Penn Jillette
Penn Jillette
Penn Fraser Jilletteis an American magician, juggler, comedian, musician, inventor, actor, and best-selling author known for his work with fellow magician Teller as half of the team Penn & Teller. He is also known for his advocacy of atheism, scientific skepticism, libertarianism and free-market capitalism...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMagician
Date of Birth5 March 1955
CityGreenfield, MA
CountryUnited States of America
art technology world
The whole world is pretending the breakthrough is in technology. The bottleneck is really in art.
mean ends justify
The end never justifies the means because there is no end; there are only means.
Thou shalt not take anything on faith
religious believe heart
I don't travel in circles where people say, 'I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.' That's just a long-winded religious way to say, 'Shut up.
mtv people tone
The only place we were really told to tone it down - where other people would use the word censorship, but I wouldn't - was when we did MTV right after the Beavis and Butt-head thing.
believe reality ideas
Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate.
country boston years
You have in Vegas the most heterogeneous audience you're gonna get anywhere in the country. In Boston, Chicago, Miami, you know who goes to the theater. In Vegas, you have people who only see one theater show a year, and it's in Vegas.
ignorance conspiracy
Never ascribe to conspiracy that which can be attributed to ignorance.
inspirational real technology
My favorite thing about the Internet is that you get to go into the private world of real creeps without having to smell them.
people paper deals
Make deals with people, not paper.
kids talking ducks
When I was a kid, politicians wanted to avoid talking about religion if they could. John F. Kennedy couldn't duck the issue, being Catholic and all. So how did he address it? By reminding Americans that religion shouldn't be an issue, that he was concentrating on big things like poverty and hunger and leading the space race.
years games listening
When I was 15, 16, 17 years old, I spent five hours a day juggling, and I probably spent six hours a day seriously listening to music. And if I were 16 now, I would put that time into playing video games.
thinking years two
There are two things that have been true throughout history in big hunks. You can find differences in ten years, but in 50 year hunks, 100 years hunks, you'll find two things to be true. One, the world is always getting better. Two, people always think it's getting worse.
religious real muslim-extremists
When 9/11 hit, the second thing I said to myself was, 'This really is what religious people do.' Those people flying the plane were very good, very pious, truly faithful believers. There's no other way to paint them. Of course, they are extremists by definition, but they certainly aren't going against Islam in any real way.