Top 180 Denis Leary Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Crisis doesn’t create character; it reveals it.”

— Denis Leary

2. “Once you have a firefighter in your family, your family and the families from his crew become one big extended family.”

— Denis Leary

3. “I eat meat because meat tastes like murder, and murder tastes pretty dam good!”

— Denis Leary

4. “Racism isn’t born, folks, it’s taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list.”

— Denis Leary

5. “I love French stuff. Mmmm, french fries.”

— Denis Leary

6. “Sometimes I park in handicap spaces while handicapped people make handicapped faces.”

— Denis Leary

7. “Don’t buy the toys that make the noise!”

— Denis Leary

8. “Not eating meat is a decision, eating meat is an instinct.”

— Denis Leary

9. “It says on the back of the Nyquil box, ‘May cause drowsiness.’ It should say, ‘Don’t make any plans, OK? Kiss your family and friends good-bye.’”

— Denis Leary

10. “Everyone should have an evil secret plan...”

— Denis Leary

11. “If you had no enemies, you had no fun.”

— Denis Leary

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12. “I’m sick and tired of our generation being called the TV generation. What do you expect? We watched Lee Harvey Oswald get his brains blown out all over. How could we change the channel after that?”

— Denis Leary

13. “This is the most exciting place in the world to live. Oh yeah! There are so many ways to die in New York City! Race riots, drive by shootings, subway crashes, construction cranes collapsing on the sidewalks, manhole covers blowing up and asbestos shooting into the sky.”

— Denis Leary

14. “You know why the French hate us so much? Thay gave us the croissant. And you know what we did with it? We turned it into our croissandwich, thank you very much.”

— Denis Leary

15. “I have good kids, I love my kids. I try to bring them up the right way, not spanking them. I find that I don’t have to spank them. I find that waving the gun around pretty much gets the same job done!”

— Denis Leary

16. “We live in a country where John Lennon takes eight bullets, Yoko Ono is walking right beside him and not one hits her. Explain that to me!”

— Denis Leary

17. “My brother and I tortured my mother growing up.”

— Denis Leary

18. “My goal is to leave this planet with the biggest carbon footprint I can possibly leave.”

— Denis Leary

19. “The best pitch I ever heard about cocaine was back in the early eighties when a street dealer followed me down the sidewalk going: I got some great blow man. I got the stuff that killed Belushi.”

— Denis Leary

20. “No matter what anybody says, relationships are based on physical attraction. The first time I saw my wife, it was pure animal whatever.”

— Denis Leary

21. “I always hated the Grateful Dead. Never even bought a Led Zeppelin album.”

— Denis Leary

22. “You try to – you want to fly on both sides of the political fence because that’s where the – where the comedy is.”

— Denis Leary

23. “Vacuuming is great. I do the laundry. I love washing machines. I’m the maid in my house.”

— Denis Leary

24. “I will not bond. I will not share. I refuse to nurture.”

— Denis Leary

25. “I love to smoke. I smoke seven thousand packs a day!”

— Denis Leary

26. “Stand-up comedy and comedy in general is the ultimate form of free speech, because you get to poke holes in all the pretentious bubbles politicians and pundits and popes and pretenders try to float over our heads.”

— Denis Leary

27. “Personally, I think Jim Henson said it best when he said “Anybody got an aspirin? I think I’ve got a cold.””

— Denis Leary

28. “People saying, ‘Life didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.’ Welcome to the club. I wanted to be the starting center-fielder for the Boston Red Sox, for chrissakes!”

— Denis Leary

29. “If you want a long-term relationship that doesn’t require a lot of work, I say, get a dog. They love you no matter what. But when it comes to humans, there’s no secret; you really have to appreciate the person every single day.”

— Denis Leary

30. “Everyone’s got skeletons in their closet, and I’ve got a million in mine, believe me. I tested the envelope; I pushed it. Whenever somebody in authority told me not to do something, I did it just to find out why they said not to do it.”

— Denis Leary

31. “I’m the Lord of the Dance! F-k Michael Flatley, it’s me!”

— Denis Leary

32. “My biggest regret in life is that I didn’t hit John Denver in the mouth while I has the chance.”

— Denis Leary

33. “Yeah, I love living in New York, man, and people who live in New York, we wear that fact like a badge right on our sleeve because we know that fact impresses everybody! I was in Vietnam. So what? I live in New York!”

— Denis Leary

34. “I love to smoke. I love to eat red meat. I’ll only eat red meat that comes from cows who smoke, ok!? Special cows they grow in Virginia with voice boxes in their necks. “Moo””

— Denis Leary

35. “What I’ve learned is that life is too short and movies are too long.”

— Denis Leary

36. “Marriage is like a dull meal with the dessert at the beginning.”

— Denis Leary

37. “I take music pretty seriously. You see that scar on my wrist? You see that? You know where that’s from? I heard the Bee Gees were getting back together again. I couldn’t take it, OK!”

— Denis Leary

38. “The filter’s the best part. That’s where they put the heroin.”

— Denis Leary

39. “Kathy Bates is sexy. It’s partly because of her talent, but she’s got a great face, and a great laugh.”

— Denis Leary

40. “When I first got famous, Greg Dulli was also just starting to cook with the Afghan Whigs, and because of the MTV awards I met Dave Grohl and Nirvana and all these rock and roll bands. So I had experience with what it was like when people were taking off at that time.”

— Denis Leary

41. “Here’s the problem with Easter. The Catholic Church needs to pick a date because it keeps moving. And I think the reason they always have Easter moving to different dates is to catch us.”

— Denis Leary

42. “There we were in the middle of a sexual revolution wearing clothes that guaranteed we wouldn’t get laid.”

— Denis Leary

43. “I basically – I don’t like tattoos, unless you’re a firefighter who has a tattoo that has to do with that or a military guy. That’s – those are people who should have tattoos.”

— Denis Leary

44. “I love Santa Monica and Venice because I like the beach. I have a lot of friends in that area.”

— Denis Leary

45. “Happy Easter everyone! Jesus dies, comes back from the dead – and we get chocolate eggs. It’s like turn-down service from God.”

— Denis Leary

46. “I’m born and raised in the Northeast. My parents are Irish immigrants. So our tendency is to shy away from the big yellow ball that comes up in the sky every once in a while.”

— Denis Leary

47. “I want you to take away the hope because that’s the thing that’s killing me.”

— Denis Leary

48. “I’ve always had a thing for Catwoman. Michelle Pfeiffer or Halle Berry in tight leather pants, with the boots – I’m pretty good with either one.”

— Denis Leary

49. “Let me tell you something: I love the Yankees. And let me tell you why: because without the Yankees, there is nobody to hate.”

— Denis Leary

50. “Firefighters are some of the most selfless public servants you will ever encounter.”

— Denis Leary