Doug Stanhope > Quotes

“Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you never met, and to take pride in accomplishments you had no part in.”
― Doug Stanhope

“Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and it’s sucked every second so far, it probably isn't going to get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early.”
― Doug Stanhope

“Children are like poems. They're beautiful -- to their creators -- but to others they're just silly and fucking annoying.”
― Doug Stanhope

“I kept a picture of me kissing my dad’s corpse on the forehead in my wallet for years. I’d break it out any time someone showed me a baby picture, just so they would know how it ends.”
― Doug Stanhope, Digging Up Mother: A Love Story

“Life is like animal porn, it's not for everyone.”
― Doug Stanhope

“If you start to smell some of the shit, you start smelling all of the shit”
― Doug Stanhope

“Everything that is going to kill you is extremely appetizing.”
― Doug Stanhope

“You can never really, truly, understand discrimination unless you've been fuckin' ugly. Ugly people face as much, or more, discrimination than any fuckin' minority group, and they have none of the...recourse. ... You don't have any group that's going to come together and fight for your rights...'cause there's no unity among the ugly. ... And ugly isn't even a minority! We're the fuckin' majority, and we still take the fuckin' backseat!
...
Any minority would rather be called the worst racial slur according to their group than pointed out as unattractive: someone calls you a nigger, a lot of people fuckin' bunch up around you and go 'what the fuck you say to him?!'; someone calls you dog-dick-fuckin'-ugly, you wear that all by yourself.”
― Doug Stanhope

“All that stuff, tradition and heritage. It's dead people's baggage. Quit carrying it.”
― Doug Stanhope

“Stop worrying about your credits and consider enjoying your day. You die at the end.”
― Doug Stanhope, This Is Not Fame: A "From What I Re-Memoir"

“I don't even understand the connection with 'died for your sins'. He died for your sin, well, how does one affect the other? 'I hit myself in the foot with a shovel for your mortgage'...”
― Doug Stanhope

“But every time an artist dies young, Kurt Cobain or whatever, it's always the people -- "It's so sad, he had so much more to give." How do you know? Maybe he was out of shit. He got all the money, he did all the drugs, he fucked all your holes, and that's the American Dream. And when you're done with that, you go, "Oh, that's why they call it a dream. It's bullshit. I'm still empty.”
― Doug Stanhope

“Don't fucking work hard, dummy, you die at the end! Didn't anyone tell you?”
― Doug Stanhope

“Life is like a movie, if you've sat through more than half of it and its sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the end and make it all worthwhile. None should blame you for walking out early.”
― Doug Stanhope

“People come up to you and say, “Oh man, that’s the scariest thing in the world what you do, talk in front of people.” It’s not scary to me. Your job is scary to me, fucking selling shoes in the mall for 30 years only to have the place go out of business.”
― Doug Stanhope

“There's no such thing as addiction; there's only things you enjoy doing more than life." -- Doug Stanhope”
― Doug Stanhope

“f you're gonna have a pro-drug argument, start the argument where it starts: I have the right to do what ever the hell I want to my own body, if it kills me slowly, happy for me, fuck you, "clack clack" (miming a pump-action shotgun) stop me!”
― Doug Stanhope

“I really don't like art with a message, unless the message is crystal clear.
If you have a message that really needs to be said, just fuckin' say it! Don't hide it in indecipherable lyrics... a sculpture, it's a play, the subtext... just fuckin' say it, 'cause the people who need to hear messages are dumb as shit--the masses of humanity are dumb as shit, and you're really just pandering to your friends. Say what the fuck you mean, just say it! Title the song 'eat more leafy greens'. 'Give a hoot, don't pollute' is as much message and art combined, 'cause I get that, it's a poem but I'm pretty sure you're saying 'don't pollute'. But if you have something... 'ooh, I have the cure for cancer...and I've hidden it in this Rubix cube!!' -- just fuckin' say it!
- Before Turning the Gun on Himself [2012]”
― Doug Stanhope

“Artist communities love to bullshit each other and glad-hand one another, and there's no room for the crippling honesty of comedy.
"I'm a painter" -- well... you don't...probably need to do that.
. . .
if you're painting something that doesn't exist, I understand that, I can appreciate- . . . but if your pain- 'oh, it's a barnyard scene in autumn'--well then just take a picture of a barn in autumn! It's way better than a painting!
- Before Turning the Gun on Himself [2012]”
― Doug Stanhope

“A lot of guys write books that are nothing but a compendium of women they’ve had sex with. Those guys are vapid assholes. Yet there are times when getting laid can pull your ego and confidence up from the ashes, especially when you are young and honestly feel out of your league. It’s meaningless in the long run but at the time it works.”
― Doug Stanhope, Digging Up Mother: A Love Story

“Some of the best nights in your life will never make it onto your Wikipedia page. Stop worrying about your credits and consider enjoying the day.
You die at the end.”
― Doug Stanhope, This Is Not Fame: A "From What I Re-Memoir"

“I fucking stunk. I mean embarrassingly stunk, and it reflected like a funhouse mirror in the eyes of everyone present including Mother—after she’d made such a production over me being in Hollywood chasing my acting dream. Testifying-in-court kind of stink. If you’ve ever had the honor of publically sucking on a grand scale, you know that the worst part is how you’re treated afterwards. People avoid you like you’re carrying head lice or, if cornered, try to spin an illusive positive angle, as though you are somehow unaware that you just ruthlessly embarrassed yourself. I’ve had friends with terminal cancer who’ve talked about getting similar reactions. I had acting cancer.”
― Doug Stanhope, Digging Up Mother: A Love Story

“I watched 60 Minutes...and they showed this woman, she's in every kind of..thing like that. 'This woman', they say, 'she lost her first four children--died from malnutrition--and, now, she's afraid that her new six-month-old newborn twins will suffer the same fate'. ... Who's going to step in and say...'kick her in the cunt 'til it doesn't work', 'that woman is a sociopath! that is a sick human being!'. ... How much of a sociopath do you need to be? That is the slow ritual torture-murder of children, one after another! At what point does cause-and-effect not kick in? How many bulb-headed skeletons have to go stiff in your arms?! ... 'what? this one's not working... oh, well let's try again', one after another. At what point do you not go 'I think this is bad'? ... How many kids are you going to fuckin' kill, lady? ... If you impregnate someone under those conditions, they should abort the parents! that's sick!”
― Doug Stanhope

“She’d taken the time and care to have her tape recorder ready so that any time she had to fart, she could just pick it up and rip one. When she had a full cassette tape, she drew up a cover and mailed it to the office. I’d play it for people and they’d say, “That’s from your Mother???” She”
― Doug Stanhope, Digging Up Mother: A Love Story

“Suicide is another thing that's so frowned upon in this society, but honestly, life isn't for everybody. It really isn't. It's sad when kids kill themselves 'cause they didn't really give it a chance, but life is like a movie. If you've sat through more than half of it and it sucked every second so far, it probably isn't gonna get great right at the very end for you and make it all worthwhile. No one should blame you for walking out early.”
― Doug Stanhope

“Life isn't for everybody.”
― Doug Stanhope, Die Laughing

“I think a lot of women look at hookers like scabs crossing a picket line. “You can’t just go out and sell it! We’re holding out for so much more!”
― Doug Stanhope, This Is Not Fame: A "From What I Re-Memoir"

“I ventured the idea that, as most of the women in Kilkenny were such misshapen pigs, if you were to actually fuck them, you would be more concerned the next morning about what species they were rather than what age.”
― Doug Stanhope, This Is Not Fame: A "From What I Re-Memoir"

“I have the Tony Romo of dicks. It can squeak out a win on the road in Buffalo but when you put it in the big game under pressure, it fumbles.”
― Doug Stanhope, This Is Not Fame: A "From What I Re-Memoir"