Bill Maher: Want

“I don't want to be a pessimist. I'm a realist. One man's realist is another man's pessimist.”

Bill Maher

Larry King Live interview (2010)
Context: I don't hate America. I love America. I want it to be better. The only way we can get it to be better is to realistically criticize what's wrong with it. That's not what the Republicans do. … I don't want to be a pessimist. I'm a realist. One man's realist is another man's pessimist. But, no, I'm not like Mitt Romney, whose book is called No Apology, the Case for American Greatness. Really? Always waving the big foam number one finger; we're not number one in most things. We're number one in military. We're number one in money. We're number one in fat toddlers, meth labs, and people we send to prison. We're not number one in literacy, money spent on education. We're not even number one in social mobility. Social mobility means basically the American dream, the ability of one generation to do better than the next. We're tenth. That's like Sweden coming tenth in Swedish meatballs.

“I don't hate America. I love America. I want it to be better. The only way we can get it to be better is to realistically criticize what's wrong with it.”

Bill Maher

Larry King Live interview (2010)
Context: I don't hate America. I love America. I want it to be better. The only way we can get it to be better is to realistically criticize what's wrong with it. That's not what the Republicans do. … I don't want to be a pessimist. I'm a realist. One man's realist is another man's pessimist. But, no, I'm not like Mitt Romney, whose book is called No Apology, the Case for American Greatness. Really? Always waving the big foam number one finger; we're not number one in most things. We're number one in military. We're number one in money. We're number one in fat toddlers, meth labs, and people we send to prison. We're not number one in literacy, money spent on education. We're not even number one in social mobility. Social mobility means basically the American dream, the ability of one generation to do better than the next. We're tenth. That's like Sweden coming tenth in Swedish meatballs.

Love , Hate , Way

“That's the problem with the Drudge-Rush-Fox axis-of-evil news bubble. Nothing gets into these people's heads. They only listen to what they want to hear. They listen to what confirms what they believe.”

Bill Maher

Larry King Live interview (2010)
Context: That's the problem with the Drudge-Rush-Fox axis-of-evil news bubble. Nothing gets into these people's heads. They only listen to what they want to hear. They listen to what confirms what they believe. And what they believe is what they got from these people to begin with.
You know, when Glenn Beck had his big rally on the mall, he said something like — he at one point said, "Today, I was holding George Washington's inaugural in my hand." No — you can't do that — it's in Plexiglas. You can't — it's 200 years old. You can't give that to people to pass around and smudge up with their grimy fingers. But it didn't matter, because it never matters to these people because nothing they say is ever fact-checked. The governor of Arizona talks about how illegals — you saw this on the news — were beheading people in Arizona. When the press asked her about it, because it was patently untrue, she just ran away. Sarah Palin never talks to the press because they might ask her a question that she doesn't have a pat answer for. They know they don't have to deal with reality, because they don't have to go to what used to be the mainstream press.

People , Problem , Evil

“Be out of the mainstream. I'm out of the mainstream. I enjoy it, who wants to be in the mainstream?”

Bill Maher

Victory Begins at Home (20 January 2004)
Context: Now if you're just out of the mainstream, if you don't have blind Bush love, you are somehow suspect. Don't ever let them tell you that. Be out of the mainstream. I'm out of the mainstream. I enjoy it, who wants to be in the mainstream? When Ronald Reagan was running, he would always say 'it's morning in America' and everybody would smile and I would think 'yeah but, I'm not a morning person'. I'm the guy who thinks religion is bad and drugs are good. I think children aren't innocent, god doesn't write books, and Jesus wasn't a republican. I think girls hate each other, no doesn't mean no and being drunk is funny. I'm for mad cow disease, how am I gonna win that? I'm against suing tobacco companies. I think abstinence is a perversion. I think Bush's lies are worse than Clinton's. I think Vegas was better when it was run by the mob. I think men are only as loyal as their options. I think stereotypes are true and rehab is for quitters.

“We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, that's not cowardly. Stupid maybe, but not cowardly.”

Bill Maher

Politically Incorrect (17 September 2001); this statement created controversies which resulted in this series being cancelled.

Stupidity

“I think the guy was mostly a coke dealer, but I didn’t do coke. I never understood that drug. If you want to be edgy and nervous, go to work.”

Bill Maher

But I'm Not Wrong (2010)

Guy , Thinking

“The Partnership for a Drug Free America? Please, make me laugh and gag at the same time with that title. They're a lobbying arm for the liquor and prescription drug industries. They don't want a drug-free America, they want an America free of the drugs that are their competition.”

Bill Maher

Prozac doesn't want to go up against marijuana, it will lose.
Be More Cynical (2000)

Time , Marijuana , Partnership

“There’s only one faith, for example, that kills you or wants to kill you if you draw a bad cartoon of the prophet. There’s only one faith that kills you or wants to kill you if you renounce the faith… obviously, most Muslim people are not terrorists. But ask most Muslim people in the world, if you insult the prophet, do you have what’s coming to you? It’s more than just a fringe element.”

Bill Maher

Bill Maher: Jeff Poor, "Bill Maher: Comparing violence of Islam to Christianity ‘liberal bullsh*t’ [VIDEO"], The Daily Caller, April 20, 2013 (archived).

People , World , Faith , Drawing

“Muslims still take their religion too seriously, whereas we have the good sense to blow it off. Catholics don’t follow the Pope. In overwhelming numbers they divorce, they have pre-marital sex, they masturbate. And unlike the Koran, no one here seriously considers following the Bible literally. Guys don't look over their fence on Sunday morning and see a neighbor mowing the lawn and think, "Working on Sunday? I really should kill him."… But, before I conclude, it should in fairness be noted that, in speaking of Muslims, we realize that of course the vast majority are law-abiding, loving people who just want to be left alone to subjugate their women in peace.”

Bill Maher

"The South Park Mohammad controversy" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUEaMA4gRIk
Real Time with Bill Maher

Love , Women , People , Peace

“I want to thank some very special people without whom I would not be here today. George Bush, Sarah Palin and the Pope. When I came to Hollywood in 1983, I had one dream— to sleep with Jodie Foster. That didn't work out, but this is nice, too.”

Bill Maher

On getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (14 September 2010), as reported on Larry King Live (14 September 2010)

People , Dreams , Sleep

“I want to always be an interloper. I never want to feel like I'm a guy who is embraced by the people who are putting me on the air. I want to feel like I broke into the studio and took over and made them mad. If I'm not doing that, I'm not doing my job.”

Bill Maher

Larry King Live interview (2010)