Bill Maher is featured on the cover of the 420-themed April issue of Los Angeles magazine. Here are 20 nuggets from the interview conducted by Joel Stein.
On Cannabis:
• "I’ve always loved pot, but I don’t get into the minutiae. Sativa, indica – I can’t even tell the difference."
• "I don’t smoke every day and never have. I’m a situational pot smoker. I would never get high to do Real Time. I can do stand-up high because I don’t have to worry about a clock. I like it for sex. And I like it for writing."
• "Everywhere I go, people throw pot at me. I don’t ever have to buy pot. I always have way too much. I’m always giving away pot."
• "At Real Time, I’m not stoned. I know exactly where I’m going on Real Time."
• "Did you see how much smot I poked?"
On Media
• "Print media is in dire straits because people don’t read anymore."
• "Most of the latter two generations don’t read. They scroll."
On COVID
• "I was never scared of COVID."
• "I think I got it pretty right. It wasn’t the bubonic plague. I’m more scared of cancer than I was of COVID."
• "Don’t tell me how to handle my health. But I took one for the team. I think I want that noted for the record. But I wouldn’t let them make me take a booster."
On Politics
• "I’m still a liberal and I’m as funny as I ever was."
• "My audience is shifting the way America is shifting. I don’t just stay with the tribe. That’s my bond with the audience. They don’t want to be tribal."
• "The difference between liberal and woke is that we liberals see trans people as people who should be protected and respected as we would any minority."
• "I get an audience on the road now that’s ideologically mixed. We all have to learn to sit together."
• "The Republicans are always moving further in the wrong direction. They definitely are antidemocratic."
• "We definitely want to stop a second Trump presidency, because once he has this power again, it’s so obvious that he will never give it up."
• "I’m generally a free-speech guy. But I have my limits."
On Sex
• "I’ve never had anal sex. I don’t want to. Asses, yes. Assholes, no."
• "Masturbation has not changed over my whole life. I still enjoy it."
On Longevity
• "I’m 68, so I already feel good about the fact that I’m older than Carson when they put him out to pasture at 66. I think Leno was around there. Letterman was around the same. Rock stars die at 27. I think I can go past a lot of milestones."
More Maher
• Wants to Make 4/20 a National Holiday
• On Munchies, Healh Food, Booze and Weed
