Top 150 Norm MacDonald Quotes (2026 Update)
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51. “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

52. “The joy a person is usually seen to express at the conversion of another to his opinion is seldom more than the impulse of egotistical satisfaction at being considered worthy of didactic imitation.”

— Norm MacDonald

53. “I don’t know anything about politics. I wouldn’t put too much into my prediction on politics.”

— Norm MacDonald

54. “There is a very prevalent tenet with youth, that good company is every thing desirable, and that bad is even better than none.”

— Norm MacDonald

55. “Actually, with those dirty movies, I find like, they’re good for about fifteen, twenty minutes. I’m really interested. And, then, uh, there’s one point, that all of a sudden I’m bored. You know? I just lose interest completely and I feel deeply ashamed.”

— Norm MacDonald

56. “Were there no fools, there would be no flatterers.”

— Norm MacDonald

57. “I started on ‘Saturday Night Live’ the same time Conan started on Late Night. We just had a relationship because I would be upstairs in the studio and whenever he couldn’t get a guest – which was often back then since he was just starting out – he would just call me down to be a guest.”

— Norm MacDonald

58. “It is better to be idle than employed in ill.”

— Norm MacDonald

59. “There are two things at which most men are grieved: when their faults are exposed, and when their virtues are concealed.”

— Norm MacDonald

60. “Proper respect to others is the most prudent rule of directing the measure of reverence due to ourselves.”

— Norm MacDonald

61. “Few criminals die sensible of their crimes.”

— Norm MacDonald

62. “Earlier this week, Marlon Brando met with Jewish leaders to apologize for comments he made on Larry King Live, among them that “Hollywood is run by Jews.” The Jewish leaders accepted the actor’s apology and announced that Brando is now free to work again.”

— Norm MacDonald

63. “As Adolf Hitler once said, all publicity is good publicity.”

— Norm MacDonald

64. “I would love to stay at SNL forever. But you can’t stay in the same place. People think you’re a loser.”

— Norm MacDonald

65. “We are often less grieved at disappointments than at ourselves for having said much concerning the certainty of our expectations.”

— Norm MacDonald

66. “I like doing a funny show where I don’t have to act and fall in love with a girl.”

— Norm MacDonald

67. “I remember a psychiatrist once telling me that I gamble in order to escape the reality of life, and I told him that’s why everyone does everything.”

— Norm MacDonald

68. “Women are attracted to funny men, it is often said. This is not true. It only appears this way because women laugh at everything a very handsome man says. So this gives the very handsome men the idea that they are funny.”

— Norm MacDonald

69. “None seem to bear the imputation of supposed guilt with greater intolerance than such as are, on other occasions, obviously culpable of vice or crime.”

— Norm MacDonald

70. “The man that does not fear punishment, little regards crime.”

— Norm MacDonald

71. “Now that all hope is gone, a deep relief has taken its place, and I allow myself to enjoy it before the despair sets in.”

— Norm MacDonald

72. “It is the folly of weak-minded people, to imagine they are what flattery or conceit represents them; and that it is useless for them to be what they are not, since they seem already to have acquired the reputation of it.”

— Norm MacDonald

73. “Scientists believe they may have discovered a primitive form of life on Jupiter’s moon Europa. That primitive form of life? You guessed it, Frank Stallone.”

— Norm MacDonald

74. “With the ambitious, the failure of one expedient is the suggestion of another; but with the irresolute, defeat usually occasions abandonment of purpose.”

— Norm MacDonald

75. “There’s no such thing, of course, as an old-fashioned gay guy. They’re the most decadent people.”

— Norm MacDonald

76. “I’m not gay, so I don’t know much about Broadway musicals.”

— Norm MacDonald

77. “Instead of loving your enemies, have no enemies to love.”

— Norm MacDonald

78. “A lot of people think I’m difficult to work with. It’s not like I really want to do that much stuff, so it doesn’t really matter. I guess I’m somewhat difficult when it comes to comedy.”

— Norm MacDonald

79. “I don’t really like politics that much. And I like the order and simplicity of sports. They have an ending. You can argue with your friends about it, but in the end you still like sports. I almost love the fantasy world of sports more than the real world.”

— Norm MacDonald

80. “The reason we have few friends in adversity, is, because we have no true ones in prosperity.”

— Norm MacDonald

81. “This would have been a great game to watch if we didn’t have any money on it.”

— Norm MacDonald

82. “Man, them engagement rings, boy, they cost a lot. I was looking at ’em. Cost like a thousand bucks, two thousand bucks, y’know. Three thousand bucks. Something like that- four thousand bucks. Big number divisible by a thousand, anyways.”

— Norm MacDonald

83. “A lot of writers come from Harvard and such, and are rich, and they write under the misapprehension that poor people are stupid. So when they do write them, they are hillbillies or rednecks or Christian idiots.”

— Norm MacDonald

84. “We would seldom be deceived by flattery, did our own conceit not promote the delusion.”

— Norm MacDonald

85. “The most frequent cause of regret for what we have done is because its effects interfere with what we would do.”

— Norm MacDonald

86. “In love, we are best pleased when we please others.”

— Norm MacDonald

87. “When I was a kid, everybody that played golf was an old man. Until Tiger showed up, they weren’t in very good shape.”

— Norm MacDonald

88. “If you’re looking for the suspect in a suicide bombing, here’s a clue: Look for the dead guy.”

— Norm MacDonald

89. “Chastity is oftener owing to diffidence and shame, than to fortitude of reason or virtue.”

— Norm MacDonald

90. “The young compliment their greatness on the number of their friends; the old, on the confidence of them.”

— Norm MacDonald

91. “In estimating the adversities of life, we would seldom have much reason to complain of the evils we suffer, did we understand the dangers we daily escape.”

— Norm MacDonald

92. “A great cause of evil in the world is that men seldom think themselves criminal if they offer the same injustice to others that has been successfully practiced on themselves.”

— Norm MacDonald

93. “It is often better to be restricted to necessity than unconfined in the measure of our desires: prosperity destroys more individuals than adversity ruins.”

— Norm MacDonald

94. “Imprudent restrictions often force youth farther than enticement would carry them; and careless limitation is frequently worse than no injunction.”

— Norm MacDonald

95. “When it’s unexpected, death comes fast like a ravenous wolf and tears open your throat with a merciful fury. But when it’s expected, it comes slow and patient like a snake, and the doctor tells you how far away it is and when, exactly it will be at your door. And when it will be at the foot of your bed. And when it will be on your flesh. It’s all right there on the clipboards.”

— Norm MacDonald

96. “There are two indiscretions that generally distinguish fools: a readiness to report whatever they hear, and a practice of communicating with secrecy what is commonly understood.”

— Norm MacDonald

97. “Enjoyment inflames love in some men, and extinguishes it in others: the wind that assists large vessels, upsets small ones.”

— Norm MacDonald

98. “Some men mistake generosity for charity: these flatter themselves that they are giving gratuitously, whilst they are merely rewarding secret services offered their vanity.”

— Norm MacDonald

99. “You can’t love your team without hating another team.”

— Norm MacDonald

100. “It got very tedious saying the same jokes in the same way with the same attitude.”

— Norm MacDonald