had a shelf life. Yep, it wore off! Now, a vaccine that expires sounds like pretty big news, doesn't it?The kind you'd probably want to share immediately. Well, our government didn't tell us until there was a possibility of emergency conditions. What a crackerjack group of fuckers! How could they not call us?

"Hey, Lew, your smallpox vaccine has worn off. You want another?"

Um, let me think. Yeah, you're fucking right. I want another because, until now, my whole life has been a delusion. Everyday I would wake up and say, "It's gonna suck today, but at least I won't get smallpox."

Arnold Schwarznegger is the governor of California and we are not even on LSD. I don't see why people bother taking drugs anymore. When reality has become a hallucination, what do you need to hallucinate for? I was walking through the Los Angeles airport just 3 months after seeing Arnold in Terminator 3, and he was being sworn in as the governor on all the television screens. I had a nervous breakdown. I fell to my knees and I pissed and shit my pants. I was weeping and screaming for help. "What is real?" I cried out. "Can anybody tell me what is real?"

So why do Bush and his Christian buddies believe marriage is between a man and a woman? Because it says so in the Bible - the Old Testament, to be exact. Of course, they've forgotten we have a thing in this country called "the separation of church and state" or, as I call it in layman's terms, "the tough shit law." But they also seem to have forgotten that the New Testament is the Christian Bible and the Old Testament is the Jewish Bible. Please allow me to speak on behalf of my people: "Keep your fucking Christian Right noses out of our reading material!"

The Catholics have it right. I love what they do. That whole "the pope's infallible" thing is tremendous. Let's face facts: If you took somebody with no religious leanings whatsoever and locked that person in a psych ward with nobody around and no stimuli, the Catholic religion is exactly what he'd come up with.

"Listen to this. There's this old guy in a dress, see? He wears all these great costumes and whatever he says, about anything from birth control to what to watch on television, that's it, 'cause pope knows best. He can't lift his head up, but, fuck, he's a genius."

Allow me to explain how our federal government works. To begin with, by the federal government I mean Democrats ad Republicans working together. And the only thing dumber than a Democrat and a Republican is when those pricks work together. You see, in our two-party system, the Democrats are the party of no ideas and the Republicans are the party of bad ideas. It usually goes something like this. A Replubican will stand up in Congress and say, "I've got a really bad idea." And a Democrat will immediately jump to his feet and declare, "And I'm gonna make it shittier."

Learning to be a comic is like learning to be a boxer with your hands tied to your sides. You just take hit after hit, and while you are getting pummeled, you figure out, Wow, if I just did this, I wouldn't get hit. Then you get hit again. I was knocked out a lot. But I learned a lot. I learned I would probably not be much of a comic.

I had never imagined watching a grumpy and not very good-looking middle-age man rant and rave about all kinds of ridiculous shit could be so entertaining until I rented Lewis Black's Red, White and Screwed from Netflix. I've been his loyal fan ever since. And when he came to perform at Sacramento Convention Center, I of course bought a ticket to the show.

My ticket, however, was really cheap (Although I'm a big fan of Lew, don't forget the fact that I'm also a student and broke.), so I had to sit in the back row. The stage was soooooooo far away from me. But anyway, when Lew made his appearance and opened his mouth, I forgot all about my poor underprivileged seat and started to laugh my head off. I could just sense his hilarious rage radiating and radiating all the way from the stage to me. At times, he even seemed genuinely pissed off! People spent their money to see this man angry. Think about it. Doesn't that sound a bit odd?

Well, I think Lew is a genius. Anyone can be funny, but to be funny in a very unique way like Lew, you must have a hell of a talent. I had a great time watching him that night and when I went to bed, I was still laughing in my dream.