Remember Norman Lear with these zingers.
The best Archie Bunker quotes are courtesy of creator Norman Lear. As a progressive, Lear himself was the opposite of Bunker’s “lovable bigot” character, but still imbued the All In the Family patriarch with humanity.
Lear, who died at 101 on Dec. 4, 2023, designed the All In the Family patriarch to bring social commentary into sitcoms, something that hadn’t been done extensively before he revolutionized the genre.
“Encouraging that kind of conversation was a goal of mine when we began broadcasting All in the Family in 1971,” he wrote in a 2022 op-ed for The New York Times to mark his turning into a centenarian. “The kinds of topics Archie Bunker and his family argued about — issues that were dividing Americans from one another, such as racism, feminism, homosexuality, the Vietnam War and Watergate — were certainly being talked about in homes and families. They just weren’t being acknowledged on television.”
Behold, the best All In the Family quotes from Archie Bunker—but be warned that they’re probably not the sort of language you’d hear on primetime broadcast TV today, and his opinions certainly don’t reflect ours!
Archie Bunker Quotes From All In the Family
1. “Everyone I like stays the Hell away from me.”
2. “We’re just sweeping dirty dishes under the rug.”
3. “No bum that can’t speak poifect English oughta stay in this country—oughta be de-exported the hell outta here!”
4. “The Lord might be smilin’ on the sheep, but they still wind up as lamb chops.”
5. “Hell hath no fury like a woman’s corns.”
6. “We better not, you know, kill our chickens before they cross the road.”
7. “It’s too late Edith, my bus has sailed.”
8. “Up the creek without a saddle.”
9. “She takes everything I say out of contest.”
10. “What ya do in the privates of your room is your own privates.”
11. “The dent in his car is hardly cold and he’s coming over here to claim his pound of fish.”
12. “God can do anything! He can turn your jawbone into an ass!”
13. “Patience is a virgin.”
14. “If it’s too hot in the kitchen, stay away from the cook.”
15. “Mrs. O’Leary’s cow is sorry, but Cleveland burned anyway.”
16. “Entertainment is a thing of the past. Now we got television!”
17. “Gonna take all of my thinking and all of my consecration.”
18. “This is only a little mispensation.”
19. “Why don’t you take a high dive into the clam drip?”
20. “That ain’t superstition — that’s self-perservation.”
21. “Don’t draw me no diaphragms.”
22. “Buy one of them battery transvester radios.”
23. “They got the greatest country in the world right here. The highest standard of living. The grossest national product.”
24. “Meathead! Dead from the neck up.”
25. “Anybody that goes to see a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined!”
26. “I ain’t no bigot. I’m the first guy to say, ‘It ain’t your fault that youse are colored.'”
27. “Was Uncle Oscar’s death very untimely, you ask? Well, it was near lunch.”
28. “Wouldn’t have to live in miscomfort.”
29. “She caught a touch of laryngosis from the smoke.”
30. “I’m sympathizing my watch with yours.”
31. “Why don’t you go back to bartending school and take a course in ‘shut up?'”
32. “God don’t make no mistakes, that’s how he got to be God.”
33. “I am B-U-Z-Y. Busy!”
34. “There’s a strong criminal element up there.”
35. “Every man should be king of his castle.”
36. “Them Sicilians are famous for two things: Spaghetti and revenge.”
37. “I got a unanimous letter.”
38. “Dummy up.”
39. “Next time you want to time something, Edith, just let the sand run out of your head.”
40. “Somebody’s gotta be dead, that’s life.”
41. “I’ve never seen a man so low and depaved.”
42. “I wake up on a Saturday morning, I’m all alone. There’s no note, no nothing. There’s nobody here.”
43. “In the Bible it says God made man in his own image. He made women after, from a cheaper cut.”
44. “It ain’t German to the conversation.”
45. “All of them old Bible people, they was always eatin’ meat, as soon as they found out eatin’ apples was wrong. It’s true. On special occasions, goats, lambs — whoever heard of sacrificing a head of lettuce?”
46. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing about President Nixon. He keeps Pat home. Which was where Roosevelt should have kept Eleanor. Instead, he let her run around loose until one day she discovered the colored. We never knew they were there. She told them they were gettin’ the short end of the stick and we been having trouble ever since.”
47. “Remember, don’t talk to strangers unless you know them very well.”
48. “Tell her I ain’t crawlin’ home to her with my tail between her legs.”
49. “That one kind of grapes on my nerves.”
50. “We didn’t crawl out from under no rocks, we didn’t have no tails, and we didn’t come from monkeys you atheistic pinko meathead.”
