Quotes from Richard Belzer

Huey Long once said, "Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism." I'm afraid, based on my own experience that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.863

There are those in positions of power who malign the pursuit of justice by intentionally associating the word "conspiracy" with the delirious hallucinations of unbalanced minds. They're wrong. The real-world definition of conspiracy is simply two or more persons agreeing to commit a crime. In short, they are everywhere, a constant component of daily events throughout our history, and are by no means the restless imaginings of an over-attentive audience.

Civil liberties, good. Lawyers, bad.

Arguably, the first five years of 'Saturday Night Live' were some of the most radical things ever seen on television. When NBC said, 'Okay, you can do a show from 11:30 to 1 on Saturday night,' they didn't think anyone would watch. It was like giving a piece of the candy store to the kids.

I've been cast as myself so many times, I guess I should catch on and figure out if it's a compliment.

The number one job for me is to make people laugh. If I can also make people think, then that's a cool thing.

I am not a cop. Really. I've just been playing one on television so long that people get a little confused sometimes.

I secretly nurtured the idea of being in show business but was always terrified of it. I had every fear you could possibly imagine associated with performing.

Exercise is the fountain of youth, I believe.

As a result of being on 'SVU' and 'Homicide' all these years, there's a lot of people who don't know I used to do stand-up. When they see me onstage, it's a surprise, and it's revelatory. I'm happy because I can do my old material, so everybody wins.

What am I grateful for? Aside from my own great life, you mean? I'm just grateful that my wife, and daughter, and dogs are all healthy.

My grandmother was very funny. It skipped a generation.

Everything is a conspiracy. People kind of demonize the word. But a conspiracy is when two people get together and do something. So, if more than one person does something, it's a conspiracy. The revolution was a conspiracy, Iran Contra, Watergate.

I went to several public schools. I went to religious school. I was thrown out of Hebrew school, which was the final straw. They said, 'God doesn't like you anymore. Go eat pork.'

I was thrown out of every school I ever went to.

To be able to work for 20 years as an actor in an industry that is not so predictable, I'm grateful every day. I'll do it till I drop, I guess - or drop out.

I have to say Tim Thomerson is one of the funniest people I've ever met.

I'm tired of Italian gangsters. Not that I don't watch 'The Godfather' every morning when I get up and 'Goodfellas' when I go to sleep at night. But I've just always been fascinated by Russia as a country, by the Russian personality. And now Russia is literally a gangster nation.

I've found you don't have to make anything up. Reality is so complex and fascinating and horrible and beautiful.

Most people cherish their very existence and try their best to live a life worth living. In spite of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in our way, we somehow hope against hope and find a way to be as life-affirming as humanly possible! How? Love!

In the seventies when I was struggling, I ate the same thing every day at Big Nick's Burger Joint on Broadway and 77th Street. A cottage-cheese omelette with tomatoes, French fries, rye toast, orange juice, and coffee. It was consistently the most satisfying meal I could possibly imagine.

You remember France, it's the country that financed the American Revolution... OK, it was in their self-interest, but still, they made it happen. Let's face it: without the French, there would be no America... in other words, without them, there is no us.

It's this patronizing thing that people have about if you're against the war everyone's lumped together. You know, the soldiers are not scholars, they're not war experts.

The reason I wrote 'Hit List' is the 50 mysterious deaths of witnesses to the JFK assassination. We're talking about CIA agents, FBI agents, reporters, people who had foreknowledge, or people who spoke too much afterward.