Maybe every other American movie shouldn't be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.
Bill MaherRead
New Rule: This Valentine’s Day Americans must remember that politicians are like a box of chocolates. We bite into them to find out what's on the inside only to discover that Democrats are too often soft and gooey and Republicans are mostly nuts.
Interpretation
This quote humorously compares politicians to chocolates, suggesting they have hidden qualities that can be surprising.
Bill Maher's quote cleverly uses the analogy of a box of chocolates to highlight the unpredictability of politicians, implying that voters often learn the true nature of politicians only after engaging with them. The humor lies in the characterization of Democrats as soft and gooey, which suggests a lack of toughness, while Republicans are referred to as nuts, symbolizing perhaps their unpredictability or extreme views.
In practice
During a comedy night, I quoted this to lighten the mood about current political discussions.
Maybe every other American movie shouldn't be based on a comic book. Other countries will think Americans live in an infantile fantasy land where reality is whatever we say it is and every problem can be solved with violence.
If conservatives get to call universal healthcare 'socialized medicine,' I get to call private, for-profit healthcare 'soulless, vampire bastards making money off human pain.'
If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created the gods; that fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them and that custom, respect and tyranny support them in order to make the blindness of men serve their own interests. If the ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, the knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them.
When I hear from people that religion doesn't hurt anything, I say really? Well besides wars, the crusades, the inquisitions, 9-11, ethnic cleansing, the suppression of women, the suppression of homosexuals, fatwas, honor killings, suicide bombings, arranged marriages to minors, human sacrifice, burning witches, and systematic sex with children, I have a few little quibbles. And I forgot blowing up girl schools in Afghanistan.
When it comes to religion, we're not two sides of the same coin, and you don't get to put your unreason up on the same shelf with my reason. Your stuff has to go over there, on the shelf with Zeus and Thor and the Kraken, with the stuff that is not evidence-based, stuff that religious people never change their mind about, no matter what happens.
I do think the patriotic thing to do is to critique my country. How else do you make a country better but by pointing out its flaws?
Most amusements only mean trying to win another person's money.
I do not often laugh, sir, as you may perceive by the air of my countenance; but nevertheless, I retain the privilege of laughing when I please.
If you can't laugh when things go bad--laugh and put on a little carnival--then you're either dead or wishing you were.
My brother Billy was the joke teller. My brother Jim had a really sharp, cutting wit. And the teller of long stories, that was my brother Ed. As a child, I just absorbed everything they said, and I was always in competition for the laughs.
If you ever start taking things too seriously, just remember that we are talking monkeys on an organic spaceship flying through the universe.
I always just forced myself to do crazy things in public. In college I would push an overhead projector across campus with my pants just low enough to show my butt. Then my friend would incite the crowd to be like, 'Look at that idiot!' That's how I got over being shy.
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