THE QUOTABLE SAHL

or MORT WIT. 101


If you're new to the world of Mort Sahl, and also have a website-browser's attention
span, here are a few quick "laugh bytes" from the 60's through to the 90's, by way of
"Introduction to Mort wit 101."

Oh...the blinking buttons...they mean nothing. Websites are supposed to have eye-catching graphics. Which are very impressive — if you're twelve!
That was a digression. And a paraphrase of a Mort joke. Here's the real material...


"Most people past college age are not atheists. It's too hard to be in society, for one thing. Because you don't get any days off. And if you're an agnostic you don't know whether you get them off or not."

"There are Russian spies here now. And if we're lucky, they'll steal some of our secrets and they'll be two years behind."

"'She looks great but what'll I say to her in the morning.' I'm searching for the new maturity: she looks great, but I have nothing to say to her now."

"A Yuppie is someone who believes it's courageous to eat in a restaurant that hasn't been reviewed yet."

"I've arranged with my executor to be buried in Chicago. Because when I die, I want to still remain active politically."

"I met this girl...very aggressively...I just walked up to her and I said "Who are you? I have to know who you are." It's a good opener, but you can't sustain that level of excitement. Later on chicks start complaining the relationship doesn't have that much drive anymore. You have to remind them, "I'm the guy who ran up and said "Who are you?" And they always say "Well, you never do that anymore." And you have to say "Yes, and I still don't know who you are."

"I took a course at Cal once called Statistical Analysis. And there was a guy in the course who used to make up all his computations and he never used Sigma. He used his own initials. 'Cause he was the standard deviation."

"Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen."

"I took benzedrine - I got clairvoyance. With benzedrine you can have a very wide view of the world, like you can decide the destiny of man and other pressing problems, such as which is the left sock?"

"He was wearing a velvet shirt open to the navel. And he didn't have one. Which is either a show business gimmick, or the ultimate rejection of mother."

"There were four million people in the Colonies and we had Jefferson and Franklin. Now we have over 200 million and the two top guys are Clinton and Dole. What can you draw from this? Darwin was wrong!"
The following were culled by The New York Times (April 27, 04) as among their favorites from Mort's show at the Village Theater:


MEL GIBSON "A perfect example of how you can go wrong if you love your parents."
COSMETICS "There's so much Botox around now that you can't tell when a Jewish girl is angry."
COLIN POWELL (after a traffic accident) "I told the driver not to take the turnpike, but I had no influence."
MICHAEL EISNER "Say what you will, he made the monorail run on time."
SEAN HANNITY "Isn't it possible for them to get a real fascist instead of this guy who plays one on TV?"
DIANE SAWYER "If you're really having a run of bad luck, she walks with you in a field."
COMEDY "It has changed. It isn't funny anymore."
COMEDIANS "They want to wear their AIDS buttons to the Academy Awards to make sure Norman Lear can hire them."
PRESIDENT BUSH "He's the face on the can. But who canned that soup?"
LIBERALS "God is watching us. If we support someone we don't believe in and say he's electable, then God will make sure he's not elected and hope we do better the next time."

anyway,backward