Top 150 Norm MacDonald Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You know, with Hitler, the more I learn about that guy, the more I don’t care for him.”

— Norm MacDonald

2. “Yeah man, they call gambling a disease, but it’s the only disease where you can win a bunch of money.”

— Norm MacDonald

3. “I’m thankful for women. I think women are more intelligent than men. Also, without women, there would be no cookies.”

— Norm MacDonald

4. “There are two things which a man should scrupulously avoid: giving advice that he would not follow, and asking advice when he is determined to pursue his own opinion.”

— Norm MacDonald

5. “I don’t know the difference between a hippie and a hipster but, it’s fun to watch either one of them get beat up.”

— Norm MacDonald

Featured in: Hipster Quotes

6. “Note to self: no matter how bad life gets, there’s always beer.”

— Norm MacDonald

7. “RIP Amy Winehouse. We lost a true heroin addict today.”

— Norm MacDonald

8. “Kenny G has a Christmas album out this year. Hey, happy birthday Jesus! Hope you like crap!”

— Norm MacDonald

9. “All my life’s about is cracking up people and them cracking me up and trying not to think about dying. That doesn’t cost very much money.”

— Norm MacDonald

10. “My dad died, and my grandfather died, and my great-grandfather died. And the guy before him, I don’t know. Probably died.”

— Norm MacDonald

11. “It is easier to hate those we love, than love those whom we have hated.”

— Norm MacDonald

12. “Hypocrisy is the outward acknowledgment of inward shame.”

— Norm MacDonald

13. “Ignorance is better than knowledge misapplied.”

— Norm MacDonald

14. “Reason is always weak where prejudice is strong.”

— Norm MacDonald

15. “Comedy is surprises, so if you’re intending to make somebody laugh and they don’t laugh, that’s funny.”

— Norm MacDonald

16. “Your worst and most dangerous enemy is the person that injures you under the pretensions of friendship.”

— Norm MacDonald

17. “We advise others better than ourselves.”

— Norm MacDonald

18. “When I hear a guy lost a battle to cancer, that really did bother me, that that’s a term. It implies that he failed and that somebody else that defeated cancer is heroic and courageous.”

— Norm MacDonald

19. “If you cannot patiently bear correction, endeavor to avoid fault.”

— Norm MacDonald

20. “OJ Simpson was in a different kind of courtroom this week attempting to regain custody of his two children. In order to prove to the court how much he loves his kids, OJ pointed out quote ‘Hey, they’re still alive, aren’t they?’”

— Norm MacDonald

21. “We often suffer more from our fears, than from the dangers of our situation.”

— Norm MacDonald

22. “Back in the old days, a man could just get sick and die. Now they have to wage a battle. So my Uncle Bert is waging a courageous battle, which I’ve seen, because I go and visit him. And this is the battle: he’s lying in the hospital bed, with a thing in his arm, watching Matlock on the TV.”

— Norm MacDonald

23. “They say that if you’re afraid of homosexuals, it means that deep down inside you’re actually a homosexual yourself. That worries me because I’m afraid of dogs.”

— Norm MacDonald

24. “The first principle of solid wisdom is discretion, without it all the erudition of life is merely bagatelle.”

— Norm MacDonald

25. “The beginning of wisdom is the knowledge of folly.”

— Norm MacDonald

26. “Never raise expectations in others that you cannot realize: promise is less pleasing than disappointment is vexatious.”

— Norm MacDonald

27. “After months of speculation, the sitcom star Ellen DeGeneres admitted that yes, she’s gay. Inspired by her courage, today, diet-guru Richard Simmons admitted that he is really, really, really, really gay.”

— Norm MacDonald

28. “I don’t have any ego about it, but I find there’s not a great work ethic in show business. A lot of people are in it to make money, and coming from stand-up, you have to work so hard because almost nothing works, and if you lose the audience for three minutes, you’re dead.”

— Norm MacDonald

29. “Envy, like a false mirror, distorts the symmetry of the sweetest form.”

— Norm MacDonald

30. “In math, you could get 100 percent. It was very fair. That’s what I liked about math. You could figure it out, and the teacher couldn’t have a stupid opinion about it.”

— Norm MacDonald

31. “The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you’re not careful it’s too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.”

— Norm MacDonald

32. “Flattery succeeds best on minds previously occupied by conceit.”

— Norm MacDonald

33. “Liberty, like health, appears most precious when lost.”

— Norm MacDonald

34. “Few people love with the violence they hate.”

— Norm MacDonald

35. “I don’t do much. I’m too lazy. That’s my problem. Hang around my couch, watching the TV. Just too lazy. I realized this the other day, I get hit my a truck tomorrow – a big truck could hit me – paralyze me from the neck down. Wouldn’t effect my lifestyle a bit really.”

— Norm MacDonald

36. “Though we may not desire to detect fraud, we must not, on that account, endeavor to be insensible of it, for, as cunning is a crime, so is duplicity a fault, and if men dread knaves, they also despise fools.”

— Norm MacDonald

37. “They that are fated to be fools, have one consolation, that they are fated also to be ignorant of it.”

— Norm MacDonald

38. “My dad had this thing – everyone in Canada wants to play hockey; that’s all they want to do. So when I was a kid, whenever we skated my dad would not let us on the ice without hockey sticks, because of this insane fear we would become figure skaters!”

— Norm MacDonald

39. “Few are more unhappy than those who have great ambition, but little energy to urge it into activity.”

— Norm MacDonald

40. “If you desire praise or esteem, endeavor to merit it.”

— Norm MacDonald

41. “The standard of morals is as variable as morals themselves; of which every nation has a different code, and every custom a different reading.”

— Norm MacDonald

42. “Most men will go farther to give advice than to follow their own opinion.”

— Norm MacDonald

43. “He that searches for praise will often find contempt.”

— Norm MacDonald

44. “I always told everybody the perfect joke would be where the setup and punch line were identical.”

— Norm MacDonald

45. “Love is an artful arrangement of artless pretensions, whereby we labor to appear innocent in what we desire to be most cunning.”

— Norm MacDonald

46. “In terms of merit, sports has mathematical statistics. That’s how you know who the best player is.”

— Norm MacDonald

47. “That’s where I found him, making a living underneath the Queensboro Bridge, jerking off punks for fifteen dollars a man.”

— Norm MacDonald

48. “Education makes some men wiser, others more ridiculous and foolish!”

— Norm MacDonald

49. “Violent people usually express their love of a thing by their hatred of its opposite.”

— Norm MacDonald

50. “The Rolling Stones reunited for a twenty-fifth anniversary tour last week. Keith Richards said that he’s happy to continue to do what he’s been doing for the past twenty-five years: cheating death.”

— Norm MacDonald