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The vast majority of people who have guns never hurt anybody.

Once you have somebody that is telling you, 'We are interpreting God for you,' it seems like you either agree or you don't. You either say, like Martin Luther, 'I'm going to have a direct relationship with the word of God,' or I'm going to go through a conduit of God on Earth,' which would be the Pope.

I'm totally clean and sober my whole life.

Even if I disagree with Obama on many, many things, he is certainly qualified to be president. He is certainly competent to be president.

For the most part, any serious magic show is not using very much technology newer than theatrical lights.

I like to read in the dark. I like to go into the bathtub, turn out all the lights, and in the dark, read my books.

I believe the fast track to atheism is reading the Bible. I've read it three times all the way through. It's a big part of our culture, a big part of our history. I don't just read things I agree with.

I think voting for the lesser of two evils in game theory always leads to more evil.

Whereas you have someone like Houdini, who works really, really hard to get really, really famous, and then has actual intellectual ideas that he puts into the culture that stay there.

When you're watching Psycho, there' s that moment when you have a visceral reaction to watching someone being stabbed. And then you have the intellectual revelation that you're not, and that's where the celebration comes in.

We knew that we were kind of odd and creeps, and we wanted to do odd, creepy stuff for people who wanted to see that.

We aren't people who believe that just because we're performers our opinions on everything need to be known.

The skills that we have are the actual magic skills - not the performing skills. We have to separate those. But the actual skills that make the tricks work, we don't get to use again.

The only place we were really told to tone it down - where other people would use the word censorship, but I wouldn't - was when we did MTV right after the Beavis and Butt-head thing.

The medium is not the message - the message is the message.

The First Amendment says nothing about your getting paid for saying anything. It just says you can say it. I don't believe that if a corporation pulls all the money out of you or a network pulls their money away or you get fired, you're being censored.

The fact is that violence gives you a rush.

Teller and I worked Renaissance Festivals and street performing - actually more real, no kidding around, Philadelphia street performing than we did Renaissance Festivals.

One of the things that Teller and I are obsessed with, one of the reasons that we're in magic, is the difference between fantasy and reality.

It wasn't success, because Teller and I, by the time Asparagus Valley got together - within a year, we had achieved all our goals. I mean, our goal was to earn our living doing exactly what we wanted. Which is many people's goal.

In my private life, I'm not around any drugs or alcohol.

If I go out to dinner with you and you order wine, I leave. I won't be around drugs and alcohol at all.

I've never had a drink of alcohol or any drug in my life.

I'm a hardcore libertarian - I want everything legal - but I also believe that you have the right to free association.

I'm a big fan of huge populations of people, so you'd think with 300 million people in the country, you don't even have to please 1% to be phenomenally successful.

But it's much more exciting to make Die Hard. One of the reasons that I think that movie is so successful is it deals with those very important blue-collar relationship themes. But it's more visually beautiful to show things blowing up. It just gives you more on the screen.

Before you can read, you know the difference between a story and reality. And, of course, by the time you're old enough to do any real damage with an Uzi, you've learned that difference.

I am a huge fan of proselytizing. I am a huge fan of speaking your mind. The only way we can share the universe... is by talking very strongly about what we believe.

If you want to talk about magic, the stuff that blows me away is the stuff that's done close up.

A joke is a way to say, 'I'm going to do something funny now. If I don't get a laugh at the end, I'm a failure.'

I was always a little embarrassed when there was an act on television that requires a great deal of skill but is a little goofy, and the host comes over and acts like the person doing this skill is some sort of fool for having learned to do something that's very, very difficult.

I started out as a juggler, so I know what it means to spend eight hours a day, seven days a week practicing something that people just dismiss with a wave of hand.

If there are two things Penn & Teller stand for, it's the truth & lying, although not necessarily in that order.

I think the media spends a lot of time fooling itself.

I don't know what's best for other people.

I came to magic absolutely hating magic on a very, very deep level.

Modern American magic, late 20th century magic, is tremendously disrespectful of the audience.

I think people under age 55 come to Vegas with a certain sense of irony.

When I buy Windows 98, I'm not only buying something useful, I'm giving money to Bill Gates, which is a really good thing.

Bob Saget is the dirtiest comic who's ever lived. Nobody touches him.

Magic is the Special Olympics of entertainment.

Comedy is taken care of by a free market.

Performers have the right to say what they want to, and anyone paying money has the right to accept or reject the art and entertainment that's available.

You have in Vegas the most heterogeneous audience you're gonna get anywhere in the country. In Boston, Chicago, Miami, you know who goes to the theater. In Vegas, you have people who only see one theater show a year, and it's in Vegas.

Poker would have never gotten on TV when we only had three networks.

Poker has the feeling of a sport, but you don't have to do push-ups.

I believe in individual rights so much that I don't like any sort of 'what's good for the cause'-type questions.

'Moxie' is a name that was created by an American for the first national soft drink and then went on to mean chutzpah, and that's nice.

It's only the losers named 'Dave' that think having an unusual name is bad, and who cares what they think? They're named 'Dave.'

The secret truth of 'Celebrity Apprentice' is that it isn't very hard... 'Celebrity Apprentice' is easy like junior high is easy. All the arithmetic, the creative writing and the history are super simple, but like junior high, you do that easy work surrounded by people who are full-tilt, hormone-raging bug nutty.

No one can tell you the rules of 'Celebrity Apprentice.' No one. Donald Trump just does what he wants, which is mostly pontificating to people who are sucking up to him, while the network people try to manipulate him into making the highest-rated show they can.

Charities are really good. To a certain extent, the ones you pick are arbitrary.

If you want to turn out an atheist child, unconditional love constantly is a good way to do it.

If I had to imagine omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent power in the universe that chose to make my mother suffer, I don't know how I would make that make sense in the universe.

If you spend a lot of time lying to people, you think a lot about what the truth means.

In reality, many people let go of religion later in life.

It is really funny to see people that you know acting unpleasantly just because there are TV cameras on.

I like things matching. I have an upright bass, a drum kit and a grand piano that's the same color. I tend to overthink things.

I'm very happy being big and effeminate.

My hair is way, way long. I've hitchhiked across the country a zillion times. I've ridden in every car. I was never a hippie. It takes more than long hair.

To drive a car in rural America is freedom. Before I had a car, I'd never seen a rock and roll show, I'd never seen a comic or a show.

I never wanted to be a magician. I never wanted to be a comedian. I never wanted to be onstage.

We celebrities are desperate pigs.

'Celebrity Apprentice' has more integrity and is the most straightforward show I've ever seen.

Tolerance is you saying something crazy and me smiling and saying, 'That's nice.'

Direct confrontation, direct conversation is real respect. And it's amazing how many people get that.

Penn & Teller stopped doing practical jokes, and the reason is we got much too good at it.

I'm not misunderstood. I am brash. I make my living being brash.

Technology adds nothing to art.

Part of the experience of being entertained is sitting back and plugging into someone else's vision.

I have a very specific definition of censorship. Censorship must be done by the government or it's not censorship.

As much as I disagreed with every second of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' the fact that it is out made me jump for joy.

I love when violent, dangerous art is done by people who are not violent and dangerous. I love that when George Romero was making 'Dawn of the Dead,' he was coaching his son's little league team.

I love the idea that horror and fear is a celebration of health and life.

The pure unadulterated disgust of Washington seems to me to be a really good thing.

When you look at the actual numbers, the number of people who died after 9/11 was greater than the number of people who died in 9/11, even if you are talking Americans. But you know, I don't like to talk Americans. I want to talk everybody. More innocent people died after 9/11 because of 9/11 than died in 9/11.

I don't believe in vengeance. Really, when all is said and done, I probably don't believe in punishment.

This is going to sound horrible, but I don't even know how much I make in a year. It must be, you know, a couple of million dollars, a few million. I know it's more money than my dad, a jail guard, made in his lifetime; more money than I'll ever need.

The vast majority of people who have mental illness problems never hurt anybody.

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