Richard Belzer

“You remember France, it's the country that financed the American Revolution... OK, it was in their self-interest, but still, they made it happen. Let's face it: without the French, there wou...”

“When I was a kid in the '50s, I was very enamored of beatniks and... a kind of dark sensibility.”

“Arguably, the first five years of 'Saturday Night Live' were some of the most radical things ever seen on television. When NBC said, 'Okay, you can do a show from 11:30 to 1 on Saturday nigh...”

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

“Everything is a conspiracy. People kind of demonize the word. But a conspiracy is when two people get together and do something. So, if more than one person does something, it's a conspiracy...”

“When members of a certain party concoct various devious schemes to suppress votes, purposely misinform potential voters, spread vile untrue filth about certain candidates, play the race, gen...”

“It is not impossible to succeed as a social democracy, where business and free enterprise thrive, and not abandon the disenfranchised, poor, sick, and elderly.”

“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.”

“I'm tired of Italian gangsters. Not that I don't watch 'The Godfather' every morning when I get up and 'Goodfellas' when I go to sleep at night. But I've just always been fascinated by Russi...”

“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...”

“If Sherlock Holmes can survive the Reichenbach Falls, then surely we have not seen the last of Detective Sergeant John Munch.”

“As a result of being on 'SVU' and 'Homicide' all these years, there's a lot of people who don't know I used to do stand-up. When they see me onstage, it's a surprise, and it's revelatory. I'...”

“Most people cherish their very existence and try their best to live a life worth living. In spite of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in our way, we somehow hope against hope and find...”

“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 m...”

“It's this patronizing thing that people have about if you're against the war, everyone's lumped together. You know, the soldiers are not scholars; they're not war experts.”

“'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.”

“I used to think of it as a joke that all paranoids were right. That was a joke in the '60s, but now I'm convinced that people should be paranoid reflexively - and then pare it down from ther...”

“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 say...”