Top 160 Emo Philips Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “People always ask me, ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ Well, I don’t have an alibi.”

— Emo Philips

102. “Anger punishes the bearer’s heart. Who remains angry suffers most. For many, the search for perfection virtually guarantees it will be found, and disregarded in order to continue the search. Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.”

— Emo Philips

103. “My parents had very strict rules for me. Rules like, I couldn’t be home until a certain hour.”

— Emo Philips

104. “Coming up with a funny joke is like falling in love: It can hit you any time, anywhere. Having said that, the more you put yourself out there, the better your odds will be.”

— Emo Philips

105. “Interviewers always used to ask me about my pageboy haircut, and it drove me nuts: it almost made me suspect that there was something strange about it. So I cut off my pageboy...”

— Emo Philips

106. “I’ll do anything for my wife, it’s turning out.”

— Emo Philips

107. “One man’s pet-stained carpet is another man’s Twister game.”

— Emo Philips

108. “Isn’t this a wonderful country? I was in Florida. I’m staying at a motel called the Three Palms. It’s run by a middle-aged couple, one of whom is missing a hand. OK! That’s what I thought, too! But they got upset when I asked.”

— Emo Philips

109. “When I was ten, my family moved to Downer’s Grove, Illinois. When I was twelve, I found them.”

— Emo Philips

110. “In college I was one of six males who auditioned for five male roles in a comedy play. I was the one rejected. At that moment I made up my mind never to place myself at the mercy of some pompous, goateed, black-turtleneck-shirted “should I yay him or nay him?” pantywaist ever again.”

— Emo Philips

111. “Girls throw their panties on the stage, but rarely if ever do they fit.”

— Emo Philips

112. “When I was a kid, my nickname was Mr. Baseball. Because of the stitches.”

— Emo Philips

113. “I saw a psychologist once because I thought I had depression. It cost me $100. When I left, I realised that there’s nothing he could have said that would cheer me up as much as if I found a $100 bill on my way home.”

— Emo Philips

114. “My mom gave me one of those cloth calendars for the kitchen. It took me three hours to sew in a dental appointment.”

— Emo Philips

115. “I read that nine out of 10 women fantasize about having an unknown man leap through their bedroom window at night and make mad, passionate love to them. Who would think with those odds, I would now be facing 150 hours of community service.”

— Emo Philips

116. “I’m learning Cuban. It’s like Spanish, but with fewer words for luxury items.”

— Emo Philips

117. “I grew up in an era when strange adults would grab me on the street and say: ‘Don’t do that.’ You never see that these days. ‘Hi, we took the liberty of spanking your son.’ Oh thanks, my hand was getting worn.”

— Emo Philips

118. “New York’s such a wonderful city. Although I was at the library today. The guy was very rude. I said, “I’d like a card.” He says, “You have to prove you’re a citizen of New York.” So I stabbed him.”

— Emo Philips

119. “I was sleeping the other night, alone, thanks to the exterminator.”

— Emo Philips

120. “I’m not a fatalist; even if I were, what could I do about it?”

— Emo Philips

121. “I asked the head musician if I could go onstage during the next break and he said sure. I got two laughs in twenty minutes, and walked out feeling more elated than I had ever felt in my entire life. The glory of that triumph contented me for two full years.”

— Emo Philips

122. “Charlie Chaplin is the greatest artist of the 20th century. He takes me from laughter to tears in seconds. And he was one of the very first funny men. It’s like the original violins were made in Cremona and there’s never been any better since. Sometimes the best come right off the bat.”

— Emo Philips

123. “When deciding between two competing theories, always go with the one that doesn’t involve a magic spell.”

— Emo Philips

124. “I’ve always kind of pushed the envelope in terms of trying to get away with things no one else was going near. I always thought of myself like a mouse trying to get cheese that no one else could get without getting their tail snipped off.”

— Emo Philips

125. “The IRS sent back my tax return saying I owed $800. I said If you’ll notice, I sent a paper clip with my return. Given what you’ve been paying for things lately, that should more than make up the difference.”

— Emo Philips

126. “In our school you were searched for guns and knifes on the way in and if you didn’t have any, they gave you some.”

— Emo Philips

127. “I tried body surfing once, but how often do you find a corpse?”

— Emo Philips

128. “Sometimes my mother goes through my socks and underwear. I wouldn’t mind, but it tickles so much!”

— Emo Philips

129. “I don’t know if I have sexual magnetism or animal magnetism, though sometimes I’ll find a squirrel stuck to my forehead.”

— Emo Philips

130. “I’ve been wrestling with reality for most of my life. I’m pleased to say I’ve won.”

— Emo Philips

131. “I got some new underwear the other day. Well, new to me.”

— Emo Philips

132. “I don’t really hang out with people. I like to be by myself. In fact, I’ve been arrested a few times because I like to walk around at two or three in the morning, looking at shop windows. The cops take me to the station and fingerprint me. But I wouldn’t call that hanging out.”

— Emo Philips

133. “My sister gained 80 pounds expecting her baby. Well, you get nervous, waiting for those adoption papers to clear.”

— Emo Philips

134. “For some reason, religious jokes seem as trivial as jokes about food or driving.”

— Emo Philips

135. “You should get married. When I was younger, I was into the fame and fortune, and now I realize that a loving wife and happy children – that’s life’s greatest consolation prize.”

— Emo Philips

136. “The Scots are a very tough people. They have drive-by headbuttings. In Glasgow a sweatband is considered a silencer.”

— Emo Philips

137. “There’s a joke in everything, the trick is finding it. The best compliment a joke can get is what Huxley said about Darwin’s theory of evolution – ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’”

— Emo Philips

138. “Race is still somewhat of a taboo in comedy. But if you’re a minority, then you can make fun of your own minority. And that’s a nice service that many of them provide.”

— Emo Philips

139. “The other day a woman came up to me and said, Didn’t I see you on television? I said, I don’t know. You can’t see out the other way.”

— Emo Philips

140. “I always wanted a beautiful loving wife and she always wanted to be a citizen.”

— Emo Philips

141. “Santa Fe is fun to visit, but property there will cost you an arm and a dillo.”

— Emo Philips

142. “It’s amazing where a joke might come from. I find a lot of humour just by metaphorically turning things upside down or literally like my wife’s cat.”

— Emo Philips

143. “He taught me never to smile, which helps me when I visit disaster sites.”

— Emo Philips

144. “I think of people as members of an audience. But an audience acts independently of every individual. It’s an organism on its own. I focus on that living hydra in the dark.”

— Emo Philips

145. “I once heard two ladies going on and on about the pains of childbirth and how men don’t seem to know what real pain is. I asked if either of them ever got themselves caught in a zipper.”

— Emo Philips

146. “But I like to swim. At high school, I tried out for the swim team. I shaved off all my body hair, and that extra burst of speed from all the bullies shouting Kill the fairy...”

— Emo Philips

147. “I had a very close relationship with another kid when I was growing up. I was his imaginary friend.”

— Emo Philips

148. “Because we allow handguns. When you know someone in the crowd might be packing a rod, it can’t help but rush your timing.”

— Emo Philips

149. “The nicest present I ever got was an exploding suppository.”

— Emo Philips

150. “Actually, my cd was released in 1985, in return for two German missionaries and a Dutch urologist.”

— Emo Philips