15 Sarah Silverman Jokes for the Hall of Fame On Her Birthday
To say that Sarah Silverman has never been the type to shy away from controversy is somehow both an understatement and a gross exaggeration. She definitely pushes boundaries, and on more than one occasion those boundaries have pushed back.
But what has made her comedy unique over the years is that while she has made a name for herself for being shocking, she’s also made sure that not the only thing she’s known for. As she said herself, “I don't set out to offend or shock, but I also don't do anything to avoid it.”
That said, she’s our newest inductee into the Hall of Fame. Not just because this year marks thirty years in comedy for her, but also because today just so happens to be her birthday! So, here are fifteen jokes that we feel earned her this honor:
Sarah on Her Sister’s Love Life
“My sister was with two men in one night… She could hardly walk after that. Can you imagine? Two dinners? That's a lot of food.”
Sarah on Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I’m working on an open letter, and it goes like this: ‘Guess what, Martin Luther King? I had a f–king dream, too! I had a dream that I was in my living room. It wasn’t my living room, but it was, like, playing my living room in the dream. And I walked through to the backyard, and there’s a pool, and as I’m diving in, there’s a shark coming up from the water… with braces. So maybe you’re not so f–king special, Martin Loser King.’
Yeah, I wanna be the first comic to sh*t on Martin Luther King. ‘Cause people only talk about the good things. They don’t mention… he was a litterbug… He would roll up all the windows, lock them and fart in the car with the heat up, while his family suffered… And he would laugh. I just think people should know everything, before they give someone a day.”
Sarah on Sex
“I like having sex. I think it's really good. Yeah, it gives you that feeling that you're working together to achieve a common goal: his orgasm.”
Sarah On Religion
"I wear this St. Christopher medal sometimes ‘cause I’m Jewish and my boyfriend’s Catholic. It was cute the way he gave it to me. He said if it doesn’t burn through my skin, it will protect me. Who cares? Different religions. The only time it’s an issue, I suppose, would be if you’re having a baby you gotta figure out how you wanna raise your baby. Which would still not be an issue for us, because we’d be honest. We’d say, ‘Mommy’s one of the chosen people, and Daddy believes that Jesus is magic!”
Sarah On Nutrition
“Someone told me that carrots are good for your eyes. What they failed to tell me is that you have to take them orally.”
Sarah on Parenting
“I love kids. The only thing I love more than kids, is doing anything I want at all times. Kids are great, I bet your kids are a great measurement of time, right? Like, you could go, ‘Well, let’s see… That was when Billy was four, so that was 1998.’
That’s so great to have that. When you don’t have kids, all you have is 9/11. It puts such a malaise over just everything you try to recall.”
Sarah on Young Love
“When I was in high school, I went out with my father’s best friend. And that’s embarrassing... My father, having a fourteen-year-old best friend. What a loser”
Sarah Roasting Courtney Love
“Everybody's doing jokes about ‘Bea Arthur has a penis’. It's so mean and I happen to know for fact that she doesn't have a penis. She has a vagina, okay? She has a big floppity, sloppy, bushy, wiry, gray vagina. Which reminds me, Courtney Love is here. I was curious to see which Courtney Love was gonna show up: the smeared lipstick, crazy coke whore, or the violent, smeared lipstick, crazy coke whore. No, I'm so glad she's here. I left my crack in my other purse.”
Sarah on Scientology
“Everything seems crazy when you're not used to it. That's why so many comics make fun of Scientology, because like… well because it's a batshit crazy religion. But it's no more batshit crazy than every single religion, it's just new… Scientology is weird because it's new. It feels weird in our ear holes to hear people worshiping a guy named Ron. We know Rons in our life. He had to change his name to L. Ron because there was another Ron Hubbard in the Writers Guild. That's how recent a religion it is.”
Sarah on Charity
“I give , you know, in my way. I give. I sent, this past summer, fifteen really fun cowl-neck sweaters to this village in Africa. In just really fun colors-and expecting nothing, by the way. They sent me a postcard thanking me and it said thank you, and that there were enough sweaters for every member of the village to get one… And that they were delicious.”
Sarah Breaks Some Bad News to Her Then-Boyfriend, Jimmy Kimmel
She won an Emmy for that. It’s OK, though… Jimmy got even.
Sarah on Bad Twitter Timing
“Many years ago now, at the beginning of Twitter practically, I scheduled a tweet. I scheduled it for 8:05 pm Pacific time. Why would I remember that? Because at 8 pm Pacific time, we captured and killed Osama bin Laden. The Twitterverse was aflame. At 8:05, I tweeted: ‘Why do my dog's doodies come out cold?’
Let me just remind you, I scheduled that tweet. That's how good I thought it was. And I feel a little bit like Peter Sellers in Being There, like people put more depth on me than I have at all. Like, I bet there were people that saw that tweet and were like, ‘You know what? That was cold, but it is our duty.’”
Sarah on Sports
“I learned that people in wheelchairs are allowed to have marathons … which, to me, seems like cheating, but what are you gonna say?”
Sarah on the Iraq War
“This is not the first time that Europe has been passive while a Jew-hating tyrant with a weird looking mustache killed the people by giving them gas. Obviously, I'm talking about Chef Boyardee.”
