“I was always laughing in church.”

Got a head full of lightning, a hat full of rain.

I’ll tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past.

I like Thelonious Monk, he’s so gnarled, he’s like a piece of machinery that’s pulled up the bolts on the floor and gone off on its own.

The dog won’t bite if you beat Him with a bone.

And the earth died screaming, while I lay dreaming.

Mostly I straddle reality and the imagination. My reality needs imagination like a bulb needs a socket. My imagination needs reality like a blind man needs a cane.

I put food on the table and roof overhead. But I’d trade it all tomorrow for the highway instead.

I’m not fighting for justice. I am not fighting for freedom. I am fighting for my life and another day in the world here.

Bill Hicks – blowtorch, excavator, truthsayer, and brain specialist. He will correct your vision. Others will drive on the road he built.

Well I got a bad liver and broken heart, yeah, I drunk me a river since you tore me apart.

I think all songs should have weather in them. Names of towns and streets, and they should have a couple of sailors. I think those are just song prerequisites.

Not the kind of wheel you fall asleep at.

A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.

Writing songs is like capturing birds without killing them. Sometimes you end up with nothing but a mouthful of feathers.

We have a deficit of wonder right now.

If there’s one thing you can say about mankind, there’s nothing kind about man.

Like us many have spoken over this spring, but they were gone in the twinkling of an eye. We conquered the world with bravery and might, but we did not take it with us to the grave.

Only to finally get the barbarian pleasure to punish them in an excessive way, of no use for himself, without them changing their ways and without their example preventing others from committing crimes.

A woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.

All religious notions are uniformly founded on authority; all the religions of the world forbid examination, and are not disposed that men should reason upon them.

Fanaticism in religion is the alliance of the passions she condemns with the dogmas she professes.

You are not naked when you take off your clothes. You still wear your religious assumptions, your prejudices, your fears, your illusions, your delusions.

Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?

By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars.