What are you reading for? - Bill Hicks

There's smoke in here. There's the smokers over there. Look at you, cool as a fucking cucumber. How many smokers do we have here tonight? [only a few people cheer] Whew! Listen to all that energy they can pump out at will. [goes into coughing fit for about 20 seconds] Thanks smokers. Valiant effort on your parts. Next time just hock up a chunk of lung, just rear back and launch a phlegm-gem toward the stage. Get one of those raw oysters happening. [mock spits and mimics mucus growing legs and running away] Hey hey hey, phlegm shouldn't have legs. Now, I'm no doctor but I've seen one on T.V. You ready for this, smokers? Listen to this: how many non-smokers do we have here tonight? [loud applause] Bunch of whinin' maggots. [lights cigarette] Bunch of obnoxious, self-righteous slugs. Don't take that wrong. I'd quit smoking if I didn't think I'd become one of you. I'm willing to die seven years before my time just so I'll be cool each last fuckin' day.

People tell me, "Bill, let it go. The Kennedy assassination was years ago. It was just the assassination of a President and the hijacking of our government by a totalitarian regime—who cares? Just let it go." I say, "All right, then. That whole Jesus thing? Let it go! It was 2,000 years ago! Who cares?"

But we’ve got to have an enemy. Rock? Drugs? We’re so miserable, what’s the enemy? Got it. Pornography, that’s it. Yeeeeah, tremor through the room. Uh . . . the problem with pornography, basically, is this. No one knows what it is. Other than that, we’ve got a real good grasp on the situation. We know it’s bad, we just can’t figure out what the fuck it is. The Supreme Court says pornography is any act that has no artistic merit and causes sexual thoughts. That’s their definition. No artistic merit. Causes sexual thoughts. Hmmmmm. Sounds like almost every commercial on TV to me.