Forget bringing the troops home from Iraq. We need to get the troops home from World War II. Can anybody tell me why, in 2009, we still have more than sixty thousand troops in Germany and thirty thousand in Japan? At some point, these people are going to have to learn to rape themselves. Our soldiers have been in Germany so long they now wear shorts with black socks. You know that crazy soldier hiding in the cave on Iwo Jima who doesn’t know the war is over? That’s us. Bush and Cheney used to love to keep Americans all sphincter ed-up on the notion that terrorists might follow us home. But actually, we’re the people who go to your home and then never leave. Here are the facts: The Republic of America has more than five hundred thousand military personnel deployed on more than seven hundred bases, with troops in one hundred fifty countries—we’re like McDonald’s with tanks—including thirty-seven European countries—because you never know when Portugal might invade Euro Disney. And this doesn’t even count our secret torture prisons, which are all over the place, but you never really see them until someone brings you there—kinda like IHOP. Of course, Americans would never stand for this in reverse—we can barely stand letting Mexicans in to do the landscaping. Can you imagine if there were twenty thousand armed Guatemalans on a base in San Bernardino right now? Lou Dobbs would become a suicide bomber. And why? How did this country get stuck with an empire? I’m not saying we’re Rome. Rome had good infrastructure. But we are an empire, and the reason is that once America lands in a country, there is no exit strategy. We’re like cellulite, herpes, and Irish relatives: We are not going anywhere. We love you long time!

— Bill Maher

For months in the fall of 2001, our highways looked like a county fair on wheels. "Look out, Al-Ada---patriot on board!" I once saw a guy with five flags tell a guy with four flags to go back to Afghanistan.

— Bill Maher

Freedom isn't free. It shouldn't be a bragging point that 'Oh, I don't get involved in politics,' as if that makes someone cleaner. No, that makes you derelict of duty in a republic. Liars and panderers in government would have a much harder time of it if so many people didn't insist on their right to remain ignorant and blindly agreeable.

— Bill Maher

Gaddafi is a zombie in a pillbox hat, that's what he is!

— Bill Maher

I don't respect thinking that is dangerous, prejudicial, childish, and could get me killed.

— Bill Maher

I don't ridicule religion, it ridicules itself.

— Bill Maher

I don't want to say Monsanto is evil right off the bat, but why is Monsanto so evil?

— Bill Maher

I do think the patriotic thing to do is to critique my country. How else do you make a country better but by pointing out its flaws?

— Bill Maher

If a fourteen year-old can deliver your message, it's not because he's gifted. It's because intellectually, you're a child.

— Bill Maher

If I can't suck your milkshake through a straw, it's not a milkshake--it's a glass of ice cream.

— Bill Maher