Quotes from Richard Belzer

If you tell a lie that's big enough, and you tell it often enough, people will believe you're telling the truth, even if what you're saying is total crap.

Cancer is a cosmic slap in the face. You either get discouraged or ennobled by it.

Scholastically, I did enough to get by, but I was smarter than I let on.

The Kennedy assassination is one of the ghostliest parts of our history. The Kennedy family - that's our royalty. It's fascinating and tragic and just strikes to the heart of our country. Here's the youngest president ever, full of hope and promise, and he made government service seem like it was dignified.

The truth will set you free...unless you want to know the truth about who killed JFK.

'SNL' came out in the '70s. It's a different zeitgeist. It's hard to re-create it, just as it would be hard to do a black-and-white noir film now. The culture's different.

As I got older, I was able to articulate why I was rebelling against authority - because their motives were much more forceful and hurtful than I had ever thought.

If any animal is capable of unconditional love, it is surely the canine: they are forgiving, caring, life-affirming creatures who humble us and teach us to be more human and compassionate.

In 1985, I was the host of a talk show, 'Hot Properties on Lifetime.' Hulk Hogan was on the show. He put me in a headlock and rendered me unconscious and let me fall to the ground. I split my head open and got nine stitches - and this was on live TV.

There's a lot of children that go to bed every night hungry in New York City, and it's shameful. That's really disturbing to me.

Have you noticed that the meanest, shrillest, least compassionate and most heartless people who are well off and have all the medical coverage they'll ever need are seemingly sickened beyond cure by the notion that someone who literally cannot afford health care is somehow beneath contempt and must be vilified and humiliated?

Anybody who thinks there's not a vast right-wing conspiracy in this country must also think that Ken Starr should be our next ambassador to Luxembourg.

When I listen to a fascist, like Rush Limbaugh or Tom Delay or somebody like that, they help me define my views. I ask myself, 'Why do I feel so strongly the opposite of what that guy is saying? He's not stupid. He's evil, but why is he evil?'

I've known Chevy Chase for so long, I actually knew him when he was funny!

Do you know what happens when you play a country song backwards? You get your wife back, your dog back and your job back.