# Doug Stanhope

Doug Stanhope (born 25 March 1967) is an American stand-up comedian.

## Something to Take the Edge Off (2000)

* Are there any vice cops in here? You dicks. How do you do that for a living? I don't understand. I first read these stories and I think, "Don't you have real crime to fight somewhere?" But then you think about it. Vice cops don't fight real crime. That's not their job. Real cops fight real crime. A vice cop's only job is to fuck up the party.
* I hate when your friends quit drinking on you, don't you? It's sad. I've lost more friends to A.A. than Liberace did to the virus. It's sad to see 'em go. You see a thirty day chip on your buddy's key ring, it's like seeing a toe tag on his cold, stiff corpse.
* Life is like animal porn. It's not for everyone.
* Suicide is another thing that's so frowned upon in this society, but honestly, life isn't for everybody. It really isn't. It's sad when kids kill themselves 'cause they didn't really give it a chance, but life is like a movie. If you've sat through more than half of it and it sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the very end for you and make it all worthwhile. No one should blame you for walking out early.
* Babies are like poems. They're beautiful to their creator, but to other people they're silly and fucking irritating.
* I couldn't be a responsible enough parent if my kid was born with a new suit and a full-time job.

## Word of Mouth (2002)

* If you really believe that death leads to eternal bliss, then why are you wearing a seatbelt?
* "Drugs support terrorism"? No, your SUV supports terrorism.
* I had a girl say this to me. She goes, "You know, if God intended women to suck dick, he'd have made cum taste like chocolate." I said, "Yeah, but he had to make it taste like bleach so you remember to do the laundry."
* I've been playing the CNN Drinking Game. Have you ever played that? Where you do a shot every time George Bush says the word "evil"? Oh, I'm a wreck! You gotta do a double shot every time he says "evildoers". Chug the bottle for "axis of evil". Are you a president or an exorcist?!
* "A national day of prayer"? Does that scare the spine out of anyone? Especially when you consider that it's all those dogshit religions that start these fucking wars to begin with. Ninety percent of every war that's ever been fought is because of some made-up, mind control, completely fictional religion. You never hear in the news, "200 killed today when Atheist rebels took heavy shelling from the Agnostic stronghold in the north"? No, it's because you got a silly, placebo religion, 'cause you don't want to admit that you don't fucking know.
* Don't learn from other people's mistakes. That's the worst advice you could ever get. Other people are fucking morons. Wrestling's the number one show on cable television. You're gonna learn from their mistakes? They're fuckin' tools! You might be the first guy who could to do it right and be a hero for all of us. Take a chance and learn to fly there, Orville Wright!
* America may be the best country, but that's like being the prettiest Denny's waitress. Just because you're the best doesn't mean you're good.

## Die Laughing (2002)

* It's thirty days since the terrorist act. George Bush has told us to go back to our normal lives and to go back to what we used to do, so I've gone back to thinking that George Bush is a soft-headed tit and a danger to all of us.
* Does anyone get upset that George Bush keeps quoting the bible in all his fucking speeches? Does that get on anyone's last nerve? Does it ever occur to him that it's all those stupid fucking religions that start all this shit in the first place? National day of prayer? Fuck you! You think you're doing something? You're not. You can sit at home and cry jinx and keep your fingers crossed, too; it does as much good. You wanna pray? Pray all day. Pray on your own time. You wanna help? Grab a shovel and start digging there, pinwheel, 'cause it looks like your god takes Tuesdays off.

## Deadbeat Hero (2004)

* The problem with this country is that old folks vote. We got shit to do, old folks don't, the only thing they have to do is judge you and vote.
* If you're gonna have a pro-drug argument, start the argument where it starts: I have the right to do what ever the hell I want to my own body. If it kills me slowly, happy for me, fuck you, "clack clack" [miming a pump-action shotgun] stop me!
* All illegal narcotics are medicinal. Boredom is a disease worse than cancer. Drugs cure it, with little or no side effects if used as directed. Life's temporary for a reason. It gets boring after awhile. You should be inventing new drugs is what you should be doing! Newer, crazier drugs...and more holes, that's what you ladies need!
* There's only two types of people who are against drugs: the people who have never done drugs and the people who really sucked at doing drugs.
* Complaining that a comic is drunk is like going to a titty bar and complaining because your lapdancer is a communist.
* With all the horrible, horrible shit that your priest is pumping into your kid's head, his dick should be the least of your worries, honestly. That's just a little mouthwash and a few years of therapy'll get rid of that. That Jesus shit will torture you for a lifetime.
* If marriage didn't exist, would you invent it? Would you go, "Baby, this shit we got together, it's so good, we gotta get the government in on this shit. We can't just share this commitment 'tweenst us. We need judges and lawyers involved in this shit, baby. It's hot!"
* You have options when it comes to abortion now. It's not like 1955, when you just had to kick her down a staircase and hope for the best...you feed her a tapeworm and hope it takes a left at the Y.
* [on his ex-wife's abortion] Has anyone had an abortion? You're all rapt with attention now, all of a sudden, so I assume you all have. It's a fucking horrible thing to go through. And not horrible in that "Oh, it's a living thing, what are we doing?" Fuck the living thing. A genital wart is a living thing. If it's gonna irritate you for life, burn it off, right? Bladder cancer is alive and growing like a baby in you. If you try to remove that, I'll protest you and say "stop playing god." … Before you actually go and get all quiet and pissy like I'm some asshole about this, keep in mind I'm just telling you the parts that I think are funny. You don't know the reason we had... The reason we had an abortion was... It wasn't because... It wasn't frivolous. We didn't have an abortion because we weren't ready to take care of a child, we were irresponsible, or because we're not financially capable of taking... The reason we had it is 'cause I really wanted to see what it felt like to kill a baby.
* [on people who join the military] As long as the people who kinda wanna go kill other people are going to go kill other people who kinda wanna go kill other people, you're killing all the right people and opening up all the best parking spaces.
* You were born free, you got fucked out of half of it, and you wave a flag celebrating it.
* They say if you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish.... then he's gotta get a fishing license, but he doesn't have any money. So he's got to get a job and get into the social security system and pay taxes, and now you're gonna audit the poor cocksucker, 'cause he's not really good with math. So he'll pull the IRS van up to your house, and he'll take all your shit. He'll take your black velvet Elvis and your Batman toothbrush, and your penis pump, and that all goes up for auction with the burden of proof on you because you forgot to carry the one, 'cause you were just worried about eating a fucking fish, and you couldn't even cook the fish 'cause you needed a permit for an open flame. Then the health department is going to start asking you a lot of questions about, "where are you going to dump the scales and the guts?" "This is not a sanitary environment," and ladies and gentlemen, if you get sick of it all at the end of the day... not even legal to kill yourself in this country. Thanks again, John Ashcroft, you weird bible addict, can't even handle your own drug. You were born free, you got fucked out of half of it, and you wave a flag celebrating it. [audience member]: Hey, don't hold back! [Doug]: You got an argument? [a.m.] No, keep goin'! … The only true freedom you find, is when you realize and come to terms with the fact that you are completely and unapologetically fucked, and then you are free to float around the system.
* [in regards to the subway breakfast sandwich not being available after 11AM] I'll go, "Uh, hey man, uh, gimme an egg and cheese," and the kid will say, "I'm sorry, sir, it's after 11, we put all that stuff away." You didn't put it away...it's in the second green cabinet, it's right there. This place is as big as a photo-mat, there is no "away" in the building, you don't own "away". There's no Brink's truck that pulls up at 11:02 and yanks out the eggs under armed guard.
* Mutations are exciting. They try to fix 'em when they come out. Did you see the two-headed baby they killed last month when they tried to cut it apart? That was hilarious!

## No Refunds (2007)

* New York is baffling in that it's a city that prides itself on being an absolute shithole. It's like, there's nothing good here, people are proud of that, they're happy. "Oh, it's overpriced, and it's overpopulated, and it stinks like piss, and comics! — comics film specials here!" And they all open with a joke about, "Yeah, you spend eight thousand dollars a month for nine square feet!" And you go, "Well, why do you fucking live here?" Why do people stay here?.. But unfortunately, this is where comedy works — where people are the most miserable. Like, I'd rather be filming a special on a beach in Costa Rica in a tiki bar right now, but they don't need comedians, they're already smiling, they're already happy — naturally! So that's why I'm doing a special here — 'cause it's the last fucking place I wanna be.
* Pussy really is the main motivating factor in all of humankind. It really is. It's what gets shit built. [reacting to applause from the audience]: I'm not "yeah" for pussy. This is a flaw in the system, don't clap for it! [I'm] saying, they know that is a catalyst, and that's why religion and government have to control supply and demand of pussy. And they do that by heaping shame upon you should you want to give away more than the "federally allocated recommended daily allowance of pussy". "Oh, she wants to suck more than one dick?! Whore! Shun your natural instinct, whore, or nothing'll get built!" — It comes down to production, it really does. They have to keep that pussy like a dangling carrot, something that's hard to get so he keeps running on the treadmill, building more shit, sending out more boxes to the dollar store, pointless shit that no one needs. That's why cocaine is illegal: it makes pussy too easy to get.
* Jesus died for your sins. I'm doing it for your mere entertainment dollar.
* Why would you die for someone's sins? Your sins are the only thing interesting about you, you dreary, bleak motherfuckers.
* I'm kinda out of shit. Not in this set, I mean I have some stuff I put on paper. But in the long term, I think I'm outta shit. [I'm] fucking cannibalizing my own— seventeen years, how much more do you have to say? If I die soon, don't ever say I died too young. [...] Every time an artist dies young - Kurt Cobain, or whatever, there's always the people, "It's so sad, he had so much more to give." How do you know? Maybe he was out of shit. How do you know? He's done. He got all the money, he did all the drugs, he fucked all your holes. And that's the American Dream, and when you're done with that you go, "Oh, that's why they call it a dream. It's bullshit, I'm still empty." And he cashed out. How do you know what any artist had left? How do you know if Jimi Hendrix hadn't had died he wouldn't have wound up doing Super Bowl half-time duets with Elton John right now?
* Nationalism does nothing but teach you how to hate people that you never met. And all of a sudden you take pride in accomplishments you had no part in whatsoever, and you brag about — and the Americans'll go, "Fuck the French! Fuck the French! If we hadn't had saved their ass in two World Wars, they'd be speakin' German right now!" And you go, "Oh, was that us?" Was that me and you, Tommy, we saved the French? Jesus! I know I blacked out a little bit after that fourth shot of Jägermeister last night, but I don't remember... I know we went through the Wendy's drive-thru to get one of them "Freschetta" sandwiches that looked so alluring on the commercial, but then we ordered it and realized we had no money, and we had to ditch out before the second window, and those douchebags in line behind us with the bass music probably got our order and we laughed about that. But I don't remember savin' the French. At all! I went through the last ten calls on my cell phone and there's nothin' incoming or outgoing to the French, lookin' for muscle on a project! I checked my pants, there's no mud stains on the knees from where we were garroting Krauts in the trenches at Verdun. I think "we" didn't do anything but watch sports bloopers while we got hammered. I think "we" should shut the fuck up!
* Well, you know these immigrants, they come to our country, they burden our tax system. What they do is they come here and get into our education system and our health care, and I gotta pay the taxes. My taxes have to pay that. Well, what the fuck are you doing to me every time you have a kid? Every time you have a kid, because it's American, I should pull up a chaise lounge and wave a flag while 15 of those things come out of you? Oh, I can't wait to pay for these! They're American! I have a vasectomy and an abortion on my record, but I can't wait to pay for your fucking fat-headed midwestern kids. Love it! I'll take a second job.
* At least black people knew when they were slaves. You remain clueless.

## From Across The Street (2009)

* You know the funny thing about child pornography: [...] the lack of credits at the end. No ego on that side of Hollywood, is there? "Who did the editing on this film, it's seamless! I want to use him on my independent documentary!" But no names. Not even a nom de plume. Some people are in it just for the art.
* Old people are getting into fights now in town hall meetings about health care. You don't fucking deserve it! Everyone else has health care, "But we need health care. Canada has health care, everyone else does..." You think Americans deserve health care? Have you looked at this fucking horrible fat fuck country? Slovenly, sedentary lazy fat fucks! You don't even try! Once you get free health care, "Oh yeah, fucking Sunday afternoon, buy four stuffed crust Cheesy Bread Cheese pizzas, and you'll get a Meaty Meaty Pork Pie Pork Bacon pizza for free with 12 Cinna-loaves!' [imitates glutton sounds, stuffing his face] "That's a pretty good deal!" [more gluttony sounds] "You know, what else we need is free health care, too!" [more gluttony sounds] "My diabetes is so bad, I can't even feel my feet!" [more gluttony sounds] "I have open fissures in my leg muscles so deep you can put your whole finger there!" [more gluttony sounds] "Who's gonna pay for my amputation?!" [more glutton sounds] "If I was in Amsterdam, they'd pay for my amputations 'cause they have free health care..." You know what else they have? BICYCLES! And they use them! [briefly sings "Entry of the Gladiators" / "Barnum and Bailey's Favorite" theme] You get nothing free. You gotta try on your own a little bit! We live in a country where the face of fitness is Jared from Subway! That's your goal! It used to be like Jack LaLanne or Charles Atlas or some shit, dragging a tugboat with his teeth across the Hudson river. Now it's some guy that's still kinda fat. He's not as-fat-as-he-could-be fat, or he-used-to-be fat, but he's still kinda fat. That's what you should aspire to! You wouldn't fuck Jared with the lights on, c'mon! That's your goal? That's awful! You can't give Americans free shit 'cause "free" is used as such a buzzword for gluttony. Like it's been used in advertising so much. "Buy one, get one free," "free with purchase," "free samples" at the grocery store... "Oh, Black Forest Ham! I never tried Black Forest Ham!" [more gluttony sounds] Turn your hat backwards so they don't recognize you when you go back! "Vermont cheese, what's that?" [more gluttony sounds] They do the same shit with free health care! "They said it's free, let's get something fucking checked. I got an itch, or a scratch, or a bite or a lump. Let's get this checked out! Doctor, I got a spot! Check it out for free!" "It's a fucking coffee stain! It's not even on your skin, it's on your shirt!" "Well, let's get a biopsy of that! That could be precancerous, right? It's free — get my money's worth..."

## Oslo: Burning The Bridge To Nowhere (2011)

* Put your fucking camera away, you stupid fucking tourist of life! There's a whole generation of shitheads just filming every fucking thing they do. "I'm gonna film my entire life and watch it later!"
* I don't like when minorities tell me that I can't understand racism because I'm white. I go, "No, you can't understand racism 'cause you're not white. I hear the shit they say about you when you leave the room! They don't hold back on my account."
* We live in a world where people will have a GPS and a crucifix on the same dashboard — and you want me to have hope for these fuckin' monkeys on swing-sets?
* Tradition and heritage are all dead people's baggage. Stop carrying it. Move forward.

## Before Turning the Gun on Himself (2012)

* There's no such thing as addiction, there's only things that you enjoy doing more than life.
* I love homosexuality, I promote it, you fuck and you don't leave fuckin' garbage on the earth because of it.
* If you're offended by any word, in any language, it's probably because your parents were unfit to raise a child.
* If you listen to anyone bitch about the economy for long enough, just let them talk, ;cause you'll eventually hear why it's exactly their fault. And not just Wall Street people, just dumbfucks at a lunch counter in Flint, Michigan. "I'm just a simple man, with a simple wife and four simple children, and I just want an honest day's work. Y'know, Obama's exporting all or jobs overseas, now I can't even find work." You sad motherfucker– Hang on a second! Did you just say you had four children?! Wait, wait, you have four children? In Flint, Michigan? ...Do you know how much it costs to raise a kid? The average cost to raise a single child to the age of seventeen is now $227,000. Almost a quarter of a million dollars! You have four of the fuckin' things! In Flint, Michigan! ...Next time you hear some sad sack on 60 Minutes bitching about how he got fucked over by the economy, instead of children, imagine he said quarter of a million dollar toys, fuckin' boats and... "Yeah, when they started laying off people in the late '80s, I made it through the first round of cuts. I said, 'Baby, I don't know what's gonna happen in the future, so let's get a quarter of a million dollar Lamborghini.' And then I got the pink slip, got a six-month severance package, so I said, 'Okay, baby, we're really on shaky ground now, we'd better get a beach house and a speed boat.' And now I can't even find work because of Obamanomics. My wife's pregnant with a quarter of a million dollar who-knows-what-it's-gonna-be. I'm a victim." No, you're a gambling addict! You made a million dollar wager, and ya lost! You made a million dollar wager, on spec, with no money in the bank to back it up, and now the mob is comin' to take your thumbs!
* You wanna feel bad for someone in a down-turned economy, I'll give you someone...prostitutes. Because a prostitute doesn't have that same "worst case scenario" B-plan that we all enjoy. No matter how shitty things are going for you on the job, "Danny, if they lay off anymore people, I'm gonna be out on the streets sucking dick for a living. I got nothin' else. I'm serious." Hooker doesn't have that same safety net. Hooker's already out there, sucking dicks.
* [on Keynesian economic theory as applied to private sector independent contracting] "Ask Milton Friedman's dead Jew corpse what he thinks about the current economic crisis, and he will tell you... You better strengthen up your shit-pussy, baby!

## Beer Hall Putsch (2013)

* Proof of the afterlife is this: if there were no afterlife, how could my mother have bought me and my friends so many nice things from the SkyMall catalogue on her credit card four days after she passed from this Earth? Answer me that, Your Honor! Answer me that! In fact, I'd like to enter these credit card receipts into evidence against the advice of my attorney! [...] That last piece of that story has special meaning to me because in my entire career, that's the only chunk of material I've ever had that had a statute of limitations before I could comfortably tell it on stage. Three year statute for credit card fraud, after that: fuck you.
* As an openly gay comedian, I feel a responsibility to talk about a lot of issues that-- What? Are you gonna test me? You don't know if I'm lying. I can be as gay as I want to be up here, fuck you. What, are you going to strap me to a chair and blow loads in my face to see if I'm fibbing when I say I love it?
* I love homosexuality, I defend it. But I hate faginess, because it's aesthetically unpleasing, the whole [frolics] "La la la la!" You don't have to do that. I have nothing against Jewish people, I hate Jewiness, the clammy [whiny] "Nyah nyah nyah, I get all... I'm allergic," personally that's unpleasing. I hate anyone who leads with their sexuality, homo or hetero. If I know your sexuality in the first 30 seconds of meeting you, you're fucking annoying. Heteros are the same way, if you have naked lady mud flaps or you go, "Oh, after your show you want to go to Hooters?" or you just watch the game for the cheerleaders, just go into a basement and jerk off, you fucking teenager, 13-year-old, and then come back when we can have a regular conversation.

## No Place Like Home (2016)

* The thing with the word "retarded" is that "retarded" is not like other epithets, it was not a word of hatred. Retarded was the medical definition, was actually a word actually born in sensitivity. 'Cause they used to call them, before retarded was the word, doctors would use "imbecile" or "moron". This is something a smart fuck at Harvard has labelled "The Euphemism Treadmill": moron and imbecile were the correct terms for a while, and what happened is we co-opted those words to call our friend when he does something incredibly stupid, to the point where it became an insult. So out of sensitivity, they changed the word to "retarded"... and what happened was we co-opted that word to call our friend when he does something incredibly stupid. So you can keep changing the word, and if you make the new one stick, that's what I'm going to call my friend. "Did you just put a metal plate in a microwave? What are you, developmentally disabled? You don't fucking put a metal plate in a microwave, who doesn't know that?" You can make it as difficult to pronounce and Latin-based and medical-rooted, and if you make it stick, that's the new word I'm going to call my friend when he trips over his own shoelaces: "Ha ha! You just exhibited some of the atlantoaxial instability that is usually associated with the trisomie 21 genetic imbalance!"
* Every fucking week there's some celebrity or comic or an athlete that has to apologize for a caught on tape comment, or insensitive joke, a drunk tweet. And they have a press conference, and it's always something that's way weaker than the shit I say every night-- as a segue I say worse shit, nobody ever asks me to apologize. I wouldn't, but I wanna be asked one time. I've got way better shit than they do, I demand outrage for God's sakes, what do I have to do? I could've told that joke at the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance and people would go, "Huh? What'd he say? I wasn't listening."

## Miscellaneous

* Wanting more. Having your cake or eating your cake are fine. Not even wanting cake is where you get fucked.
** When asked, "What would constitute 'complete happiness' to Doug Stanhope (you)?" Doug Stanhope interview, MarkPrindle.com, 2007
* Whether the reasoning for these laws is insurance costs, more opportunities for random taxation through traffic stops, curbing lost production or any other justification that could be offered, the bottom line is that it isn't governments place. You own your body. No legislation should infringe on that.
** On legislation against drug use, driving without a seatbelt, and motorcycling without a helmet. Doug Stanhope interview, MarkPrindle.com, 2007
* The word addiction is used far too liberally in our society and I shy away from it. If I have any addiction, it would be nicotine. I would say alcohol is more of a compulsive habit for me. I have used different narcotics for roughly 20 years and I have always used them socially, sporadically and usually sparingly. I use cocaine occasionally and sometimes medicinally - before a third show Saturday, a bump of coke can make the difference between a strong performance and just phoning it in - and I've never developed any type of habit, never craved it the next day. I will use hallucinogens a few times a year as well, always in a safe environment. So far as an "early grave," I'm more concerned with quality of life. No sense in having a mint condition classic car if you're afraid to take it out of the garage. I look as sadly at people awash in hand-sanitizer and surgical masks in elevators as they might see me when I'm pouring booze down my head on stage.
** On his drug use. Doug Stanhope interview, MarkPrindle.com, 2007
* 2013 Moore Oklahoma Tornado. "If you think that didn't take balls, you've never been to Oklahoma. Saying 'I'm an atheist' in Oklahoma is like screaming jihad at airport security. That took some nuts. If you watch the footage, all the other victims are on the news thanking Jesus for only killing their neighbors and not them, while a crawler is on the screen telling me where I can text money to help them out. Fuck them. I don’t want Jesus getting credit for my 50 dollars. I’ll help that other girl out, that CNN's exploiting. Hell yes! She ain’t got no Jeebus. She gonna need money. So I did. I started an indiegogo fundraiser account and atheists ended up ponying up over 126,000 dollars just for little old her...and I couldn't get the smile off of my face for a week. I didn't do it because I felt sympathy because she got all her shit destroyed by a tornado. I did it simply to be a prick to her okie Christian neighbors, hoping that they were still eatin off of FEMA trucks when someone drove up and presented Rebecca with a giant cardboard check. It's funny how hate can make you do real nice things every now and then."

## External links

* Doug Stanhope's web site
* Quote Stanhope on Twitter
* Free Market Mojo interview with Doug Stanhope