Jim Jefferies Quotes

We've seen the uproars around the world concerning cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad. Anyone who does not think comic strips are relevant never had a fatwa put on him/her for drawing a picture.

I didn't plan to be the rude middle-class comedian. You write a certain type of joke that you find funny, and mine happen to be often rude. Yes, it's juvenile, but that's me.

Some comedians tell nice jokes that you can tell to your kids. Some use bad words - they work 'blue.' If you don't want to hear a joke that's blue, you shouldn't go to a comedy club where a comedian who makes blue jokes is performing.

I've learned to have absolutely no regrets about any jokes I've ever done. You can tune me out, you can click me off, it's OK. I am not going to bow to political correctness.

In Germany, people are saying, "George W. Bush is an asshole. Osama Bin Laden is an asshole." But then I make jokes about Auschwitz, and how the Germans are lederhosen-wearing sausage freaks - and they hate me for this! And I'm like, "You all are sitting there because you want to relax and have a nice evening, and now you're pissed because I put also a mirror in front of you."

Every group needs a comedian. A comic who is politically incorrect at the Berkeley campus might slay them at a Klan rally.

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

Depictions or expressions of sex, violence, crime are all permitted virtually without limit; but religion, it seems, never.No wonder many in America seem to believe that the court has become one more inclined to protect pornography than to protect religious expression.

The jokes were perfect! Then George Carlin started talking about the seven dirty words you can't say on television, then it evolved into social commentary.

You can never talk religion on network TV. It makes too many people angry. You can talk about sex.

Well probably the coolest show of that whole tour was in Germany. I had a chunk of material on [Adolf] Hitler, and I was worried about how they'd react, but they loved it.

I don't like jokes about sex or bodily functions or drug use or the difference between New York and L.A. I never do any of that.

You live your comedic life close to the edge, you're gonna cross the line and offend people.

People would say I never censor. As Billy Crystal says, 'I don't have that button.'

In our day, you can mock religion in public and even get funds for doing it. But you can't show respect for religion in public - or you risk being hauled into court.

I think that, honestly, people's censorship issues are personal but I disagree with most of those personal choices that I see others make. You know, I watch television and there's a grotesque amount of violence on almost every show that you would watch that comes on past 8:00 pm. And I think my dirty brand of humor is far less destructive to a child's mentality.

The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition.

In civic life, I think that's where you can debate what is good taste and what is acceptable to other people, and what's gonna offend people. Do that there, but leave it out of art, because art is the one frontier that shouldn't have restraints put on it.

Society bends over backward to be accommodating to religious sensibilities but not to other kinds of sensibilities. If I say something offensive to religious people, I'll be universally censured, including by many atheists.

There is a place in this world for satire, but there is a time when satire ends and intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others begins. Religious beliefs are sacred to people and at all times should be respected and honored. As a civil rights activist of the past 40 years, I cannot support a show that disrespects those beliefs and practices.

To me, racist jokes are not funny. I am politically correct, in a weird way. I like to push the boundaries that are politically correct.

Secretly everybody's getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That's the kiss-ass generation we're in right now. We're really in a pussy generation. Everybody's walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren't called racist.

There's a big thing right now with people using stand-up as a scapegoat. People think comedians have the power to change someone in an hour. If we had that ability, the art would not be legal. It would too dangerous.

Somehow freedom for religious expression has become freedom from religious expression.

I make fun of people who are religious, because they're fundamentally weak.