Penn and Teller - Bullshit! Quotes

Alan Kors: What unversities are saying by these codes, special protections and double standards to women, to blacks, to hispanics, to gay and lesbian students, is: "You are too weak to live with freedom. You are too weak to live with the First Amendment." If someone tells you you are too weak to live with freedom, they have turned you into a child.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Penn discusses the 2001 Patriot Act.]
Penn: The lawmakers didn't even read the law before they passed it. Assholes! All that protects us from their evil is their incompetence.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Penn discusses the 2001 Patriot Act.]
Penn (voiceover): We can get more federal agents. Wow. What do we have to give in return?
[cut to penn and teller]
Penn: We have to give the government more power, but what power? The patriot act is "an act to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes". Other purposes? What the fuck is that all about? Other purposes. You shouldn't even allow that kind of loose language in a fucking gym membership contract.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Penn tells a campfire ghost-story version of the Texas ghost investigators' hotel experience.]
Penn: And then, the pseudo-scientists dressed in leather stumbled clumsily around the well-lit bedroom. One of them said, the night before, she felt a presence. And the other two… believed her! A battery… went dead. And then the video screen got… got a little weird for a few seconds. They took lots and lots of pictures, and weeks later, when they were developed, a couple of them had lens flare, and they didn't remember fucking up the pictures! And then, the electromagnetic gizmo, that they hadn't calibrated at all… (Dramatic voice) WENT FROM "3" TO "7"! (Teller faints)

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Penn: You'd think our Bullshit! experiment would settle the whole "gay" thing. But then there's this asshole!
Hans Zyger: As the homosexual movement became much more entrenched into American culture starting in the late 60's...it really became an opportunity for pedophiles to make a mass assault on the Boy Scouts.
Penn: Fuck you in the neck, mother fucker!

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Penn introduces the subject after mentioning a few examples.]
Penn: These people call what they do "cryptozoology" — "-zoology" meaning "the study of animals", and "crypto-" meaning "shit we made up".

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Penn closes the show.]
Penn: There are so many people in the world who need our help, that it's sickening to spend all this money on pets. What about people? Couldn't all the money spent for fake dog balls, diamond collars, and cat food be spent to help people? Sure it could! But I have original mono copies of Bob Dylan's early albums […] Teller has an original bondage cross and handcuffs that Houdini owned […] We both spend three bucks for a cup of coffee, and live in houses that are way more than our families need. All that money could certainly go to helping people, too. Pets are more bullshit that people waste money on. But fuck, we're in glass houses on this one.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[In the segment on American Indians, Penn reviews past wrongs.]
Penn: The white man gave Indians blankets laced with smallpox, massacred them, broke every treaty they signed, and stole their land. And let's not forget F Troop.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Teller entertains diner guests with a floating bread roll trick while Penn continues.]
Penn: Manners are habits we can cultivate to help us remain considerate of others, even when we're not thinking about it. Of course, real thoughtful consideration for others can easily replace manners. Teller considers that our guests might like to see how the trick works. Thank you, Teller.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Penn: In a recent poll, eight out of ten Americans said rudeness is a serious problem. The other two told our pollster to fuck off!

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Dr. John Mayer: My postulate is that people are rude---
Penn: Oh! There it is! Thank you, folks! Good night everybody!
[The credits roll, but then cut back to the show]
Penn: What? There's more show? Damn!

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Gloria: If you're in a restaurant with a tablecloth, you do not eat a hamburger with your fingers. Rather, you take your knife, cut it in half, and eat one half.
Penn: (voice over) Have some self respect Gloria. If the chef at this world-class restaurant thought his hamburger would be better eaten in halves, he would have cut the fucking sandwich himself!! You ignorant, self-serving, kill-joy, nit-picking, burger-cutting bitch!! Whore! Asshole! Cunt.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[The scene cuts to a woman walking through a parking lot carrying large manila shipping envelopes.]
Penn: To learn about abstinence, we told our producer we wanted to talk to a woman with really… huge… envelopes. He's foreign. He didn't know that in America, every plural noun means "tits".

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Steve Trombley, Chicago president/CEO of Planned Parenthood, talks about "abstinence only" programs.]
Steve Trombley: I think, in fact, we should really call it "ignorance only" education.
. . .
Steve Trombley: We teach abstinence in every course we do…
Penn: [voiceover] Yeah! Planned Parenthood tells kids not having sex is okay, too! The difference is they realize that kids don't fucking listen.
Steve Trombley: But we also live in the real world, and we know that over half of teenagers in this country engage in sexual activity.
[Cut back to Elders.]
Joycelyn Elders: We've tried ignorance for a thousand years. It's time we try education.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Penn: Now, we're not saying you should have sex because so many other people are. We're saying you should make your own rules, decide what's good for you, based on what you think is important. And don't let anything be thrust into you against your will — not a dick, and not someone else's psycho-religious kink.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Penn: So what have we learned? The U.S. government continues to dump hundreds of millions of our dollars a year into misleading, religion-based, anti-sex education. The only good thing about the program? It doesn't work. Most kids just ignore it. Sure, we're throwing away money, but only really religious kids are hurt by it. Our religion-based government can't fuck us up on this because bullshit detection is written into our genes. The sex switch gets turned on at puberty, and no matter how much government or religion twists the truth, they're fighting the honest beauty of love and sex. That's like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Penn talks about how people should not try to stop eating because we are wired to eat.]
Penn: If you have the willpower to overcome several billion years of evolution, cool, more for the rest of us. And you can stop fucking too, cool, more for the rest of us. Thanks.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Penn: You know, our pal Marvin Minsky, pioneer of Artificial Intelligence at MIT, says: "I don't work out because we don't know yet enough about the long-term effects. It appears that each hour of exercise may add two hours to one's life - but I don't know of any evidence that this leads to getting better ideas."

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[A hippie scene, while Teller is painting a Wal-Mart vest on a woman's otherwise bared torso]
Penn: Now hold on, this isn't some Wal-Mart lovefest. Sometimes, they're really assholes. In 2000, Wal-Mart reportedly paid $50 million to settle a lawsuit filed in Colorado by 69,000 workers who had been forced to work off the clock. In December 2005, Wal-Mart had to pay $172 million to 116,000 California employees for not giving them their legally-mandated 30-minute lunch breaks. So that's at least, uhh... 185,000 people who had a legitimate beef. And, uhh...don't spread it around, but I'm kinda-sort've a Target guy myself.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Penn: The fight to stop Wal-Mart has happened in small towns and big cities alike, all across the country. We went to one of those towns: Greenfield, Massachusetts, population 18,000. Greenfield is not just "Everyone's Hometown". It is, most importantly, my hometown.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Penn stresses the importance of colon cancer screening, while displaying images from his own colonoscopy.]
Penn: And then there's this asshole... Sometimes it must seem like I'm talking out my asshole. This time, I literally am.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[After hearing a colonic irrigation "therapist" say that a colonic irrigation treatment cleans out junk that lodges in a subject's colon]
Penn: That's bullshit. Your colon is not an English muffin. It doesn't have nooks and crannies. If we didn't put Chris through all this stupid shit today, he would've simply shat out all that shit tomorrow. It's as easy as that.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[A videotape of an exorcism is shown. On video, the minister prays over the subject, pours oil on his head, and then throws a bucket of water over him.]
Penn: (Voiceover) Apparently these demons are vulnerable to a splash of olive oil. Maybe they're made of low density lipoproteins?
Subject: [on video] Ugggh! Get away from me! You motherfucking asshole!
Penn: (Voiceover) Took the words right out of my mouth.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[Two Hispanic men looking like Penn & Teller come up to the camera. The subtitles are in the corresponding (inaccurate) translation of the language - English subtitles for spoken Spanish, Spanish subtitles for spoken English]
Faux Penn: Me llamo Penn Jillette, y éste es mi socio Teller. ¿Qué chingados está pensando este güey? Los inmigrantes tomamos los trabajos que nadie quiere hacer y eso mejora--
[Translation: My name is Penn Jillette and this is my partner, Teller. What the fuck is that asshole thinking? "Illegal" immigrants are taking the jobs that no one wants to do and that's quickly improving our way of life.]
Penn: What the fuck? What the fucking fuck? What the f-- get the fuck out of here! These are our jobs! What the-- what the fuck? Star! These are our jobs!
[Translation: ¡Largate de aqui! ¡Estos son nuestros trabajos! ¡Star! ¡Estos son nuestros trabajos!]
Star: [off camera] But the other guys are cheaper!
[Translation: Pero los otros tipos son mas baratos.]
Penn: You are so fucking fired. And turn off this subtitle shit! This is America!
[Translation: Estas tan despedido, pendejo. ¡Apaga ese pinche subtitulo. Estamos en los Estados Unidos!]
[Teller kicks the subtitle header, it veers off view]

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Faux Penn: Mientras América ofrezca la libertad y la oportunidad, las personas vendrán aquí con las rodillas manchadas de sangre. ¡Simón, güey! Cómo sus abuelos o bisabuelos lo hicieron. Una persona valiente para dejar su casa, la tradición, y la familia, para venir a América y trabajar para una mejor vida, para él o para ella misma y su familia, deberán de recibirlos con los pinches brazos abiertos.
[Translation: As long as America offers freedom and opportunity, people will come here on bloodied knees. Fuck yeah! Just like your parents or great grandparents did. A person brave enough to leave home, tradition, and family, to come to America and work for a better life, for him or herself and his or her family, should be welcomed with open fucking arms.]
Penn: And if you can mow lawn, or build fences, or juggle, or do tricks, or write comedy better or cheaper than what we've got, we'll hire your fucking ass. And will use all the time and money and effort you're saving us to-- to live a little. And you know, it's still our names on the fucking show. See, I told you we'd get tits in the show somehow.
[Translation: Y si tu corta cespedes o costruye las cercas, o juegos malabares o, hace las artimanas o escribe la comedia mejor o mas barata que lo que hemos obtenido, emplearemos la bola de cabrones. Y utilizaremos todo el tiempo y el dinero el esfuerzo que salvas, a vivir un poco. Y tu sabes, todavia estan nuestros nombres en el show. Ya ves, que de alguna manera los agaramos.]

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Penn: "Provide a Clear and Comprehensive National Mandate for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Individuals with Disablities." That's what the americans with disabilities act says it's gonna do. What the fucking fuck? What is wrong with us? Have we all gone fucking crazy? We think the government is so good at what it does, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on war. The government is so fucking good at that, they can fucking do anything? They can make us all physically equal, they can heal the lame, they can make the fucking blind fucking see! How about the government sticks to courts, police, defense, and corruption, and leaves compassion to people that fucking have that! Motherfuckers!

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Penn: Decadence is a freedom with a smile.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Howard Richmond: It sounds a little pompous, but I do believe that I have a gift to tune into people. Some people would refer to it like I'm the psychic pianist.
Penn: It's not pompous to say you're psychic. It's BULLSHIT TO SAY YOU'RE PSYCHIC!! But I digress. I'm not angry.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
[talking to an orgasm session participant who just met his partner 20 minutes ago]
Participant: We can get very intimate very quickly by doing this without going through long conversation and the usual uh, challenge that people, you know, through words.
Penn: Ahhh, wait. I have a Dickwad to English dictionary here... he means, uh, "who actually wants to go through the hassle of having to actually talk to the bitch?"

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!
Penn: Uh-oh. Looks like there's trouble at Orgasmo University.

TV Show: Penn and Teller - Bullshit!