Most-quoted character in Penn & Teller: Bullshit!: in 91 of its 101 quotes Most scenes with: Teller (3)
Lines by Penn 69
Penn
[Penn explains why there is so much vulgarity on the show] You'll notice much more obscenity than we usually use. That's not just because it's on Showtime, and we want to get some attention. It's also a legal matter. If one calls people liars and quacks, one can be sued and lose a lot of one's money. But "motherfuckers" and "assholes" is pretty safe. If we said it was all scams, we could also be in trouble. But "bullshit," oddly, is safe. So, forgive all the bullshit language. We're trying to talk about the truth without spending the rest of our lives in court because of litigious motherfuckers!
Before we bust up this party—and God dammit we're gonna bust it up—we have to make it very clear where our hearts are. We have nothing but empathy for the people who are experiencing the loss and grief of the death of a loved one. That guy who lost his mom rips my heart out. I'm a momma's boy whose mom died a couple of years ago, and I'll never get over it, and my dad died at around the same time, and I was very close to both of them. I loved them so much there isn't a moment that goes by that I don't miss them. Houdini didn't really go nuts busting these mediums until he lost his mom. Once you've felt that pure grief, seeing it exploited can take away your sense of humor. Once a loved one has died, all we have is our memories of them. There is nothing more precious to me than my memories of my mom and dad. We don't give a rat's ass about the money these bastards are taking from the grief stricken; what we do care about deeply is the desecration of memories. These "performance artists" are, in a very real sense, motherfuckers. That poor guy's grieving memories of his mother are now all fucked up by somebody else's images. All he will ever have left of his mom are memories, and this pig has pissed on those for a buck and a little unearned fame. I'm sure these lame fucks tell themselves that they're easing the grief, but skits for money can not replace loving memories. How low do you have to be to exploit someone's true grief to sell some bullshit book?
One of the weird things Houdini discovered is that some of these mediums actually slip into believing their own bullshit. They forget their own misses, or as John Edward—"the Biggest Douche in the Universe"—does, rewrite them as hits that we're just not able to recognize. Cold reading can be done accidentally. That doesn't mean the psychic is a better person. Lying to themselves does not make lying to others OK. It can make intellectually lazy scumbags more convincing and dangerous. But even if these fucks know they're just making this shit up and pushing people's buttons, they tell themselves, "At least I'm comforting the bereaved." Who the fuck are they to decide that lying about the universe and a dead loved one is what the bereaved needs!? That's condescending bullshit!
[Opening lines. Teller is said to have a number of symptoms]
Penn
Teller's been feeling a little down lately. He's had bouts of low energy, low endorphins, delusions, hallucinations, depression, a touch of carpal tunnel syndrome, Lyme's disease, cataracts, glaucoma, sciatica, a few retinal disorders, cancer, acid indigestion, autism brain damage, macular degeneration, eczema, and most heartbreaking of all: bed-wetting. We're gonna see if we can cure him without the bother of going to a doctor. Let's try some bullshit!
[on the subject of Feng Shui] You know, Teller, I find it silly that some people think that how you arrange your furniture can affect your health. It seems so...so...so...hmmm, stupid. [drinks out of Penn & Teller: Bullshit bottled water]
[on the subject of bottled water] Consumers are offered water with names conveying pure and pristine water sources. Ever hear of Alaskan Falls water? That must come from the crystal-clear glacial waters of our 49th state, right? Sorry, folks. Alaskan flows from this liquibox corporation building in Worthington, Ohio. Does the brand Yosemite conjure up visions of the cool, pristine waters rushing through California's high sierras? Well, then the marketers have done their jobs. The source of Yosemite bottled water is actually 400 miles away in Northwest Los Angeles. How about Everest Water? Could our piddly show possibly afford to send a camera crew to Nepal? NOT NECESSARY. Everest comes from the industrial section of Corpus Cristi, Texas! In fact, if you read the fine print on the FUCKING LABEL, they even admit that the water comes from a MUNICIPAL SOURCE! THAT IS TAP WATER, brothers and sisters of the cult of the bottle!
In much of the rest of the world, [drinking] tap water equals rapid and severe weight loss, with the introduction of new, probably harmful, friends to your intestines and other organs. Are we so ashamed of our wonderful tap water, that we have to disguise it?
[Teller is acting as a pet psychic by finding out what a turtle is thinking through ESP]
Penn
I'm a pet psychic... psychic! I can tell you what your pet psychic is thinking and feeling. Your pet psychic is thinking "This is safe. No one can contradict me and realize I'm lying. I don't even have the balls to be a human psychic. I feel like such a pile of bullshit!"
When he [Norman Borlaug] won the Nobel Prize in 1970, they said he had saved a billion people. That's BILLION! "BUH!" That's Carl Sagan billion with a "B". And most of them were of different race from him. Norman is the greatest human being. And you've probably never heard of him.
Throughout history there's never been an overabundance of food. All food is the product of technology; apples, corn, tomatoes, all modified. Every food has been changed through selective breeding or grafting. For ten thousand years each attempt at improvement has changed the DNA of the plant. Now some people are up-in-arms about changes in DNA. Well, you know what? If you’re able to get up and have food, you should celebrate. We should all dance about how much food we have. Why is anyone fighting food advance? A very small percentage of the world's population is fortunate enough to have the luxury of turning down food. The rest of the world spends most of its time trying to get any food. You know why? Technological problems. They got dirt, they got water, they got sun. They lack the technical ability to till or enrich the soil. They lack the machines to plant enough to feed their families. They lack the hybrid plants that produce more food per acre. We need to spread all the technology all we can, so all people everywhere can deal with the problem of too much food. We can't start getting picky because we've got enough food—that's just self-centered and racist. Unless you and yours are starving, YOU need to SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Penn & Teller: Bullshit! · 101 quotes
Penn