In 1993, network executives abruptly cut the final appearance of comedian Bill Hicks — a scathing tirade of digs on the Pope and the pro-life movement — from an episode of The Late Show with David Letterman. His banning from the show, along with a profile in The New Yorker by veteran writer John Lahr, catapulted Hicks to national prominence. Just months later, at age 32, he died of pancreatic cancer.


Now available for the first time are Hick's most critical and comic observations, gathered from his stand-up routines, diaries, notebooks, letters, and final writings. This collection features his controversial humor and witheringly funny attacks on American culture, from its worship of celebrity and material goods to its involvement in the first Gulf War. In an admiring profile by the New Yorker critic John Lahr — reproduced here— Hicks describes the comic’s vocation as being "the antithesis of the mob mentality." Love All the People faithfully traces Hicks's evolution from a funny but conventional stand-up comedian into a fearless and brilliant iconoclast.

Bill Hicks was born Valdosta GA in 1961. Hicks cited his formative influences as being down to his prized typewriter on which he'd compose his own scripts, a small b/w tv (or 'Lucifer's Dream Box'), a poster of Woody Allen and a fixation with The Tonight Show. The result was a radical philosopher masquerading as a stand-up comic, plumbing the American psyche with challenging (and side-splitting) conclusions. Letterman shot Hicks to national prominence—not only because of his regular slots, but because his spectacular banning from the show following an un-aired tirade against pro-lifers and the Pope. In 1993, he died of pancreatic cancer, aged 32.

John Lahr is the Senior Drama Critic at The New Yorker. He is the author of 18 books and numerous plays.

What Would Bick Hicks Say : A writing contest asking participants to recreate what Bill Hicks would say if he were alive today. The site also accepts visual entries illustrating how contestants depict Bill Hicks’ perception, if he were alive today. Soft Skull will publish the Top 100 entries in Fall 2005!

On Comedy
It's always funny until someone gets hurts. Then it's just hilarious.

On America's Foreign Policy
I'm so sick of arming the world, then sending troops over to destroy the fucking arms, you know what I mean? We keep arming these little countries, then we go and blow the shit out of them. We're like the bullies of the world, y'know. We're like Jack Palance in the movie Shane, throwing the pistol at the sheepherder's feet.
'Pick it up.'
'I don't wanna pick it up, Mister, you'll shoot me.'
'Pick up the gun.'
'Mister, I don't want no trouble. I just came downtown here to get some hard rock candy for my kids, some gingham for my wife. I don't even know what gingham is, but she goes through about ten rolls a week of that stuff. I ain't looking for no trouble, Mister.'
'Pick up the gun.'
(He picks it up. Three shots ring out.)
'You all saw him - he had a gun.'

On the Evils of Pornography
Supreme Court says pornography is anything without artistic merit that causes sexual thoughts, that's their definition, essentially. No artistic merit, causes sexual thoughts ... Sounds like every ad on television, doesn't it?

On Just About Everything, at Once
Here is my final point. About drugs, about alcohol, about pornography and smoking and everything else. What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see, say, think, who I fuck, what I take into my body—as long as I do not harm another human being on this planet?