Top 100 Norm MacDonald Quotes
#1. I never had any interest in sitcoms or motion pictures or anything like that.
Norm MacDonald
#2. A proper disposition of time leaves a man at leisure in the very bustle of affairs; without delaying the attention of his concerns to the last or giving them unnecessary application at first: it affords a season for everything by affording everything its proper season.
Norm MacDonald
#3. We are often less grieved at disappointments than at ourselves for having said much concerning the certainty of our expectations.
Norm MacDonald
#4. Some men are tempted to violate secrecy from the uneasiness secrecy gives them, and others, merely to impress you with the extent of their confidence.
Norm MacDonald
#5. If you're watching a comedian on television and he's making a political point, I would say he's gotten too serious.
Norm MacDonald
#6. There are two indiscretions that generally distinguish fools: a readiness to report whatever they hear, and a practice of communicating with secrecy what is commonly understood.
Norm MacDonald
#7. A lot of people think I'm difficult to work with. It's not like I really want to do that much stuff, so it doesn't really matter. I guess I'm somewhat difficult when it comes to comedy.
Norm MacDonald
#8. Envy, like a false mirror, distorts the symmetry of the sweetest form.
Norm MacDonald
#9. In terms of merit, sports has mathematical statistics. That's how you know who the best player is.
Norm MacDonald
#10. The vanity of being asked advice often makes us confirm the opinion of those that consult us.
Norm MacDonald
#11. Some people are so much afraid of being deceived, that they never venture to trust; like misers, their avarice destroys their gain.
Norm MacDonald
#12. Enjoyment inflames love in some men, and extinguishes it in others: the wind that assists large vessels, upsets small ones.
Norm MacDonald
#13. I don't care for sex. I find it an embarrassing, dull exercise. I prefer sports, where you can win.
Norm MacDonald
#14. You ever see 'The Dating Game'? That's a weird game show. The prize on that show: another contestant. Talk about cheap.
Norm MacDonald
#16. I started on 'Saturday Night Live' the same time Conan started on Late Night. We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn't get a guest - which was often back then since he was just starting out - he would just call me down to be a guest.
Norm MacDonald
#18. They that are virtuous from principle may receive confidence in every capacity; but they that are so from custom or habit, are capable of trust only in matters of ordinary and settled occurrence.
Norm MacDonald
#19. Death is a funny thing. Not funny haha, like a Woody Allen movie, but funny strange, like a Woody Allen marriage.
Norm MacDonald
#20. I don't really like politics that much. And I like the order and simplicity of sports. They have an ending. You can argue with your friends about it, but in the end you still like sports. I almost love the fantasy world of sports more than the real world.
Norm MacDonald
#21. The character of giving advice often makes us accountable for the conduct of those we advise.
Norm MacDonald
#22. I just like doing standup, that's all I'm interested in or good at.
Norm MacDonald
#23. I don't do much. I'm too lazy. That's my problem. Hang around my couch, watching the TV. Just too lazy. I realized this the other day, I get hit my a truck tomorrow - a big truck could hit me - paralyze me from the neck down. Wouldn't effect my lifestyle a bit really.
Norm MacDonald
#24. Man, them engagement rings, boy, they cost a lot. I was looking at 'em. Cost like a thousand bucks, two thousand bucks, y'know. Three thousand bucks. Something like that- four thousand bucks. Big number divisible by a thousand, anyways.
Norm MacDonald
#25. With the computer and stuff, the difference between a rich guy and a poor guy, to me, is nothing. Because I don't like big houses, I don't drive a car, so you know, I just live in a small apartment and I have my computer, which is really cool.
Norm MacDonald
#26. All that weak people learn from disappointment, is less confidence in future enterprise.
Norm MacDonald
#27. After months of speculation, the sitcom star Ellen DeGeneres admitted that yes, she's gay. Inspired by her courage, today, diet-guru Richard Simmons admitted that he is really, really, really, really gay.
Norm MacDonald
#28. The joy a person is usually seen to express at the conversion of another to his opinion is seldom more than the impulse of egotistical satisfaction at being considered worthy of didactic imitation.
Norm MacDonald
#29. There are these showcase clubs where 14 guys will go on in a row and people are laughing at everything, and I'm like - 'I can't laugh that much. That's so weird to me.'
Norm MacDonald
#30. There are two things which a man should scrupulously avoid: giving advice that he would not follow, and asking advice when he is determined to pursue his own opinion.
Norm MacDonald
#31. It got very tedious saying the same jokes in the same way with the same attitude.
Norm MacDonald
#32. A suspicious person is the rival of him that deceives, both seem to practice a knowledge of cunning device, and equable sense of disengenuous merit.
Norm MacDonald
#33. I never do impressions, but I probably should. People like that stuff.
Norm MacDonald
#35. Letterman is very intimidating because he's so funny, so you have to be really prepared. Also, he's a little squeamish about certain things, so you have to always be on guard to please him.
Norm MacDonald
#36. My dad died, and my grandfather died, and my great-grandfather died. And the guy before him, I don't know. Probably died.
Norm MacDonald
#37. None seem to bear the imputation of supposed guilt with greater intolerance than such as are, on other occasions, obviously culpable of vice or crime.
Norm MacDonald
#38. OJ Simpson was in a different kind of courtroom this week attempting to regain custody of his two children. In order to prove to the court how much he loves his kids, OJ pointed out quote 'Hey, they're still alive, aren't they?'
Norm MacDonald
#39. In giving advice, aptitude is often less to be considered, than seasonableness.
Norm MacDonald
#40. A lot of writers come from Harvard and such, and are rich, and they write under the misapprehension that poor people are stupid. So when they do write them, they are hillbillies or rednecks or Christian idiots.
Norm MacDonald
#41. We often suffer more from our fears, than from the dangers of our situation.
Norm MacDonald
#42. I don't like sports where it's like, you watch a guy on a motorcycle flip or something, then another guy does it, it looks exactly the same, and then at the end one guy gets higher points! It seems so arbitrary; I don't know who's ahead ever.
Norm MacDonald
#43. Though we may not desire to detect fraud, we must not, on that account, endeavor to be insensible of it, for, as cunning is a crime, so is duplicity a fault, and if men dread knaves, they also despise fools.
Norm MacDonald
#44. The praise we seek for our own virtues sometimes tempts us to flatter the imperfections of other men.
Norm MacDonald
#45. The beginning of wisdom is the knowledge of folly.
Norm MacDonald
#46. When I was a kid, everybody that played golf was an old man. Until Tiger showed up, they weren't in very good shape.
Norm MacDonald
#47. It is the folly of weak-minded people, to imagine they are what flattery or conceit represents them; and that it is useless for them to be what they are not, since they seem already to have acquired the reputation of it.
Norm MacDonald
#48. It is necessary to be tolerant, in order to be tolerated.
Norm MacDonald
#49. A readiness to excuse some faults, shows a disposition to commit others.
Norm MacDonald
#50. This would have been a great game to watch if we didn't have any money on it.
Norm MacDonald
#51. Scientists believe they may have discovered a primitive form of life on Jupiter's moon Europa. That primitive form of life? You guessed it, Frank Stallone.
Norm MacDonald
#52. Love is an artful arrangement of artless pretensions, whereby we labor to appear innocent in what we desire to be most cunning.
Norm MacDonald
#53. Many frequently change their principles, but seldom their practices.
Norm MacDonald
#54. You can't love your team without hating another team.
Norm MacDonald
#55. The soul is never perfectly secure from the influence of passion; the occasional tranquility she seems to enjoy, is rather relaxation than imperturbable triumph.
Norm MacDonald
#56. There is a very prevalent tenet with youth, that good company is every thing desirable, and that bad is even better than none.
Norm MacDonald
#57. If you desire praise or esteem, endeavor to merit it.
Norm MacDonald
#59. A man's enemies are those he should endeavor first to make his friends.
Norm MacDonald
#60. Were there no fools, there would be no flatterers.
Norm MacDonald
#61. If you cannot patiently bear correction, endeavor to avoid fault.
Norm MacDonald
#62. You ever be having a really good dream, and then, uh- right in the middle of the dream you wake up, right in the best part of the dream? And there you are, back in your stinkin' life again? Man, that's rough, eh?
Norm MacDonald
#63. The first principle of solid wisdom is discretion, without it all the erudition of life is merely bagatelle.
Norm MacDonald
#64. Education makes some men wiser, others more ridiculous and foolish!
Norm MacDonald
#65. Imprudent restrictions often force youth farther than enticement would carry them; and careless limitation is frequently worse than no injunction.
Norm MacDonald
#66. Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.
Norm MacDonald
#67. Your worst and most dangerous enemy is the person that injures you under the pretensions of friendship.
Norm MacDonald
#68. I don't have any ego about it, but I find there's not a great work ethic in show business. A lot of people are in it to make money, and coming from stand-up, you have to work so hard because almost nothing works, and if you lose the audience for three minutes, you're dead.
Norm MacDonald
#69. During misfortunes, nothing aggravates our condition more, than to be esteemed deserving of them.
Norm MacDonald
#70. Pulp Fiction is a, uh, gritty, urban satire. Pump Friction is a uh-uh, a bunch of uh, dudes and ladies having dirty sex.
Norm MacDonald
#71. I'm not gay, so I don't know much about Broadway musicals.
Norm MacDonald
#72. The young compliment their greatness on the number of their friends; the old, on the confidence of them.
Norm MacDonald
#73. RIP Amy Winehouse. We lost a true heroin addict today.
Norm MacDonald
#75. So much in L.A. is waiting. It's so irritating. That's what's good about stand-up. You can go away, and you don't have to sit and wait by your phone. But it is very frustrating.
Norm MacDonald
#76. I would love to stay at SNL forever. But you can't stay in the same place. People think you're a loser.
Norm MacDonald
#77. The promises we break are usually such as we are most forward in making.
Norm MacDonald
#78. Yeah man, they call gambling a disease, but it's the only disease where you can win a bunch of money.
Norm MacDonald
#79. A capacity for hating the object of desire is, perhaps, the best cure for love in cases of disappointment.
Norm MacDonald
#80. My dad had this thing - everyone in Canada wants to play hockey; that's all they want to do. So when I was a kid, whenever we skated my dad would not let us on the ice without hockey sticks, because of this insane fear we would become figure skaters!
Norm MacDonald
#81. As evacuation eases the body, so occasional ejectment of passion seems to appease the agonies of the soul, and dispose to tranquility the agitations of the heart.
Norm MacDonald
#82. I sort of have open invitations from a lot of people to do TV. But it's very hard for me to do roles in sitcoms and movies because I'm not a great actor, so if the material isn't good, I'm in torment while I do it.
Norm MacDonald
#83. We would seldom be deceived by flattery, did our own conceit not promote the delusion.
Norm MacDonald
#84. Jealousy seldom punishes with the severity it suffers.
Norm MacDonald
#85. Stand-up has the best writers, because it's the hardest writing by a million miles.
Norm MacDonald
#86. You know, with Hitler, the more I learn about that guy, the more I don't care for him.
Norm MacDonald
#87. I like to do talk show appearances where I get to just be myself, and I do stand-up where I can completely be myself. That's what I've always loved the most, of anything.
Norm MacDonald
#88. Flattery succeeds best on minds previously occupied by conceit.
Norm MacDonald
#89. A great cause of evil in the world is that men seldom think themselves criminal if they offer the same injustice to others that has been successfully practiced on themselves.
Norm MacDonald
#90. It is easier to hate those we love, than love those whom we have hated.
Norm MacDonald
#91. I didn't really want to inject myself into anything political. A lot of people were asking me at the time about Jay and Conan, and I hate doing anything serious.
Norm MacDonald
#92. It is vain to complain of fortune while we fail in policy and conduct.
Norm MacDonald
#93. The Rolling Stones reunited for a twenty-fifth anniversary tour last week. Keith Richards said that he's happy to continue to do what he's been doing for the past twenty-five years: cheating death.
Norm MacDonald
#94. It is often better to be restricted to necessity than unconfined in the measure of our desires: prosperity destroys more individuals than adversity ruins.
Norm MacDonald
#95. This is a thing I read by a scientist ... it said scientists now say that a man thinks about sex once every 7.3 seconds. Now, I know what I think every 7.3 seconds. It's just a bunch of meaningless gibberish.
Norm MacDonald
#96. In theatres, you're kind of disconnected. Also, it's way too big for the likes of me. Unless you're Robin Williams or someone that can fill a stage with movement and energy, it just looks like a small man on a big stage.
Norm MacDonald
#97. I don't know the difference between a hippie and a hipster but, it's fun to watch either one of them get beat up.
Norm MacDonald
#98. We are happy at the respect others pay our favorites, because we consider it a lively confirmation of our own choice, and as so much homage reflected on ourselves.
Norm MacDonald
#99. All my life's about is cracking up people and them cracking me up and trying not to think about dying. That doesn't cost very much money.
Norm MacDonald
#100. Note to self ... Sex with blow-up doll is not as good as advertised.
Norm MacDonald
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