162 Thought-Provoking Quotes By Al Franken With A Pinch Of Satire

WHAT DO WE WANT?! PATIENCE! WHEN DO WE WANT IT?! NOW!

  

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.

Life

  

The biases the media has are much bigger than conservative or liberal. They're about getting ratings, about making money, about doing stories that are easy to cover.

  

Too many people don't protect their smartphones with a password or PIN. I anticipate that Apple's fingerprint reader will in fact make iPhone 5S owners more likely to secure their smartphones.

  

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.

  

Service dogs raise their masters' sense of well-being.

  

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.

  

The government must give proper weight to both keeping America safe from terrorists and protecting Americans' privacy. But when Americans lack the most basic information about our domestic surveillance programs, they have no way of knowing whether we're getting that balance right. This lack of transparency is a big problem.

  

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.

  

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.

  

I'm crushed by the responsibility of writing a satirical book.

  

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.

Like

  

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.

  

Gary Bauer is a very good - he's a good friend of mine.

  

When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both.

  

I get satisfaction when I write something I like, when I'm happy with it.

Like

  

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.

Like

  

The Minnesotans I talk to are really concerned about what the future holds for their families. They're trying to pay for health care and send their kids to college, they're worried about declining home values, they're scared for a loved one they have serving in Iraq.

Trying

  

I'm sure I've devoted enough thought to Rush Limbaugh for one lifetime.

  

I believe in not attacking a country pre-emptively unless you're sure of what you're doing and you're working with allies.

  

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.

Never

  

I believe people have a right to know what's going on with their information and how it's collected, how it's stored and who gets it.

  

Google's screen for privacy settings does give you more options for what you share than Apple's does. But it's not a complete list, and people aren't aware of whether or not that information will go to a third party.

  

When people talked about protecting their privacy when I was growing up, they were talking about protecting it from the government. They talked about unreasonable searches and seizures, about keeping the government out of their bedrooms.

  

When the Constitution was written, the founders had no way of anticipating the new technologies that would evolve in the coming centuries.

  

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.

Life

  

Today I will masterbate! Okay, that was a mistake. I should have written "Today I will masterbate--if I want to!

  

I think that the default for collecting any kind of personal data should be opt-in consent.

Think

  

I think the government has a role in protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens.

Think

  

Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it's a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from

Life

  

Anybody who deliberately propagandizes with lies should be held up to scorn and ridicule.

  

It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.

  

Liberals like me love America. We just love America in a different way.

Like , Me

  

When the president during the campaign said he was against nation building, I didn't realize he meant our nation.

  

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.

  

I'm for Israel's right to exist.

  

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.

  

I'm from the Vietnam generation. I didn't serve.

  

The reason I wrote political satire was because I thought it - politics - was important... that public policy was important. Then I transitioned into books, then into radio.

Satire

  

Bill Clinton is the greatest president of the 20th century because I played touch football with him.

  

Minnesotans know the difference between the job of satirist and the job of senator. And so do I.

  

In our political system, money is power. And that means a few can have a lot more power than the rest. That's bad news for everyone else - and for our democracy itself.

  

Changing technologies, changing marketplaces, and even changing trends in anti-competitive practices have all presented challenges to antitrust enforcement.

  

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.

Think

  

I just can't sit still and meditate; that doesn't kind of work for me. I don't even know exactly what it means.

Me

  

Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.

  

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.

  

Progressives, in a way, are the new conservatives. We want to conserve what we fought to build.

  

Net neutrality isn't a government takeover of the Internet, as many of my Republican colleagues have alleged.

  

Net neutrality has been in place since the very beginning of the Internet.

  

Terrorism, to me, is the use of terror for political purpose, and terror is indiscriminate murder of civilians to make a political point.

Me

  

My views about God come from my dad. Dad told me that he believed Nature, which to him included humankind, to be so beautiful, so magnificent, that there had to be something behind it all.

Me

  

I ask the American people not to fall victim to disinformation. There are no death panels. The Affordable Care Act cuts the deficit.

  

I do have a self-censor; everybody does, or at least most who are not pathological do.

  

My dad was a terrible businessman.

  

Some of my colleagues seem more interested in using every procedural method possible to keep the Senate from doing anything than they are in creating jobs or helping Americans struggling in a difficult economy.

  

Having an actual income can expand your romantic horizons toward the more appealing end of the spectrum.

  

I got interested in politics during the civil rights movement and then Vietnam.

  

I couldn't think of anything less appealing than molding the minds of tomorrow's leaders.

Think

  

Sometimes if I tell people, 'I'm afraid that I'm really a fraud,' or 'I have a lot of self-doubt,' they go, 'Oh, no, you're kidding.' I go, 'No, I'm really honest.'

  

People lucky enough to live in the vicinity of an industrial hog farm are, with each breath, made keenly aware of the cause of their declining property values.

  

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.

  

The way I see it, I'm not going to Washington to be the 60th Democratic senator. I'm going to Washington to be the second senator from the state of Minnesota.

  

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.

  

The Fourth Amendment doesn't apply to corporations.

  

Why don't we focus on what Afghan women can do? They can cook, bear children and pray. As I recall, that was fine for our grandmothers.

  

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.

  

Let's not let the government sell us out. Let's fight for net neutrality.

  

If someone hacks your password, you can change it - as many times as you want.

  

Humor and seriousness are not in opposition to each other.

  

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.

  

I know I have an awful lot to learn from the people of Minnesota.

  

I'm the New York Jew who actually grew up in Minnesota.

  

I want to reclaim 'liberal.' I'm a liberal, and I think most Americans are liberals.

Think

  

I hope you realize, in a democracy, laughter is assent.

  

My dad didn't graduate from high school, ended up being a printing salesman, probably never made more than $8,000 a year. My mom sold real estate and did it part time.

Never , Time

  

My dad loved comedians, especially George Jessel, and he loved Henny Youngman and Buddy Hackett.

  

If you look at terrorists, they really have no sense of humor.

  

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.

Like , Tradition

  

There's plenty of room for humor in politics, God knows, but it's a serious business.

  

When you win an election, what you really win is a chance to go to work for working families who need a voice in Minnesota.

  

For 35 years, I was a writer. I wrote a lot of jokes. Some of them weren't funny. Some of them weren't appropriate. Some of them were downright offensive. I understand that.

  

There's an appeal to the American sense of exceptionalism, that we're morally superior, as way to not be self-critical. I think that's a bit dangerous.

Think

  

If I put myself on the ballot and even 50 people voted for me, it'd be a travesty.

Me

  

I'm a bit of a shill for the Clinton Administration, which has its perks. I'm invited to all the inaugural balls.

  

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.

Like , Music

  

I've spent my entire career being a satirist.

  

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.'

  

There is - I mean - I found early in life that righteous indignation is a little off-putting, and so I try to couch it with humor.

Life

  

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.

Time

  

Minnesota has a proud tradition of having two Senators on the Ag committee - a tradition I'd like very much to continue.

Like , Tradition

  

We need to prepare our kids for a 21st Century economy, and we're not doing it with our schools.

  

The civil rights movement was very important in my house, and then Vietnam was very important 'cause there were two boys, so I came of age during a very heated political climate.

  

My parents were really political. The news was very important in our home. We basically had dinner every night while watching the news, and then we'd discuss it with our parents.

  

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.

Think

  

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.

Me

  

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.

  

The nature of the Internet and the importance of net neutrality is that innovation can come from everyone.

  

You know, Lincoln was funny. I don't think F.D.R. was very funny. But Lincoln was funny. Lincoln was really funny. But I think you should get elected first, and then show that you're funny.

Think

  

Bob Dole used to be really funny. Barney Frank can be kind of funny. Bob Kerrey has a good sense of humor.