Top 10 Dennis Miller Quotes

Dennis Miller
(Stand-up comedian)

Dennis Miller  is an American stand-up comedian, talk show host, political commentator, sports commentator, actor, and television and radio personality. He rose to fame as a cast member of Saturday Night Live in 1985, and subsequently hosted a string of his own talk shows on HBO, CNBC and in syndication. From 2007 to 2015, Miller hosted a daily, three-hour, self-titled talk radio program, nationally syndicated by Westwood One. He is known for his critical assessments of current events, laced with pop culture references and delivered in an idiosyncratic verbal style.

Miller was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the suburb of Castle Shannon. He is of Scottish descent. Miller's parents separated and he was raised by his mother, Norma, a dietitian at a Baptist home. Miller is reticent to speak about his father, usually just saying he "moved on when I was very young." He is the oldest of Norma's five children, and in his early life often looked after the rest of his siblings.
Miller attended Saint Anne School, a Catholic elementary school. Miller's personality during this period was not that of an innate performer but of a shy kid. Miller's childhood pastimes included playing street football, backyard baseball, playing basketball at St. Anne's and watching lots of television. At St. Anne's Miller, served as manager for the Catholic Youth Organization basketball team for boys 15 to 16 years-old. Miller's first inspiration to pursue a comedy career came as a child when he was taken to see comedian Kelly Monteith at a Pittsburgh club. After the show Monteith was kind enough to answer the young Miller's questions about being a comedian, leaving him thinking "Man, I'm going to work hard at this; this seems like fun.
After College Miller was unable to find work in journalism. Instead he moved through several occupations including a clerk at Giant Eagle deli, a janitor, a delivery man for a florist, and Ice Cream scooper at the Village Dairy. Reflecting on his pre-comedy job history in a later discussion with Tom Snyder, Miller recalled leaving college and attending a real estate seminar at a "bad hotel" which consisted of a five hour lecture without bathroom breaks. Near the end of the lecture, he was told that he would only be paid by commission, which made Miller "I'm in Hell, I don't even know what I am going to do for a living here. I'm a nut case." Miller then worked as a delivery man for what he describes as "an all-gay florist". Leaving that job he worked as an Ice Cream scoop. Miller recalled that was twenty-one - five years out of high school and was wearing a paper hat while working alongside teens excited about getting their driver's licences. A spur to quit the Ice Cream scoop job was when the prettiest girl he had attended high school with came in and he was the one who had to take her order, which filled him with embarrassment. Miller later stated that at the time he feared that if he stayed in such jobs his life would become a Franz Kafka novella, and it stiffened his resolve to start pursuing a comedy career.
Leaving the Ice Cream parlor, Miller joined the staff at Point Park's Recreation Room where he was in-charge of the bowling alley, video games, and running the air-hockey league. Air-hockey regulars nicknamed him "Clarence" after NHL Commissioner Clarence Campbell or called him "Commish", when Miller's brother Jimmy was around they referred to him as "Commush". A patron from that time recalled that Miller sat on pool tables telling jokes and honing his comedy to those in the Rec Room, which was the only place the commuters gathered in. Miller and the other patrons closely followed the NFL at the time as it was the "era of the Super Steelers"

Top 10 Dennis Miller Quotes

We need anything politically important rationed out like Pez: small, sweet, and coming out of a funny, plastic head.

I used to be sceptic, but not anymore, because now I am positive that I'm getting screwed.

A good rule of thumb is if you've made it to thirty-five and your job still requires you to wear a name tag, you've made a serious vocational error.

It's foolish to be prejudiced. There are so many reasons to hate people on an individual basis.

The easiest job in the world has to be coroner. Surgery on dead people. What's the worst thing that could happen? If everything went wrong, maybe you'd get a pulse.

The average Americans day planner has fewer holes in it than Ray Charless dart board. 

I haven't seen someone so overmatched since Mike Tyson tried to recite the alphabet.

Parenting is the most important job on the planet next to keeping Gary Busey off the nation's highways

A recent conversation: Dubya: Look at the clock, time is racing! Cheney: That's the second hand, George. 

I think the American legal system sucks worse than a Celine Dion cover version of Whole Lotta Love. 

In 1979 after seeing a Robin Williams comedy special on HBO, Miller decided that he had to pursue his dream of being a stand-up comedian.
In Pittsburgh Miller began pursuing a comedy career by performing at open-mike nights. He backed out of his first two attempts to perform at an open-mike due to petrifying stage fright and angry with himself over the question of whether the drive to perform was a need for approval from others. When he finally made his début at the Oak Lounge on Sleepy Hollow Road in Castle Shannon most of Miller's family was in the audience to cheer him on.
In a later interview, Miller spoke of the stage presence he developed for his stand-up act to address his fears. (He emphasized that the comedy business will always be frightening as any error could spiral into the end of a career.) To compensate for his early fears Miller said "I got up there and acted like the guy I always wanted to be to get through it. ...It's a part of me, but it's not the real me." He would keep his hands in his pockets to appear unfazed, or adjust his cuffs during an audience laugh to give the appearance of indifference to approval. Miller pointed out that part of his act is to show a "hipper-than-thou" persona, but then purposefully undermine it at regular intervals for comedic effect.
He began appearing on-stage at the Oak Lounge in Castle Shannon, while working at the Giant Eagle deli in Kennedy. Miller lived without a car and without much money in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh hitching rides or taking buses. He continued to do stand-ups in Oakland and at places like Brandy's in the Strip District and the Portfolio on Craig Street, eventually saving up $1,000 which he used to try and fast-track his comedy career by moving to New York City. Arriving at New York City, Miller had to bribe a landlord $200 to give him a room, then had to pay the security deposit of $250 and the first months rent of $250 resulting in him having spent $700 of his $1,000 savings the first day there for a sparse bunker-like room.

Miller married Carolyn "Ali" Espley, a former model from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on April 10, 1988. Espley is best known as the girl in Kajagoogoo's "Too Shy" music video. The couple live in Santa Barbara, California, and have two sons, Holden (born 1990) and Marlon (born 1993). His younger brother Jimmy Miller is a partner in the Hollywood management company Gold/Miller representing comedians such as Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow, and Sacha Baron Cohen.
Although in his early years of fame he was perceived to be a staunch liberal and an outspoken critic of Republicans, in recent years, Miller has become known for his neoconservative political opinions.He is a regular political commentator on Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor in a segment called "Miller Time", and previously appeared on the network's Hannity & Colmes in a segment called "Real Free Speech."