Billy Gardell Quotes

When political correctness first started coming around, it ruined Andrew Dice Clay and Eddie Murphy's stand-up career. Sam Kinison died at just the right time, 'cause no one was going to tolerate what he was saying anymore either.

We don't apologize for a joke. We are comics. We are here to make you laugh. If you don't get it, then don't watch us.

Rushdie is a hostage.

What's great about stand-up is that you can say whatever you want and go around the country, and sometimes the world, and work on it and see how people react. You don't need Standards & Practices or notes from lawyers or producers to tell you what's funny.

You go, well you can't joke about race. Well if you're from a different race and that's your experience of the world and you want to talk about that, then fine. Or you can't talk about disability, but disabled comics can talk about that.

It's easier not to make a particular joke in case it offends. But every joke will offend someone, and I've always believed that the audience is bigger than one person. The danger is that things will become bland.

I've been shot at on numerous occasions.

Comedians have a huge carte blanche and the ability to get away with saying a lot of things.

I won't forget the hood. I won't forget the days of catching a bullet on the way to the mailbox or bricks with death threats that somehow made their way through the window.

Death to intellectuals!

Dissenters will become food for crocodiles.

By silencing speech, the new Left makes life more dangerous by leaving violence as the only option. Maybe that's what they want.

Humour or comedy should not offend anyone.

People used to shoot their guns while I was MCing.

I don't look at comedy as a sliding scale of offensiveness.

Yes, I've received death threats.

I can't imagine how traumatic it must be to have a gun pointed to your head for no reason at all.

Comedy is very interesting because you can very quickly cross into dangerous territory. I mean look at what happened, unfortunately, (in) Paris a couple of weeks ago. They were making comics - which were really satire - but it offended people. I'm not saying the reaction was justified but there's definitely a line when you're doing comedy or satire and how it might affect somebody. That's the thing you have to watch and I think you have to be respectful of it.

People sometimes pay with their lives for saying aloud what they think. In fact, one can even get killed for giving me information. I am not the only one in danger. I have examples that prove it.

I'd heard that Lenny Bruce used a lot of profanity and obscenities in his act, and I was curious.

I want to go where the guns are!

I'm a nightclub comic. That's what I do. I work in the clubs uncensored because my mind is uncensored, and those are the thoughts that I have. I do the kind of comedy that I would enjoy seeing.

I've gone out with my shotgun. This is hunting country out there. You better run.

I remember, particularly, a trip to Bosnia where the welcoming ceremony had to be moved inside because of sniper fire.

The blade itself incites to deeds of violence.