Top 88 Al Franken Quotes

Words matter. These are the best Al Franken Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.

The reason I wrote political satire was because I thoug

The reason I wrote political satire was because I thought it – politics – was important… that public policy was important. Then I transitioned into books, then into radio.
Al Franken
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.
Al Franken
If you hear, day after day, liberals are rooting against armed forces, that is eventually going to have an effect on soldiers and troops who are actually going to believe that and it’s wrong. It’s just wrong.
Al Franken
I know that it’s probably not a good idea for a comedian, especially a satirist, to support a public policy group or a politician. This is something I learned only too well years ago when I did a fundraiser for Pol Pot. A few years later I saw ‘The Killing Fields,’ and I’ve got to tell you, I just felt like a schmuck.
Al Franken
When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both.
Al Franken
Apple has long been a leading innovator of mobile technology; I myself own an iPhone.
Al Franken
Small businesses should have the same ability to reach customers as powerful corporations. A blogger should have the same ability to find an audience as a media conglomerate.
Al Franken
The Minnesotans I talk to are really concerned about what the future holds for their families. They’re trying to pay for health care and send their kids to college, they’re worried about declining home values, they’re scared for a loved one they have serving in Iraq.
Al Franken
My parents didn’t make a lot of money. My dad was not a high school graduate – he didn’t have a career as such; he was a printing salesman essentially for most of his working life.
Al Franken
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.
Al Franken
If 98 out of 100 doctors tell me I’ve got a problem, I should take their advice. And if those two other doctors get paid by Big Snack Food, like certain climate deniers get paid by Big Coal, I shouldn’t take their advice.
Al Franken
I got interested in politics during the civil rights movement and then Vietnam.
Al Franken
Some of George W. Bush’s friends say that Bush believes God called him to be president during these times of trial. But God told me that He/She/It had actually chosen Al Gore by making sure that Gore won the popular vote and, God thought, the Electoral College. ‘That worked for everyone else,’ God said.
Al Franken
I grew up in Minnesota, where we treasure our tradition of civic engagement – and our record of having the nation’s highest voter participation.
Al Franken
During Vietnam, I was in college, enjoying my student deferment. The government wisely felt that, in my case, military service was less important than completing my studies to prepare me for my chosen career: comedian.
Al Franken
I’m the New York Jew who actually grew up in Minnesota.
Al Franken
We need to start by having a conversation about climate change. It would be irresponsible to avoid the issue just because it’s uncomfortable to talk about.
Al Franken
I don’t think I’m an angry person. I think I’m a person who’s angry. I’m angry at the Bush administration; I’m angry at the right wing media. And by that I don’t mean the media is right wing. I mean, there is a part of the media that’s not the mainstream media. That’s Fox, that is ‘The Wall Street Journal’ editorial page.
Al Franken
Well, a lot of politics is communicating with people, and obviously comedy has something to do with that. I’ve been a producer and led people. Also, being a comedian, you’re under pressure.
Al Franken
It is my fondest wish that in the fullness of time, the American people will look back on the Franken presidency as something of a mixed bag and not as a complete disaster.
Al Franken
I believe in not attacking a country pre-emptively unless you’re sure of what you’re doing and you’re working with allies.
Al Franken
Our laws need to reflect the evolution of technology and the changing expectations of American society. This is why the Constitution is often called a ‘living’ document.
Al Franken
There’s no comparison between NPR and the propaganda that you hear from Rush or from Sean Hannity, the news movement conservatives that are just laying out, slathering out the disinformation and the lies, as I discuss in my book, ‘Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.’
Al Franken
I also focus on Bush and his administration – who do a lot of lying – and how a right-wing media has allowed them to get away with a lot of stuff that, in a different media environment, they probably wouldn’t be able to get away with.
Al Franken
I want to reclaim ‘liberal.’ I’m a liberal, and I think most Americans are liberals.
Al Franken
The way I see it, I’m not going to Washington to be the 60th Democratic senator. I’m going to Washington to be the second senator from the state of Minnesota.
Al Franken
Bob Dole used to be really funny. Barney Frank can be kind of funny. Bob Kerrey has a good sense of humor.
Al Franken
Some of my colleagues seem more interested in using every procedural method possible to keep the Senate from doing anything than they are in creating jobs or helping Americans struggling in a difficult economy.
Al Franken
I think Clinton fatigue was a real thing. It’s just hard to get comfortable with Gore – it was hard for him to project who he is, the person people know in private.
Al Franken
My daughter became a teacher right out of college.
Al Franken
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.
Al Franken
I'm for Israel's right to exist.

I’m for Israel’s right to exist.
Al Franken
People lucky enough to live in the vicinity of an industrial hog farm are, with each breath, made keenly aware of the cause of their declining property values.
Al Franken
Too many people don’t protect their smartphones with a password or PIN. I anticipate that Apple’s fingerprint reader will in fact make iPhone 5S owners more likely to secure their smartphones.
Al Franken
We need to be pro-science; we have to go back to science.
Al Franken
I think that the default for collecting any kind of personal data should be opt-in consent.
Al Franken
It’s easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.
Al Franken
I get satisfaction when I write something I like, when I’m happy with it.
Al Franken
The civil rights movement was very important in my house, and then Vietnam was very important ’cause there were two boys, so I came of age during a very heated political climate.
Al Franken
Mistakes are a part of being human. Appreciate your mistakes for what they are: precious life lessons that can only be learned the hard way. Unless it’s a fatal mistake, which, at least, others can learn from.
Al Franken
Veterans report that service dogs help break their isolation. People will often avert their eyes when they see a wounded veteran. But when the veteran has a dog, the same people will come up and say, ‘Hi’ to pet the dog and then strike up a conversation.
Al Franken
To make the argument that the media has a left- or right-wing, or a liberal or a conservative bias, is like asking if the problem with Al-Qaeda is do they use too much oil in their hummus.
Al Franken
Progressives, in a way, are the new conservatives. We want to conserve what we fought to build.
Al Franken
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.
Al Franken
Comedy to the Senate? Well, there certainly hasn’t been a satirist or a political satirist who’s done that. So, that really was uncharted territory during the campaign. But I think it’s a good thing. Some people thought that it was an odd career arc, but to me it made absolute sense.
Al Franken
If you want a free email service that doesn’t use your words to target ads to you, you’ll have to figure out how to port years and years of Gmail messages somewhere else, which is about as easy as developing your own free email service.
Al Franken
It’s the Power of the Almighty, the Splendor of Nature, and then you.
Al Franken
To ask whether the mainstream media has a conservative or liberal bias is like asking whether al-Qaida uses too much oil in their hummus. It’s – I think they might use too much oil in their hummus – but it’s the wrong question.
Al Franken
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.
Al Franken
Technology is an incredible tool – it connects people to each other, creates jobs all over the world, and makes life easier for millions of Americans.
Al Franken
Ralph Nader is a hero. I know Ralph, and I call him up occasionally. He’s helped me out on a couple of occasions when I’ve given speeches to corporations where he’d have a good… He’d give me some good information.
Al Franken
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.
Al Franken
If Republicans eliminate Medicare, America will become a country in which you can never retire – and once you physically can no longer work, you are desperately poor until you die.
Al Franken
If someone hacks your password, you can change it – as many times as you want. You can’t change your fingerprints. You have only ten of them. And you leave them on everything you touch; they are definitely not a secret.
Al Franken
I don’t know how many of you have been to New York, but if a building is two blocks away from anything, you can’t see it.
Al Franken
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.
Al Franken