Al Franken Quotes

My dad never graduated high school. He was a printing salesman. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. We weren't rich - but we felt secure.

My views about God come from my dad. Dad told me that he believed Nature, which to him included humankind, to be so beautiful, so magnificent, that there had to be something behind it all.

My dad was a terrible businessman.

Service dogs raise their masters' sense of well-being.

If you control the flow of information, you can control the conversation around important issues. If you can control the conversation, you can change this country.

I hope you realize, in a democracy, laughter is assent.

Net neutrality isn't a government takeover of the Internet, as many of my Republican colleagues have alleged.

Let's keep the Internet weird. Let's keep the Internet free.

You know, Lincoln was funny. I don't think F.D.R. was very funny. But Lincoln was funny. Lincoln was really funny. But I think you should get elected first, and then show that you're funny.

I just can't sit still and meditate; that doesn't kind of work for me. I don't even know exactly what it means.

For 35 years I was a writer. I wrote a lot of jokes. Some of them weren’t funny. Some of them weren’t appropriate. Some of them were downright offensive. I understand that.

I don't know what happens to you after you die. I'm not banking on there being, like, a heaven.

I get satisfaction when I write something I like, when I'm happy with it.

Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.

I'm from the Vietnam generation. I didn't serve.

Net neutrality has been in place since the very beginning of the Internet.

Minnesotans know the difference between the job of satirist and the job of senator. And so do I.

Minnesota has a proud tradition of having two Senators on the Ag committee - a tradition I'd like very much to continue.

If we have George W. Bush as president, we're going to go back to the kind of policies we had when his father and Ronald Reagan were president.

Liberals like me love America. We just love America in a different way.

Let's not let the government sell us out. Let's fight for net neutrality.

I'm for Israel's right to exist.

In my first week as a U.S. senator, I had the privilege of participating in the Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

I've spent my entire career being a satirist.

I'm the New York Jew who actually grew up in Minnesota.

I'm sure I've devoted enough thought to Rush Limbaugh for one lifetime.

No one is more sensitive to the issue of overeating than the creator of Stuart Smalley.

I think the government has a role in protecting the fundamental rights of its citizens.

I want to reclaim 'liberal.' I'm a liberal, and I think most Americans are liberals.

When the Constitution was written, the founders had no way of anticipating the new technologies that would evolve in the coming centuries.

What you see on the campaign trail is me. It's easy being me.

The nature of the Internet and the importance of net neutrality is that innovation can come from everyone.

Terrorism, to me, is the use of terror for political purpose, and terror is indiscriminate murder of civilians to make a political point.

Progressives, in a way, are the new conservatives. We want to conserve what we fought to build.

I'm a bit of a shill for the Clinton Administration, which has its perks. I'm invited to all the inaugural balls.

At 'SNL,' I wrote political stuff, but I never felt the show should have an axe to grind. But when I left in '95, I could let my own beliefs out.

Gary Bauer is a very good - he's a good friend of mine.

We owe an historic debt to American Indians. They have a unique set of concerns that haven’t been addressed and I’d like to stand with them. Also, I’d like to get their views on immigration.

I'm a perfectionist and if I start making changes, I'll never stop.

Apple has long been a leading innovator of mobile technology; I myself own an iPhone.

Liberals don't hate America. We love America more than Ann Coulter does. I love it enough to engage my readers honestly.

Google might be doping the horses.

I got interested in politics during the civil rights movement and then Vietnam.

When you live in New York, one of two things happen - you either become a New Yorker, or you feel more like the place you came from.

Well, I think that there's a value to comedy in and of itself.

Most of us here in the media are what I call infotainers...Rush Limbaugh is what I call a disinfotainer. He entertains by spreading disinformation.

I do personal attacks only on people who specialize in personal attacks.

We need to be pro-science; we have to go back to science.

There's an appeal to the American sense of exceptionalism, that we're morally superior, as way to not be self-critical. I think that's a bit dangerous.

My dad didn't graduate from high school, ended up being a printing salesman, probably never made more than $8,000 a year. My mom sold real estate and did it part time.