The reason Im in this business, I assume all performers are — its Look at me, Ma! Its acceptance, you know — Look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma, look at me, Ma. And if your mother watches, youll show off till youre exhausted; but if your mother goes, Ptshew! – Lenny Bruce
Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it. – Lenny Bruce
All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, Id be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover. – Lenny Bruce
The Miss America contest is the most perfectly rendered theater in our culture, for it so perfectly captures what we yearn for: a low-class ritual, a polished restatement of vulgarity, that wants to open the door to high-class respectability by way of plain middle-class anxiety and ambition. – Gerald Early
We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destruction and the certainty of death. The thing is to see how long the theater, the play, and the human being can last in spite of themselves. – James Thurber