Real Time With Bill Maher quotes

There are some bad teachers out there; they don't know the material; they don't make things interesting; they have sex with the same student every day instead of spreading the love around. But every school has crappy teachers. Harvard has crappy teachers. They must, they gave us George Bush. But according to all the studies, it doesn't matter what teachers do – although everyone appreciates foreplay. What matters is what parents do. The number one predictor of a child's academic success is parental involvement. It doesn't even matter if your kid goes to private or public school. So save the twenty grand a year and treat yourself to a nice vacation away from the little bastards. It's been proven that just having books in the house makes a huge difference in a child's development. If your home is adorned with nothing but Hummel dolls, DVDs, and pictures of bleeding Jesuses, congratulations! You've just given your child the gift of "Duh".

I'm very glad that Obama is reaching out to the Muslim world, and I know Muslim living in America and Europe want their way of life to be assimilated more. But the Western world needs to make it clear, some things about our culture are not negotiable and can't change. And one of them is freedom of speech. Separation of church and state is another – not negotiable. Women are allowed to work here and you can't beat them – not negotiable. This is how we roll!

Instead of confronting real problems like the debt, or the environment, or Utah, we pick out the poorest, most defenseless kid on the block – illegal immigrants – and say, "What're you looking at?!" But I'll tell you something, you anti-immigrant hoopies – as usual you're mad at the wrong people. It was corporate America that busted your unions and didn't keep your pay up to the cost of living, causing your wife to have to go back to work, and Esmerelda having to come in and watch the kids.

That's the problem with our obsessions: to always see two sides of every issue equally, especially when one side has a lot of money. It means we have to pretend there are always two two truths, and the side that doesn't know anything has something to say. On this side of the debate: every scientist in the world. On the other: Mr. Potato-Head. There is no debate here; it's just scientists and non-scientists, and since the topic is science, the non-scientists don't get a vote. We shouldn't decide everything by polling the masses. This is the fallacy argumentum ad numerum, the idea that something is true because great numbers believe it, as in "Eat shit. 20 trillion flies can't be wrong."

The last decade, year, and month are all the hottest on record. And then there's the floods, the killing of the oceans, Category 5 hurricanes, giant wildfires, the vanishing water supply; you know, the little things. And yet deniers say "It's just a theory." As is gravity. Y'know, for progress to happen, certain things have to become not an issue anymore so we can go on to the next issue. Evolutions was an issue until overwhelming support among scientists made it not an issue. Devastating worldwide climate change is happening, whether you phone in for it or not. You can't vote for rain. What's real is what's real, and, like it or not, no one can change the nature of reality. Except with mushrooms and Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I think people get hung up on the word "religion." Hitlerism, Stalinism, Maoism were state religions. Hirohito in Japan was a god-like figure. The real crux of it is, anytime people give up on logic and put their faith in someone– Kim Jong-il in North Korea, the mythology around him...they said the first time he played golf he had eleven holes-in-one. That's religion!

If you think Michelle Obama is after your freedom because she merely suggests our kids should exercise more and eat a little broccoli along with their lard, you don't deserve a place in the free market of ideas, you belong at The Cheesecake Factory. She's not Stalin because she notices your kids sweat Mountain Dew....Now I'm not saying the right objects to Mrs. Obama's efforts because the Teabaggers are stupid, or their hysterical, or because they hate black people, though all of that is true...but what does it say about America when even a First Lady's suggestion has to be controversial? Especially when she picked something no one could disagree with – maybe we should send our kids outside to play.

We have this fantasy that our interests and the interests of the super rich are the same; like somehow the rich will eventually get so full that they'll explode, and that the candy will rain down on the rest of us; like they're some kind of piñata of benevolence. But here's the thing about a piñata – it doesn't open on its own, you have to beat it with a stick.

Now that it's become clear that Republicans, the fiscally-conservative, strong-on-defense party are neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense, they have to tell us what exactly it is they're good at. Because it's not defense: 9/11 happened on your watch; and you retaliated by attacking the wrong country; and you lost a ten-year game of hide-and-seek with Osama bin Laden; and you're responsible for running up most of the debt, which more than anything makes us weak. You're supposed to be the party with the killer instinct. But it was a Democrat who put a bomb in Gaddafi's bedroom and a bullet in bin Laden's eye like Moe Green.

Every election roughly half the population votes Democrat and the other half votes Republican. Now I understand why the Republicans get one percent of the vote – the richest one percent. That other 49% someone will have to explain to me. The facts about what the Republicans have done to the middle class are beyond reasonable doubt, and yet their base refuses to see it. The monied elite in America are dragging a bag filled with your future down the steps, and your reaction is "Hold on there, that looks heavy. Let me give you a hand getting it into your trunk."

Is it really that radical to suggest slightly trimming the tax break on corporate jets? It seems like a reasonable idea, given that, a) people who buy corporate jets are filthy rich, and b) I DON'T NEED A B!

Bush said his tax cut for the rich would create jobs. They didn't. We're now being told that if multinational corporations bring home their current overseas profits of $1.4 trillion, they'll only be taxed 5% on it...because we're told it will create jobs. It won't, just like it didn't the last time we tried it in 2004. Companies took the savings and paid it out to themselves in dividends. Yes, Republican base, you are just like that jury – it is pathetically clear who is killing the middle class, but you keep letting them get away with murder.

We can't throw around the word "sexist" just to stop people like me from pointing out that Michelle Bachmann, now running second for the Republican presidential nomination, isn't a dangerous nincompoop. And when I point out that Sarah Palin is a vainglorious braggart, a liar, a whiner, a professional victim, a scold, a know-it-all, a chisler; a bully who sells patriotism like a pimp, and the leader of a strange family of inbred weirdos straight out of The Hills Have Eyes...that's not sexist. I'm saying it because it's true, not because it's true of a woman.

I'm not really rich. I'm something far more noble I'm a job creator. [Heavenly chorus] Sort of the same way Patagonian tooth-fish became Chilean sea-bass. [chorus] But y'know what, just by suggesting, just by bringing it up, that he is going to tax me more, Comrade Obama has created an atmosphere of uncertainty that makes me skittish about creating more jobs, yeah, I have been so freaked out that today at breakfast I could barely butter my gold. You see, you poor people, you don't get how much "uncertainty" gives us job creators the willies. It's terrifying...like when you find out your private island has natives; or when your wife notices the maid's kid looks just like you; or when the limo driver tries to start a conversation. So tax me at a higher rate if you like, you're practically firing yourselves. Because I'll tell you something, I have been so shitting in my pants about this uncertainty thing, that yesterday I let go a dozen essential workers at my compound, including my Tivo programmer, my manscaper, the liposuctionist, my gardener's personal trainer, my dog whisperer, the lookalike I hired to foil assassination attempts, my private farmer, the lady who dispenses hand sanitizer after our pre-show prayer circle, the girl I pay to mistake me for Jon Hamm, and the guy who takes care of the shark tank. Which reminds me, I'm gonna have to let go two sharks!

Since the economy won't come back until we start buying stuff, and the only stuff Americans buy is anything from Apple or guns...Apple has to make a gun. Call it the iKillyou. Although if you want to get it to NRA members you probably can't sell it at the Genius Bar.