Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car."
Life is a near-death experience.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life is filled with challenges and struggles that can make it feel like a constant battle with mortality.
George Carlin’s quote suggests that the experience of living is fraught with difficulties that often remind us of our mortality. By describing life as a 'near-death experience,' he highlights the absurdity and seriousness of existence, suggesting that the challenges we face can make us feel as though we are constantly on the brink of death, both physically and metaphorically. This perspective encourages us to reflect on the nature of life and our existence within it, blending humor with a profound truth about the human condition.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about overcoming struggles, one might quote Carlin to emphasize the challenges we all face.
More from George Carlin
All quotes →If you've got a cat and a leg, you've got a happy cat. If you've got a cat and two legs, you've got a party.
This is a lttle prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this: Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation but deliver us from the twilight's last gleaming. Amen and Awomen.
Some people try to get out of jury duty by lying. You don't have to lie. Tell the judge the truth. Tell him you'd make a terrific juror because you can spot guilty people.
Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.
Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.
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I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else.
Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together," Pulitzer wrote. "An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
If we leave our smells behind us when we leave a room, surely something of our souls must remain when we leave this life?" - Qyburn
So the day became one of waiting, which was, he knew, a sin: moments were to be experienced; waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come and the moments one was currently disregarding.
There is no point asserting and reasserting what the heart cannot believe.