* In fifth grade, Dennis asked his rabbi what Heaven would be like. The rabbi said that in Hollywood, they would study Torah all day long. Dennis decided he did not want to go to Heaven.
* Dennis said: “I never learned to write a bike. My parents gave up on me when I fell off the tricycle.”
Adam: “Wow. It was the worst 19th birthday that Dennis’s parents…”
Dennis: “I finally learned to ride a bike about ten years ago. It’s sickening to me that it took so long. That was not one of my gifts.”
* On his radio show Dec. 6, 2010, Dennis Prager said that he inherited two tortoises when he married Sue (his third marriage). “One day, we saw that one of the tortoises was very lethargic. He had something hanging out from the back of him. My wife tried to nurse him and to medicate him. He was going to die. It turns out, his penis stuck out and wasn’t going back. It would’ve gangrened and he would’ve died. There was a veterinarian in Santa Monica who knew how to treat a gangrenous tortoise penis but it was a lot of money.”
During his public dialogue with Adam Carolla Feb. 25, 2012, Dennis said the tortoise penis repair cost just under $2,000 and that his home spends more on the dog than on his wife’s clothes.
* Dennis said: “You know why they didn’t fingerprint parents [who wanted to coach] when we were kids? Because they never came to our games. Why do you have to go to all of your kids’ events? I didn’t want my parents to come to my events. It made me feel like a man that mommy wasn’t watching. That was independence. I was a grown-up.”
Adam: “Even when you lost your virginity, you did not want them anywhere around? Even for encouragement? ‘Come on, you’re a Prager, son!'”
Dennis: “I went to Orthodox Jewish schools until I was 18. It was not an issue.”
* Dennis said: “I haven’t watched the Academy Awards in many years, but I did for many years, and it drove me nuts when an actress would get up, she grew up in rural Montana and now she’s getting an award, and she’d say, ‘I have a message for all you young girls out there. All you have to do is follow your dream and look at where I got.’ Of course there are 86,000 waitresses to the one woman who got the Academy award and they’re also following their dream. Maybe it is better to have parents saying you’re a loser.”
“When I was in my early 20s, I started getting paid to give lectures. And my mother said to me, ‘They’re paying you? I can hear you for free and I don’t listen.'”
* Dennis said: “Very very few people can play the violin. Everybody can speak. Yet, there are far more great violinists than great speakers.”
Adam: “I think you just made that point with that super boring violin analogy.”
“I rode a unicycle on a semi-professional level and I’m not going to sit here and be ridiculed by a man who fell over on a tric.”
Dennis: “Our job is to have the listener think this is the easiest job in the world, but it’s very hard.”
Adam: “It’s like sex.”
Dennis: “No, it is not.”
Adam: “If you’re doing it right, it seems very natural.”
Dennis: “What does it mean to do it wrong?”
Adam: “There’s chafing. Often times there’s extra tipping at the end.”
“How much of your off-time is consumed with scratching out notes on things?”
Dennis: “Yes. It’s frightening.”
* Dennis said: “My younger son is 19. He’s a total slob, like every male I know. He finally moved out of the house last week. He’s studying. He’s got an apartment. He talked to me the other night about how he now vacuums every day, he takes off his shoes when he walks into his one-bedroom little apartment lest he dirty his apartment, does his laundry, uses soap in the shower. I said, wow, why are you doing all these things? And he said, because mom isn’t there to do it.
“And I said, now you know my fight with the entitlement state. If Uncle Sam is there to do it, you won’t do anything to take care of yourself.”
Adam: “And possibly he’s gay.”
Dennis: “Possible. What’s wrong with that? I didn’t say he decorated it. I said he cleaned it.”
* A review of Dennis Prager’s Feb. 25, 2012 public dialogue with Adam Carolla says: “We learn that Prager’s wife can only fall asleep if what he calls “the Hitler Channel” [the Military Channel] is on in the background.”
Dennis tells Adam: “One of the kicks that I get out of life is at night if I’m at a stop light and women with nice legs are crossing the street and my headlights are there to illuminate their lovely limbs.
“So we were in Florida visiting my son and grandson. There were some young women walking into the hotel where I was pulling up. In their skirts. And just as they passed the headlights, a big gust of wind came. And I looked at my wife and said, ‘Sue, I just won the lottery.'”
* A man said it would be great if Adam Carolla would “narrarate Dennis’s new book and add some colorful language to punctuate the points.”
Adam: “We call it punching it up in the business.”
Dennis: “Where I would have, ‘Soviet leader Brezhnev’, you would add, ‘that piece of s***.’ That’s great. An x-rated version of my book.”
It was the only time I’ve heard Dennis use the s*** word.