On Location: George Carlin at Phoenix (1978 TV Special)

George Carlin: Self

Photos 

Quotes 

• George Carlin : Even the word cocksucker itself has been twisted out of all its original meaning. It's been distorted; for some reason, now "COCKSUCKER!" means "bad man". It's a good woman. How did they do that?

• George Carlin : We have more ways to describe dirty words than we have dirty words.

• George Carlin : Farts are fun! Farts are shit without the mess!

• George Carlin : I wonder, if a centipede wants to kick another centipede in the shins, does he kick one leg at a time or does he stand on fifty and kick with fifty?

• George Carlin : [about taking "motherfucker" off the list of seven dirty words]  And by now, cocksucker is the dominant word on the list. Previously with motherfucker on the list, cocksucker was somewhat balanced out. They were the only multisyllabic words on the list, but now cocksucker stands alone. Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, tits. And who knows? Maybe it doesn't belong, either. After all, motherfucker turned out to be a ringer. Let's take a look at cocksucker.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : See if this one belongs; we'll divide the word cock and sucker from each other, those words. Sucker isn't dirty; sucker, that's... it's suggestive as hell, but it isn't dirty. And cock... that's not dirty all the time. That's one of those words that's only partly filthy. Cock, if you're talking about the animal, it's perfectly all right. They used to read that to us from the Bible in third grade. And we would laugh, man.

  [laughter] 

  George Carlin : "'Cock' is in the Bible!" Remember the first time you heard about a cockfight?

• George Carlin : Someone was quite interested in these words. They kept referring to them: they called them bad, dirty, filthy, foul, vile, vulgar, coarse, in poor taste, unseemly, street talk, gutter talk, locker room language, barracks talk, bawdy, naughty, saucy, raunchy, rude, crude, lude, lascivious, indecent, profane, obscene, blue, off-color, risqué, suggestive, cursing, cussing, swearing... and all I could think of was: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits!

• [during a bit, someone throws a bottle of Visine onstage] 

  George Carlin : Visine! Do they look that red?

  [after a few moments, someone throws a joint onstage] 

  George Carlin : Oh, now I *know* I need it!

  [Carlin squirts a few drops of the Visine onto the joint, then throws it to an audience member] 

  George Carlin : Would you hold on to that? Now *you're* under arrest.

• George Carlin : [from the 'News Headlines' bit]  A man who was-A man who was schedul-This is one where you're gonna moan but I'm gonna do it anyway.

  [three or four audience members moan] 

  George Carlin : Okay. A little pre-moaning. That's nice.

  [someone throws a bottle of Visine at George's feet] 

  George Carlin : Visine. Do they look *that* red? Would you hold that for me?

  [a joint falls onto the stage] 

  George Carlin : Hey, *now* I need it!

  [George squirts several drops on the joint] 

  George Carlin : It's like starting a fire for the charcoal burner, you know? God. Well that's gonna be nice. That'll really-well anyway will you hold both for me? Now *you're* under arrest! Here comes the Wisine as we say in the middle part of Europe. Well, there ain't much of this left but there is one final story that I would like to wind up with folks and I do thank you for that visine but I didn't smoke at half-time so if they're red it's just natural eyeball blood pressure or whatever you call that shit. I was-the one you were gonna moan about I was gonna tell about a man who was scheduled for a heart transplat who decided not to have it. He had a change of heart you know.

  [the audience moans and George giggles happily] 

  George Carlin : I love that shit! I know why you're moaning because you wish you thought of the goddamned thing yourself! I have to think that.

• [from the 'News Headlines' bit] 

  George Carlin : The surgeon general announced today that saliva causes stomach cancer. However only when swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time.

• George Carlin : I wonder which came first: skilled workers or unskilled? No one decided. I figure, originally, all we had was workers. And then they decided, "This is hard!" And they call themselves skilled! Then someone else came along that couldn't do it. Poor unskilled son of a bitch. They moved right past his ass. He was just a landing area.

• George Carlin : [about being bothered by time]  You've had people come up to you and say, "What time is it? What time is it?" As if you personally were responsible for keeping time? You know, I feel honored, first of all, that they thought I was the man in charge. Well, I do have to explain, "You don't see official timekeeper on here, do you?" I don't have the time, of course not. Do you have the time? That's another way they say it: "Do you have the time?" I say, "No. I don't believe I do. I certainly didn't have it this morning." "Did you leave it somewhere? Well, do you have the time?" "No, I don't have the time. I use a little of it like everyone. But I don't have it. I think the Navy has it." In Washington, isn't it? They keep it in an observatory, that's right. Sure, they let out a little of it each day. Not too much. They wouldn't want to give us too much. Just enough.