George Carlin, Life is Worth Losing (2005): Against the cynics

Two things here.

You can tell that you’re in the presence of a master here; master of the spoken word, master of the whole art of presenting self, master of how to glare, when, how to pause, how to circle and grip and snarl and move back from a prey you’ve left bleeding but only really teased. When you watch him here, what you’re really going to see is a shape-shifting shaman; changing from incredulous doofus, to wily old pervert, to Diogenes the Cynic barking aphorisms at the Athenians, to hunched Svengali seducing our inner Trilby.

But to take so much knowledge of stagecraft and apply it to mere cynicism? To know how to take from wasteful surplus but not how to put back where it’s needing? To be able to have been a teacher of the blackest, most cantankerous dharma and only be black and cantankerous?

This is like sharing a crack pipe with a genius. You’re going to get hammered but none the wiser.