George Meyer quotes:

I don't like that The Simpsons are spokespeople for Burger King and MasterCard and Butterfinger. In the first Gulf War, I was really upset that the Simpsons characters were being drawn on tanks and bombs. But those are things that I don't control.

As a child, I tried to play by the rules. I got very good grades in school; I was an Eagle Scout; and I believed in all of it.

I don't like the antagonism that most religions have for science, and freedom and, frankly, individuality. I do like the Dalai Lama.

I have a deep suspicion of social institutions and tradition in general.

I have no idea how it got so big. I was just trying to find something to do while I was living in Boulder, Colorado, which isn't really a funny town. There are a lot of smart people there, but comedy isn't at the forefront of their minds.

I tend to look at the world more from Voltaire's perspective. Incidentally, if you haven't read Candide lately, it's a fabulous book. It's riotously, laugh-out-loud funny in a way that no Shakespeare comedy will ever be.

It was peculiar to be standing so close to him. He's just a man, but still, what a thing to be Neil Armstrong!

If there's reason for hope, it lies in man's occasional binges of cooperation. To save our planet, we'll need that kind of heroic effort, in which all types of people join forces for the common good

Clever is the eunuch version of funny.

For me, marriage is a grotesque, unforgiving, clunky contrivance. Yet society pushes it as a shimmering ideal.

I love that Voltaire was so willing to shock his readers with arbitrary cruelty. And I can completely relate to it.

I prefer to linger on the periphery before making a commitment.

I'm enthralled by the national yearning that the Russians had during the 50s and 60s. The whole century was pretty rough for them. They suffered genocide, war, poverty, and half the population was sent to labor camps. But they were determined to get into space first.

I'm not religious. I do have a baby - a four-month old girl - and that's a religion in itself.

Instead of three networks you have three hundred or three thousand. Audiences are inundated with programming, and that sometimes gives them a sense of petulant entitlement.

Launching a new TV show is probably one of the most difficult things that a writer can do.

Advertising is a conscienceless industry, populated by cowards and idiots, that warps and drains everyone. It eggs on the worst in all of us. If I could eliminate either advertising or nuclear weapons, I would choose advertising.

As a John Kerry supporter, I wanted to send him a check. But then it occurred to me that most of that money would end up in the hands of advertising agencies and television networks. And the money would be used to create deceptive commercials that flatter our point of view and shade the facts our way. And I wasn't comfortable with that. But on the other hand, that's how the game is played. You're always grappling.

As a writer you sometimes feel the need to shake things up.

Every joke can't be dazzling. And if you think you spotted an inconsistency, you did!

I don't know what the universe is all about, but to me, nothing is gained by slapping a God sticker on it. It has never been a comfort to me to believe there's an all-seeing eye in the sky.

I don't remember a lot of what I write. I try to release it after it's out there so that I can be fresh again.

I find that the creative side of my brain and the archival side of my brain don't work well together. When I've done my best work, I've been in a trance-like state.

I guess I'm drawn to religion because I can be provocative without harming something people really care about, like their cars.

I had a bumper sticker on my car for a long time that said, "Kill your television." People helpfully pointed out that I was a total fraud because I was a television writer.

I have nothing but respect for the purist who won't work for the pharaoh. But I'm not that strong.

I resisted parenthood for a long, long time. But having a daughter has given me a sense of hopefulness that I didn't have before.

I want to be tolerant of other people's beliefs. I have wonderful friends who are religious, and I don't want to say that they're dimwits. They should certainly be able to pursue what works for them. I'm just saying that it doesn't work for me and I don't want to pretend that it does.

I was brought up Catholic and, of course, I strayed and repudiated it. That's a painful thing to go through, because you have to look back and realize that you wasted a gigantic chunk of your life.

I'm a pessimist, but I have many painstakingly applied coats of optimism.

Life is challenging for everyone. If someone can believe that he's a sovereign in his tiny domain, it's just an adaptation to life.

Men often struggle with their attraction to other women. They don't quite understand why they have to be with the same woman forever.

The most oblivious people are often the happiest.

The only rule was that the stuff had to be funny and pretty short. To me, the quintessential Army Man joke was one of John Swartzwelder's: 'They can kill the Kennedys. Why can't they make a cup of coffee that tastes good?' It's a horrifying idea juxtaposed with something really banal-and yet there's a kind of logic to it. It's illuminating because it's kind of how Americans see things: Life's a big jumble, but somehow it leads to something I can consume. I love that.

The people who seem to have a lock on power get swept out in a couple of years. So it's naïve to keep swinging at the same targets over and over. It took me a long time to realize, but most of the shackles that I flailed against were just illusory.

There's a built-up tension in religion, and if you can release it, you'll get a huge and satisfying laugh.

There's absolutely no way that something I do on my own is going to be seen in Malaysia.

To me, a mark of maturity is realizing that nobody runs the world. Fat cat politicians and secret conspiracies don't control our lives. In reality, the world is much more complex than that.

When people have no interest in a subject, it's very hard to get them to laugh about it.

When people have no interest in a subject, it's very hard to get them to laugh about it. If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes.

You have to respect people's suffering. To deny that the world is unfair and painful for most of the people living in it would be false and judgmental.

Experience as much as you can and absorb a lot of reality. Otherwise, your writing will have the force of a Wiffle ball.

I guess I started to realize that being an agnostic was such a wimpy position.