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George Carlin, who died Sunday, was brilliant at observational humour -- be it quirky, tame, vicious, sharp, acid-tongued, political or apolitical. Examples (some edited for a daily newspaper):
"Some people look at the glass and see it as half-full. Other see it as half-empty. I see a glass that's twice as big as it should be."
"Religion easily has the greatest bull---- story every told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of 10 things he does not want you to do, and if you do any of these 10 things he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry, forever and ever, till the end of time. But he loves you."
"Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy."
"Why do we drive on a parkway, and park on a driveway?"
"Some time during my life toilet paper became bathroom tissue. False teeth became dental appliances. Information became Directory Assistance. The dump became the landfill. Car crashes became automobile accidents. House trailers became mobile homes. Used cars became previously owned transportation. And constipation became occasional irregularity."
"When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?"
"We're so self-important. Everybody's gonna save something nowadays. And the greatest arrogance of all: Save the planet. What?! Are these ----ing people kidding me? Save the planet? We don't know how to care for ourselves yet, and we're gonna save the ----ing planet? I'm tired of Earth Day. I'm tired of these self-righteous environmentalists -- these white, bourgeois liberals who think the only thing wrong with this country is there aren't enough bicycle paths, people who try to make the world safe for their Volvos. Besides, environmentalists don't give a s--t about the planet. They don't care about the planet -- not in the abstract they don't. You know what they're interested in? A clean place to live: Their own habitat. They're worried that some day in the future they might be personally inconvenienced."
"Besides, there's nothing wrong with the planet. Compared to people, the planet is doing great! It's been here four-and-a-half billion years. And we've only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over 200 years. Two hundred years vs four-and-a-half billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we're a threat? The planet has been through a lot worse than us: Earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages. And we think some plastic bags and aluminium cans are going to make a difference?"
"Is a vegetarian permitted to eat animal crackers?"
"I've never understood why prostitution is illegal. Selling is legal. Sex is legal. Why isn't selling sex legal? Why should it be illegal to sell something that's perfectly legal to give away?"
"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?"
"I'm getting old. And it's okay. Because thanks to our fear of death in this country, I won't have to die. I'll 'pass away.' Or I'll 'expire' like a magazine subscription. If it happens in a hospital, they'll call it a 'terminal episode.' The insurance company will refer to it as a 'negative patient-care outcome.' "
"The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backward. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old-age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work 40 years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating -- and you finish off as an orgasm."