Judith Butler Quotes

Before I was a Discordian, I took life much too seriously. When you take life too seriously you start to wonder what the point of it all is. When you wonder what the point is in life, you fall into a trap of thinking there is one. When you think there is a point, you finally realize there is no point. And what point is there in living like that? Nowadays I skip the search for a point and find, instead, the punch lines.

The great question of philosophy remains: If life is meaningless, what can be done about alphabet soup?

How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world, given my waist and shirt size?

I had to philosophize. Otherwise, I could not live in this world.

Existentialists are monumentally and monotonously serious; they don't like to joke.

I think it's really tragic when people get serious about stuff. It's such an absurdity to take anything really seriously ... I make an honest attempt not to take anything seriously: I worked that attitude out about the time I was eighteen, I mean, what does it all mean when you get right down to it, what's the story here? Being alive is so weird.

If life is so meaningless, then why are we always bringing it up?

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly; Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?' Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; Man got to tell himself he understand.

The meaning of life consists in the fact that it makes no sense to say that life has no meaning.

Basically I'm a very serious person, but I think the form it takes with me is comedy. I see the amusing side of all potentially pompous situations.

Making fun of philosophy is really philosophising.

I love Twinkies, and the reason I am saying that is because we are all supposed to think of reasons to live.

There is no other world. Nor even this one. What, then, is there? The inner smile provoked in us by the patent nonexistence of both.

Sex is pretty funny, let's face it. And the more seriously we take ourselves, the funnier sex gets, I think.

And I wonder if there is really any point to what I'm doing, or what I'm supposed to make of a world where a man can get rich playing "let's pretend

Had I not become a footballer, I think I would have been... a virgin.

Coleridge cried; "O God, how glorious it is to live!" Renan asks, "O God, when will it be worth while to live?" In Nature we echo the poet; in the world we echo the thinker.

The generality of men expend the early part of their lives in contributing to render the latter part miserable.

I was like, what the hell is my life coming to? I'm a trained actor! I've done Shakespeare and here I am having farting contests with an imaginary dog!

What's the matter?'' She immediately started laughin. ''What's the mattter? Everything is the matter! Rocks! Trees! Atoms! Even anteaters! Everything is the matter!

If life is not real, life is not earnest, and the grave is its goal, perhaps it's ridiculous t otake ourselves so seriously.

Could anything be absurder than a man? The animal who knows everything about himself--except why he was born and the meaning of his unique existence.

The last living boy in America drops into my bedroom only he wants to be a monk. I think that pretty much sums up my life.

Life is too important to be taken as a joke, but too ridiculous to be taken seriously.

Life should be taken ironically; otherwise, it becomes a tragedy.