Lenny Bruce

Who was Lenny Bruce?

Leonard Alfred Schneider, better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic and satirist.

He was renowned for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated politics, religion and sex. His private life was marked by substance abuse and promiscuity as well as efforts to prevent his wife from working as a stripper. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon, the first in New York State history, by then-Governor George Pataki in 2003. He paved the way for future outspoken comedians, and his trial for obscenity, in which – after being forced into bankruptcy – he was eventually found not guilty, is seen as a landmark trial for freedom of speech in the US.

Famous Quotes:

• The thing with Catholicism, the same as all religions, is that it teaches what should be, which seems rather incorrect. This is what should be. Now, if you're taught to live up to a what should be that never existed -- only an occult superstition, no proof of this should be -- then you can sit on a jury and indict easily, you can cast the first stone, you can burn Adolf Eichmann, like that!
• The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them.
• Communism is like one big phone company.
• The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour -- ha ha ha ha ha -- they'll take you away, man. You can't.
• A lot of people say to me, Why did you kill Christ? I dunno... it was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know. We killed him because he didn't want to become a doctor, that's why we killed him.
• Today's comedian has a cross to bear that he built himself. A comedian of the older generation did an act and he told the audience, This is my act. Today's comic is not doing an act. The audience assumes he's telling the truth. What is truth today may be a damn lie next week.
• In the halls of justice, the only justice is in the halls.
• The role of a comedian is to make the audience laugh, at a minimum of once every fifteen seconds.
• Now a Jew, in the dictionary, is one who is descended from the ancient tribes of Judea, or one who is regarded as descended from that tribe. That's what it says in the dictionary; but you and I know what a Jew is -- One Who Killed Our Lord. And although there should be a statute of limitations for that crime, it seems that those who neither have the actions nor the gait of Christians, pagan or not, will bust us out, unrelenting dues, for another deuce.
• Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.