Top 77 Denis Leary Quotes

Stand-up comedy and comedy in general is the ultimate form of free speech, because you get to poke holes in all the pretentious bubbles politicians and pundits and popes and pretenders try to float over our heads.

I really like ‘Batman.’ Not the TV show, but the dark ‘Batman.’

I’m a pretty boring guy. Compared to Ashton Kutcher, I live a really boring existence.

With any actor, if you know your character well enough, you’ll know pretty much what he would say under any circumstance, or whatever situation might rear its head.

I think we’re going to carry the ‘Ice Age’s up to ‘Ice Age 15,’ which means basically they’ll be in the present decade.

I write what I think is funny and I write from a sense of popping a balloon or a sense of injustice, whether it’s about yourself, or whether it’s about something else. It’s my worldview; it doesn’t mean that everybody has to agree with it.

You try to – you want to fly on both sides of the political fence because that’s where the – where the comedy is.

My father could swear in Gaelic and English, by the way, ladies and gentlemen.

Usually when you watch a film, you’re just sort of biting your nails about things you could have done differently.

Having dealt with a lot of real firefighters, I know there are a lot of guys who, for lack of a better term, become addicted to the grief because it has kept them connected to these guys that they felt responsible for having lost.

What firefighters and people in our military and cops do is separate from what the rest of us do; basically these people say, ‘I’m going to protect all these strangers.’

I think it’s a shame when you come across young actors and musicians who haven’t had the time to learn their craft. It doesn’t matter if it’s acting or music; you really have to learn how to do it from the bottom up because unless you have a great work ethic… fame is a terrible thing to have.

There’s no male Oprah.

I know gay – gay people who aren’t married who are better parents than some, you know, straight people I know who are married.

I can’t text. My fingers are too big.

If you had no enemies, you had no fun.

I think all priests should be married.

I’m not really a Spider-Man fan. I’m more of a Batman guy.

Kathy Bates is sexy. It’s partly because of her talent, but she’s got a great face, and a great laugh.

There’s no way around it – drama is very difficult to shoot. It’s very heavy and something that you carry with you for the course of the day.

Wolfhounds helped kill off the wolves in Ireland.

In addition to my cousin, there were 30 or 40 guys I grew up with who became firefighters as well. So, I’ve been around firefighters all my life.

Anthony Mackie in ‘The Hurt Locker’ is everything an actor can hope to be. So rock steady in his portrayal that you immediately forget every performance he may have previously given, and focus only on the character in front of you.

Science fiction was never my thing. I have no interest in it. So I don’t think I could successfully pull off being on a project like that without really losing my mind.

The best comedy audiences in the country and this is tried and true, I’m not just saying it, in my opinion are Boston, Atlanta, and Chicago.

First of all, I have to have trucks because I live most of my time on a horse farm, so I’ve gotta have trucks. It’s in the northeast; I’ve got to have pickup trucks to move snow, number one. Number two, just if I’m driving, I don’t have to have an SUV, but I want a big car.

When I was doing standup, I always wanted to get out of the standup world and take it back into the theatrical world, like with ‘No Cure For Cancer.’

Racism isn’t born, folks, it’s taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list.

I don’t believe in the power of words.

I would have to commit a crime and have cops chase me. That would be the only way to get me to jog five miles.

My nieces and my nephews think the only thing that I do is ‘Ice Age.’ That’s fine with me because pretty soon they’ll grow up enough to realize that I suck or that my time has passed, whichever it might be.

I’m a huge Kevin Youkilis fan.

I want you to take away the hope because that’s the thing that’s killing me.

My charity is in the business of helping firefighters in any way that we can. For instance, after 9/11 we were the second-fastest charity to raise and distribute money to the widows and surviving family members of the 343 firefighters who died that day.

I bought my daughter a Chihuahua and I fell in love with it. So now I carry Coco around with me all the time.

My biggest regret in life is that I didn’t hit John Denver in the mouth while I has the chance.

Sometimes ‘great acting’ is just showing off – chewing up scenery and dialogue and other actors – the equivalent of a theatrical sugar rush.

I have a lot of conservative views on a lot of things.

Nobody can make more fun of me than I already make of myself.

I’m really happy I went to a Catholic school because a lot of the repressive tactics they use make for great senses of humor.

I guess you get pigeon-holed in Hollywood, but I’m ok with that because I’ve been able to do a lot. I started in the theater, then I went to stand-up comedy, and then when I went into the movies to do comedy and drama and big movies and small movies.

My career plan at this point is ‘Ice Age 5′ through ’10,’ and even ’12,’ and ‘Spider Man’ – you know, basically I’d be Emma Stone’s dad for the rest of my career. I really don’t have any problem doing that.

Most of the women placed in the fire department here in New York never passed the physical test. And a fat guy or a short guy, or anybody not passing the test in a life-or-death job, leads to friction.

Once you have a firefighter in your family, your family and the families from his crew become one big extended family.

My goal is to leave this planet with the biggest carbon footprint I can possibly leave.

When I go to Batman movies, I always think, ‘Man, I would like to be a bad guy in a Batman movie.’ especially as they got darker when they go to the Christian Bale era.

I did 12 years with nuns, you know. So I came out of it going, like, ‘I think Jesus is all right.’ The rest of it I think stinks to the high heavens.

If you see me doing a new stand-up special, it probably means I’ve been out of work for a while.

My kids watch everything downloaded; they have no idea what the numbers or the names of the channels mean, except, ‘FX makes the show that I see on my computer.’ So it’s harder to get a show on the air, but at the same time, there are a lot of terrific shows.

I will not bond. I will not share. I refuse to nurture.

Hockey’s my favorite sport.

I’d love to do another television series. I really love the writing process, and as an actor I really like how much you get to examine in television.

I remember 9/11; we had ‘Comics Come Home’ about a month after those events. That night, even the comedians were concerned. Would the audience be ready to laugh? It was a release for everyone.

I learned a long time ago, if you want to keep your friends in show business, don’t get famous. Because as soon as you get famous, a lot of the people you used to know, who didn’t, become incredibly bitter and jealous. It’s part of the territory.

You can have good writing, but a great actor will make it feel and sound like great writing. You can have great writing, and mediocre actors will make it feel mediocre. Without the actors, you have nothing.

Technology is changing, so the viewership is getting broken up. My kids watch everything downloaded; they have no idea what the numbers or the names of the channels mean, except ‘FX makes the show that I see on my computer.’

My only worry about tweeting and modern technology is how it has crept into even the darkest corners of the absolute global village we live in.

Most movies suck, even the independent ones. Hollywood is like baseball: Hit three good ones out of 10 and you’re a Hall of Famer.

The first movie I saw where it convinced me I could be an actor was ‘Mean Streets,’ so whenever I see Robert De Niro and he says, ‘Hi, Denis,’ it’s still a really big deal.

No woman can be completely happy at any one moment in time. They’re always anticipating the next thing to argue or complain about.

I always hated the Grateful Dead. Never even bought a Led Zeppelin album.

If a character dies, you get to do a big, juicy death scene. But the flip side is you’re out of the sequel, which is where the real money is.

Here’s the problem with Easter. The Catholic Church needs to pick a date because it keeps moving. And I think the reason they always have Easter moving to different dates is to catch us.

I’m praying for ‘Ice Age’ 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Because I really think we can run those characters into the ’60s, and I’m talking the 1960s, you know? The Civil Rights Movement. That’s what I’m praying for, because then I wouldn’t have to do anything else.

The biggest battle for a lot of people who come out of the theater, which is where I was trained, is that they can never forget that a camera is pointed at them.

There’s not going to be a ‘Rescue Me’ movie. Not a chance.

I obviously identify with the anti-authority figure. I’ve pretty much always had problems with authority, ever since I was a kid. But, yeah, it’s not identifying, I think it’s more a part of my natural DNA that I question anybody who has a plan. Everybody’s got to have an angle; that’s the way I grew up.