Tom Lehrer

It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.

— Tom Lehrer

My last public performance for money was in 1967. For free, it was 1972, with the exception of two little one-shot, one-song things. But that's just for friends, out of friendship for the people involved, and also because it was fun.

— Tom Lehrer

Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

— Tom Lehrer

Andrew Wiles gently smiles, Which could've used some enlargin'.

— Tom Lehrer

No one is more dangerous than someone who thinks he has "The Truth". To be an atheist is almost as arrogant as to be a fundamentalist. But then again, I can get pretty arrogant.

— Tom Lehrer

I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics?

— Tom Lehrer

I would like to state at this time that I am not now and have never been... a member of the Boy Scouts of America. Their motto is, as you know, "Be Prepared!" and that is the name of this song.

— Tom Lehrer

Don't solicit for your sister, that's not nice, Unless you get a good percentage of her price.

— Tom Lehrer

If you're looking for adventure of a new and different kind, Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, don't be scared. Be prepared!

— Tom Lehrer

I always like to make explicit the fact that before I went off not too long ago to fight in the trenches, I was a mathematician by profession. I don't like people to get the idea that I have to do this for a living. I mean, it isn't as though I had to do this, you know, I could be making, oh, 3000 dollars a year just teaching.

— Tom Lehrer

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. Only be sure always to call it please "research".

— Tom Lehrer

In all probability And lose the ability.

— Tom Lehrer

I hold your hand in mine, dear, As a precious souvenir.

— Tom Lehrer

You know, of all the songs I have ever sung, that is the one I've had the most requests not to.

— Tom Lehrer

I'd like to take you now, on wings of song as it were, and try and help you forget for a while your drab, wretched lives.

— Tom Lehrer

All the world seems in tune As we poison the pigeons in the park.

— Tom Lehrer

When they see us coming, the birdies all try an' hide,To poison a pigeon in the park.

— Tom Lehrer

Oh, soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife. Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life. Oooh.

— Tom Lehrer

There once lived a man named Oedipus Rex, 'Cause he loved his mother.

— Tom Lehrer

His rivals used to say quite a bit That he loved his mother.

— Tom Lehrer

Yes, he loved his mother like no other, He sure knew who a boy's best friend is.

— Tom Lehrer

The usual jokes about the Army aside, one of the many fine things one has to admit is the way that the Army has carried the American democratic ideal to its logical conclusion, in the sense that not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on the grounds of ability.

— Tom Lehrer

I recall this sergeant's informing me and my "room-mates" of this rather deplorable fact the army didn't have any official, excuse me, didn't have no official song and suggested that we work on this in our copious free time.

— Tom Lehrer

I ache for the touch of your lips, dear, As we dance to the Masochism Tango.

— Tom Lehrer

Take your cigarette from its holder, As we dance to the Masochism Tango.

— Tom Lehrer

"Life is like a sewer — what you get out of it depends on what you put into it." It's always seemed to me that this is precisely the sort of dynamic, positive thinking that we so desperately need today in these trying times of crisis and universal brouhaha.

— Tom Lehrer

We will all go together when we go Oh, we all will go together when we go.

— Tom Lehrer

I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that

— Tom Lehrer

Any ideas expressed on this record should not be taken as representing Mr. Lehrer's true convictions, for indeed he has none. "If anyone objects to any statement I make," he has said, "I am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I ever made it."

— Tom Lehrer

I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity. I'm for it.

— Tom Lehrer

But don't panic. Base eight is just like base ten really — if you're missing two fingers.

— Tom Lehrer

The loveliest girl in Vienna You'd never be free of her spell.

— Tom Lehrer

And that is the story of Alma, Was one that had known how to live.

— Tom Lehrer

I feel that if any songs are gonna come out of World War III, we'd better start writing them now.

— Tom Lehrer

Get in line in that processional, Time to transubstantiate!

— Tom Lehrer

So get down upon your knees, And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!

— Tom Lehrer

During National Brotherhood Week various special events are arranged to drive home the message of brotherhood — this year, for example, on the first day of the week, Malcolm X was killed, which gives you an idea of how effective the whole thing is. I'm sure we all agree that we ought to love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings — and I hate people like that!

— Tom Lehrer

Oh, the white folks hate the black folks, Is an old established rule.

— Tom Lehrer

Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks, It's American as apple pie.

— Tom Lehrer

Step up and shake the hand You can tolerate him if you try!

— Tom Lehrer

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics And everybody hates the Jews.

— Tom Lehrer

It's only for a week so have no fear! Be grateful that it doesn't last all year!

— Tom Lehrer

What is it that put America in the forefront of the nuclear nations? And what is it that will make it possible to spend twenty billion dollars of your money to put some clown on the moon? Well, it was good old American know how, that's what, as provided by good old Americans like Dr. Wernher von Braun!

— Tom Lehrer

Don't say that he's hypocritical, That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

— Tom Lehrer

I really don't consider myself a performer by temperament.

— Tom Lehrer

I don't appreciate poetry--I don't mind admitting that now, I don't understand poetry. We studied it in high school and college, but they never told us why it was good. I got A's on all the exams--"Hail to thee blithe spirit, bird thou never wert"-- what the hell does that mean? I have no idea.

— Tom Lehrer

I remember when Richard Pryor said something about how in South Africa, all the black people should pick up guns and kill all the white people, and they went right on with the interview, and nobody stopped him on that. "Oh good old Richard, what a card." As long as you're billed as a comedian, I guess you can say anything.

— Tom Lehrer

I think the people who say we need satire often mean, "We need satire of them, not of us."

— Tom Lehrer

People are stupider than anybody.

— Tom Lehrer

I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them. … And that's not funny. … OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire.

— Tom Lehrer

Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good. I have become, you might call it mature — I would call it senile — and I can see both sides. But you can't write a satirical song with 'but on the other hand' in it, or 'however'. It's got to be one-sided.

— Tom Lehrer

The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines.

— Tom Lehrer

One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness … Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack.

— Tom Lehrer

The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted. The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be.

— Tom Lehrer

You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes … but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.

— Tom Lehrer

Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.

— Tom Lehrer

Laughter is involuntary. If it's funny you laugh.

— Tom Lehrer