Daily Inspiration Quote by Denis Leary

Leary’s line works because it flatters the listener’s inner caveman while smuggling in a cultural argument: if meat-eating is “instinct,” then abstaining is a fussy modern choice, a boutique identity rather than a baseline human condition. Coming from a comedian-actor whose persona thrives on impatience with moral earnestness, the joke isn’t really about nutrition. It’s about status and scolding. “Decision” codes as deliberation, virtue-signaling, lifestyle branding; “instinct” codes as innocence, appetite, and immunity from guilt.

The subtext is defensive, almost preemptive: don’t make me feel weird for enjoying what I like. By framing vegetarianism as a conscious opt-out, Leary implies it’s a deviation that requires explanation, while meat becomes the default setting you shouldn’t have to justify. That rhetorical move matters because food debates are rarely just food. They’re proxy fights about masculinity, class, and who gets to police everyday pleasures. In the late-90s/early-2000s cultural weather that Leary came up in, vegetarianism was often caricatured as coastal, preachy, and politically correct; “instinct” is a way to reclaim an old-fashioned, no-apologies appetite in the face of that vibe.

Of course, the line is also willfully slippery. Humans cook, plan, buy, season, and industrially produce meat; none of that is “instinct” in the animal sense. That’s the comedy: he’s not arguing biology so much as granting himself a moral hall pass, reducing ethics to a personality quirk and reframing indulgence as nature.