Top 100 Al Franken Quotes
#1. Bob Dole used to be really funny. Barney Frank can be kind of funny. Bob Kerrey has a good sense of humor.
Al Franken
#2. I think Hell exists on Earth. It's a psychological state, or it can be a physical state. People who have severe mental illness are in Hell. People who have lost a loved one are in Hell. I think there are all kinds of different hells. It's not a place you go to after you die.
Al Franken
#3. I think that the default for collecting any kind of personal data should be opt-in consent.
Al Franken
#4. If you use Facebook - as I do - Facebook in all likelihood has a unique digital file of your face, one that can be as accurate as a fingerprint and that can be used to identify you in a photo of a large crowd.
Al Franken
#5. The right wing has had a radio apparatus for years and years, so they've had minor leagues - they've had local rightwing guys who've become national rightwing guys, and who build slowly, and that's how it goes. We haven't had that. It isn't like we have a farm team.
Al Franken
#6. Most Americans don't think about antitrust law when they look at their cable bill, flip channels on TV, or worry about what their favorite website knows about them. But they should.
Al Franken
#7. I'm sure I've devoted enough thought to Rush Limbaugh for one lifetime.
Al Franken
#8. Liberals like me love America. We just love America in a different way.
Al Franken
#9. We owe an historic debt to American Indians. They have a unique set of concerns that haven't been addressed, and I'd like to stand with them. Also, I'd like to get their views on immigration.
Al Franken
#10. No one is more sensitive to the issue of overeating than the creator of Stuart Smalley.
Al Franken
#11. It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.
Al Franken
#12. During Vietnam, I was in college, enjoying my student deferment. The government wisely felt that, in my case, military service was less important than completing my studies to prepare me for my chosen career: comedian.
Al Franken
#13. If I put myself on the ballot and even 50 people voted for me, it'd be a travesty.
Al Franken
#14. Ralph Nader is a hero. I know Ralph, and I call him up occasionally. He's helped me out on a couple of occasions when I've given speeches to corporations where he'd have a good ... He'd give me some good information.
Al Franken
#15. Let's not let the government sell us out. Let's fight for net neutrality.
Al Franken
#16. When you live in New York, one of two things happen - you either become a New Yorker, or you feel more like the place you came from.
Al Franken
#17. In my first week as a U.S. senator, I had the privilege of participating in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Sonia Sotomayor.
Al Franken
#18. It's hard for a liberal to go on between Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, because it's like doing country music after hip-hop. I mean, just, the audience doesn't go from one to the other.
Al Franken
#19. When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both.
Al Franken
#20. I think the government has a role in protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens.
Al Franken
#21. If someone hacks your password, you can change it - as many times as you want.
Al Franken
#22. I'm a perfectionist and if I start making changes, I'll never stop.
Al Franken
#23. I don't consider myself an artist necessarily, but craftsmen or people in the arts, their spiritualism is sort of when you're writing well or performing well or doing whatever you do well, there's an element of that that's either God-given, a talent that you're not necessarily responsible for.
Al Franken
#24. I grew up in Minnesota, where we treasure our tradition of civic engagement - and our record of having the nation's highest voter participation.
Al Franken
#25. Skepticism turns to cynicism, which leads to apathy and despair, which can cause sleeplessness, dry-mouth, and loss of sex drive.
Al Franken
#26. To ask whether the mainstream media has a conservative or liberal bias is like asking whether al-Qaida uses too much oil in their hummus. It's - I think they might use too much oil in their hummus - but it's the wrong question.
Al Franken
#27. It is my fondest wish that in the fullness of time, the American people will look back on the Franken presidency as something of a mixed bag and not as a complete disaster.
Al Franken
#28. You might not like that Facebook shares your political opinions with Politico, but are you really going to delete all the photos, all the posts, all the connections - the presence you've spent years establishing on the world's dominant social network?
Al Franken
#29. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.
Al Franken
#30. Apple has long been a leading innovator of mobile technology; I myself own an iPhone.
Al Franken
#31. As someone who's spent time with our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan on USO tours and met wounded warriors at Walter Reed and Bethesda, I feel a deep obligation to the men and women who have risked life and limb on our behalf.
Al Franken
#32. Technology is an incredible tool - it connects people to each other, creates jobs all over the world, and makes life easier for millions of Americans.
Al Franken
#33. I think Clinton fatigue was a real thing. It's just hard to get comfortable with Gore - it was hard for him to project who he is, the person people know in private.
Al Franken
#34. My dad never graduated high school. He was a printing salesman. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. We weren't rich - but we felt secure.
Al Franken
#35. I know I have an awful lot to learn from the people of Minnesota.
Al Franken
#36. I had a great time working on the movies, both the major movies I've done. I've had a great time. I like the people in Hollywood a lot.
Al Franken
#37. My parents didn't make a lot of money. My dad was not a high school graduate - he didn't have a career as such; he was a printing salesman essentially for most of his working life.
Al Franken
#38. If Republicans eliminate Medicare, America will become a country in which you can never retire - and once you physically can no longer work, you are desperately poor until you die.
Al Franken
#39. I'm the New York Jew who actually grew up in Minnesota.
Al Franken
#40. If 98 out of 100 doctors tell me I've got a problem, I should take their advice. And if those two other doctors get paid by Big Snack Food, like certain climate deniers get paid by Big Coal, I shouldn't take their advice.
Al Franken
#41. If you hear, day after day, liberals are rooting against armed forces, that is eventually going to have an effect on soldiers and troops who are actually going to believe that and it's wrong. It's just wrong.
Al Franken
#42. I believe in not attacking a country pre-emptively unless you're sure of what you're doing and you're working with allies.
Al Franken
#43. National security laws must protect national security. But they must also protect the public trust and preserve the ability of an informed electorate to hold its government to account.
Al Franken
#44. We need to be pro-science; we have to go back to science.
Al Franken
#45. Yeah, but you need an experienced radio veteran who is a liberal advocate. And there just hadn't been any radio that did that. And so they weren't trained - they had developed all these bad habits of being objective and balanced and stuff like that.
Al Franken
#46. I think the Internet has developed at this incredibly rapid pace because of net neutrality, because of the free nature of it, because a YouTube can start the way YouTube started.
Al Franken
#47. I want to reclaim 'liberal.' I'm a liberal, and I think most Americans are liberals.
Al Franken
#48. If you use a cell phone - as I do - your wireless carrier likely has records about your physical movements going back months, if not years.
Al Franken
#49. The crash of 2008 was driven in no small part by unfair practices in the mortgage industry, which led to many consumers becoming trapped in loans they didn't understand and couldn't afford.
Al Franken
#50. Mistakes are a part of being human. Precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
Al Franken
#51. The nature of the Internet and the importance of net neutrality is that innovation can come from everyone.
Al Franken
#52. One thing I've noticed about politics is that these guys have pretty thick hides.
Al Franken
#53. I've never understood why we would want to deny all the joys - and the challenges - of marriage to anyone. Which is why I think any loving, committed couple - gay or straight - should be able to get married.
Al Franken
#54. Changing technologies, changing marketplaces, and even changing trends in anti-competitive practices have all presented challenges to antitrust enforcement.
Al Franken
#55. We need to start by having a conversation about climate change. It would be irresponsible to avoid the issue just because it's uncomfortable to talk about.
Al Franken
#56. At 'SNL,' I wrote political stuff, but I never felt the show should have an axe to grind. But when I left in '95, I could let my own beliefs out.
Al Franken
#57. Terrorism, to me, is the use of terror for political purpose, and terror is indiscriminate murder of civilians to make a political point.
Al Franken
#58. I ask the American people not to fall victim to disinformation. There are no death panels. The Affordable Care Act cuts the deficit.
Al Franken
#59. Minnesotans know the difference between the job of satirist and the job of senator. And so do I.
Al Franken
#60. When the president during the campaign
said he was against nation building,
I didn't realize he meant our nation.
Al Franken
#61. Comedy to the Senate? Well, there certainly hasn't been a satirist or a political satirist who's done that. So, that really was uncharted territory during the campaign. But I think it's a good thing. Some people thought that it was an odd career arc, but to me it made absolute sense.
Al Franken
#62. I get satisfaction when I write something I like, when I'm happy with it.
Al Franken
#63. I am a Minnesotan, and not just because I root for the Vikings and the Twins. I like the Minnesota-nice sensibility. I like the liberal tradition; I like the Hubert Humphrey tradition fighting for civil rights.
Al Franken
#64. I also focus on Bush and his administration - who do a lot of lying - and how a right-wing media has allowed them to get away with a lot of stuff that, in a different media environment, they probably wouldn't be able to get away with.
Al Franken
#65. If you look at terrorists, they really have no sense of humor.
Al Franken
#66. Let's keep the Internet weird. Let's keep the Internet free.
Al Franken
#67. Google might be doping the horses.
Al Franken
#68. I don't know how many of you have been to New York, but if a building is two blocks away from anything, you can't see it.
Al Franken
#69. The Republican agenda is a radical vision in which Medicaid is slashed to the bone - in which we start to balance the budget on the backs of, literally, our most vulnerable citizens.
Al Franken
#70. My dad loved comedians, especially George Jessel, and he loved Henny Youngman and Buddy Hackett.
Al Franken
#71. I once asked the most fabulous couple I know, Madonna and Guy Ritchie, how they kept things fresh despite having been married for almost seven months. 'It's a job, Al,' Guy told me. 'We work at it every day.'
Al Franken
#73. The Founders who crafted our Constitution and Bill of Rights were careful to draft a Constitution of limited powers - one that would protect Americans' liberty at all times - both in war, and in peace.
Al Franken
#74. When the Constitution was written, the founders had no way of anticipating the new technologies that would evolve in the coming centuries.
Al Franken
#75. I'm part of the mushball middle. I consider 'confused' the majority position because, thankfully, most people would rather be uncertain some of the time than 100% positive all the time - even when they're wrong.
Al Franken
#76. There's plenty of room for humor in politics, God knows, but it's a serious business.
Al Franken
#77. I listen to NPR when I listen to the radio, but I don't listen to the radio that much. You know, I listen to Garrison Keillor, I listen to 'Prairie Home Companion.'
Al Franken
#78. I want a president who can handle a cream soda.
Al Franken
#79. There are as many forms of advice as there are colors of the rainbow. Remember that good advice can come from bad people and bad advice from good people. The important thing about advice is that it is simply that. Advice.
Al Franken
#80. I've spent my entire career being a satirist.
Al Franken
#81. Net neutrality isn't a government takeover of the Internet, as many of my Republican colleagues have alleged.
Al Franken
#82. Demagoguery sells. And therefore radio stations will put it on. But that doesn't mean that you can't do something else and also make it sell. You know, when I look at an Ann Coulter or I look at a Rush or I look at a Sean Hannity, I think to myself, 'What kind of self-image do you have?'
Al Franken
#83. Gary Bauer is a very good - he's a good friend of mine.
Al Franken
#84. Call-time has renewed my faith in the need for public financing of elections. 'Call-time' is where I as the candidate, sit in a room with my 'call-time manager,' and a phone. Then I call people and ask them for money. For hours. Apparently, I'm really good at it.
Al Franken
#85. Armed with nothing more than a Facebook user's phone number and home address, anyone with an Internet connection and a few dollars can obtain personal information they should never have access to, including a user's date of birth, e-mail address, or estimated income.
Al Franken
#86. It's hard to have that debate around secret programs authorized by secret legal opinions issued by a secret court. Actually, it's impossible to have that debate.
Al Franken
#87. Liberals don't hate America. We love America more than Ann Coulter does. I love it enough to engage my readers honestly.
Al Franken
#88. Progressives, in a way, are the new conservatives. We want to conserve what we fought to build.
Al Franken
#89. Minnesotans lost their jobs because the credit rating agencies didn't do the only job they're supposed to have, the only job they had, which is to give accurate, objective ratings to financial products.
Al Franken
#90. I do personal attacks only on people who specialize in personal attacks.
Al Franken
#91. And I think that being able to make people laugh and write a book that's funny makes the information go down a lot easier and it makes it a lot more fun to read, easier to understand, and often stronger. So there's all kinds of advantages to it.
Al Franken
#92. Being a comedian, you're under pressure. You have to deal with stress and pressure to perform - to deal with pressure without stress.
Al Franken
#93. During the Reagan Administration, Bob Dole was present at a ceremony that included each living ex-president. Looking at a tableau of Ford, Carter and Nixon, Dole said, 'There they are: Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Evil.'
Al Franken
#94. Net neutrality has been in place since the very beginning of the Internet.
Al Franken
#95. Veterans report that service dogs help break their isolation. People will often avert their eyes when they see a wounded veteran. But when the veteran has a dog, the same people will come up and say, 'Hi' to pet the dog and then strike up a conversation.
Al Franken
#96. Well, a lot of politics is communicating with people, and obviously comedy has something to do with that. I've been a producer and led people. Also, being a comedian, you're under pressure.
Al Franken
#97. Service dogs raise their masters' sense of well-being.
Al Franken
#98. If we have George W. Bush as president, we're going to go back to the kind of policies we had when his father and Ronald Reagan were president.
Al Franken
#99. Anybody who deliberately propagandizes with lies should be held up to scorn and ridicule.
Al Franken
#100. To make the argument that the media has a left- or right-wing, or a liberal or a conservative bias, is like asking if the problem with Al-Qaeda is do they use too much oil in their hummus.
Al Franken
Famous Authors
Popular Topics
Scroll to Top
