Top 100 Satire's Quotes
#1. The only candidate I'd allow to play my music would be Bigfoot, and unless we're talking about foraging for squirrels, he's notoriously apolitical.
Greg Gutfeld
#2. I like the pooch. When I've had a dog's snout in my mouth, we tend to develop a special bond.
Randy Quarles
#3. Perhaps there's an innate human emotion inside us all that when we are presented with something we don't understand, we immediately want to kill it.
Todd Berger
#4. If you do it in the bookies, it's a bet ... If you pay some 23-year-old in an Armani suit two hundred grand to go to the window for you, it's a derivative.
Paul Murray
#5. Modern critics, who refuse to let a plain thing alone, have now started a theory that Cervantes's work is a vast piece of "symbolism." If so, Cervantes didn't know it himself and nobody thought of it for three hundred years. He meant it as a satire upon the silly romances of chivalry.
Stephen Leacock
#6. Everything you're telling me was just a story, and now it's real.
Kathy Bryson
#7. Oh yeah, well I suddenly realises that she'd only been with my boyfriend at the Co-op Christmas do when I were eighteen. So I grabs her head and I stuck it through a display of them Muller's rices and I told her. That's for shagging Kevin Cooper you stupid fucking cunt.
St John Morris
#8. Divorce is a marital welfare. It's just couples asking society to bail them out because they didn't do enough research before they got married. How is that our fault? Don't drag down my country's statistics just because you ran off and got hitched before you ever saw each other in a bad mood.
Stephen Colbert
#9. Friendly satire may be compared to a fine lancet, which gently breathes a vein for health's sake.
Samuel Richardson
#10. And it's really very difficult to kill someone when all your inner instincts would oblige you to take off your hat first!
Susan Kay
#11. Behind every preventable threat to the future of the human race lurks a boy in a man's body with both hands buried deep in the cookie jar set aside for future generations.
Daniel Prokop
#12. I'm a satirist, so I've got boxing gloves on if the person is worthy of satire. But I'm not an assassin. If that ever happens, it's only because something happened during the interview that got me going, and then I had to translate my feelings to the mouth of the character.
Stephen Colbert
#13. Here's an easy way to figure out if you're in a cult: If you're wondering whether you're in a cult, the answer is yes.
Stephen Colbert
#14. No, I say, it's fine.
Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains.
Just great, I say. Really.
Chuck Palahniuk
#15. Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake it for the genuine article.
Nathan Poe
#16. I think comedy and satire are a very important part of democracy, and it's important we are able to laugh at the idiosyncrasies or the follies or vanities of people in power.
Rory Bremner
#18. In the old days of literature, only the very thick-skinned - or the very brilliant - dared enter the arena of literary criticism. To criticise a person's work required equal measures of erudition and wit, and inferior critics were often the butt of satire and ridicule.
Joanne Harris
#19. Were the stars against him? A woman's fingers are quicker in the sky and shine more brightly.
Graham Spaid
#20. It seems like there's a lot of people who just do not understand satire. They think it's weird. There's people who just don't understand you portray something or just explore a character, it means you're condoning it, saying this is the way to live.
Mike Judge
#22. Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice.
Ambrose Bierce
#23. Why was the meeting between the Americans and the Russians so tensed?
Because nobody knows what Vladimir Put In Barbara's Bush!
From 'Walk On By II
Stephan Attia
#24. Okay well - no that is a very real thing seven-year-olds asking for BlackBerrys and cell phones and things like that. And that's one of the things I love most about the show is the social satire.
Debra Messing
#25. Magoo's appeal lies in our hostility toward an older generation. But he's not only nearsighted physically. His mind is selective of what it sees, too. That is where the humor, the satire lies, in the difference between what he thinks he sees and reality as we see it.
Jim Backus
#26. Good satire goes beyond the specific point it's trying to make and teaches you how to think critically. Even after your favorite cartoonist retires or [Stephen] Colbert wraps it up, you're not left believing everything they're telling you.
Aaron McGruder
#27. The feathered arrow of satire has oft been wet with the heart's blood of its victims.
Benjamin Disraeli
#28. A lot of people tend to glorify the role of satire and comedians. They put them up as role models, as fighters for the truth and against tyranny, and I think that's overrated.
Bassem Youssef
#29. People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.
Robin Williams
#30. General assumptions often lead to erroneous conclusions, but one cannot go far wrong in always assuming that whatever one's government is saying is a lie.
Michel Templet
#31. Ah! good Sir! no Whores before Dinner, I beseech you.
[Love's Last Shift]
Colley Cibber
#32. The ironic, too-cool meta satire, the sneering and mocking? Is actually just a contemporary version of the bourgeois sentimentality it's trying to mock. It is not new. Really it's almost quaint. The backlash has already outlasted it.
Tony Tulathimutte
#33. You are either on Wall Street or you're a bum and there's nothing in between.
Katya G. Cohen
#34. The madrigore of verjuice must be talthibianised.
C.S. Lewis
#35. Some readers took 'Heaven's My Destination' as a satire on Christianity and the Midwest, but today it reads like a loving comedy.
Robert Gottlieb
#36. The Macedonian Endeavour Channel was screening live coverage of the world series of the Who's Got the Stupidest Name (WGSN) competition. First prize had already gone to Brian Burdock, a French Algerian with a penchant for Longchamp.
St John Morris
#37. You'll have to leave my meals on a tray outside the door because I'll be
working pretty late on the secret of making myself invisible, which may take me almost until eleven o'clock.
S.J Perelman
#38. I once went to one of his Virgin Vie parties and had a really good time watching Chas having a paddy whilst trying to put on Dave's socks, before realising that he only had two feet, compared to Dave's three.
St John Morris
#39. It's a great time to be doing political satire when the world is on a knife edge.
John Oliver
#40. Tobak Davenport, who is a cross between some Sugar Puffs and Lynn Faulds-Wood, was squatting there before being removed by the local constabulary after he went round to complain about Luther Blisset's pet turkey fouling the communal herb garden.
St John Morris
#41. A good joke doesn't necessarily need appreciation from others. One can freely laugh at one's own deserving jokes.
Pawan Mishra
#42. Valentine's Day is a disaster. Any day that is designed to perfectly encapsulate something as messy and personal as two people in a romantic relationship would have to be. But in Night Vale it also kills people. This is called satire.
Joseph Fink
#43. From Olsen's Nation: "Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran's nuclear program now stands as one. Standing as one, the world now sincerely regrets Iran's nuclear program." - President Bodvar Olsen, fifth State of the Union address
Randy Quarles
#44. There's a tacit agreement today that the white male is the only legitimate target for any and all satire, criticism, and so forth. And we pretty much just accept it.
Jack Nicholson
#45. Satire is a form of social control, it's what you do. It's not personal. It's a job.
Garry Trudeau
#46. A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest!
Robert Burns
#47. As an experienced editor, I disapprove of flashbacks, foreshadowings, and tricksy devices; they belong in the 1980s with M.A.s in postmodernism and chaos theory.
David Mitchell
#48. I consciously decided to make both 'Sammy's Hill' and 'Sammy's House' more of a warm satire and not go the route of writing a dark and bitter book about D.C.
Kristin Gore
#49. Because I want to have sex with him
and because that's sinful
I'm blushing and flushing furiously under his scrutinizing scrutiny.
Jess C. Scott
#50. As long as any group within the society deliberately maintains its identity it is, or should be, a fair target for satire - both for its own good and for the society's.
Gore Vidal
#51. Really, what's not to love in John McCain, satire-wise? As if he had not already been good enough to us, then came his nomination of Sarah Palin. Here, truly, was a gift from the gods of satire.
Christopher Buckley
#52. For years, reality has been nipping at the heels of satire. Now, it's finally caught up. I don't need to make this stuff up.
Paul Krassner
#53. Enough of satire; in less harden'd times
Great was her force, and mighty were her rhymes.
I've read of men, beyond man's daring brave,
Who yet have trembled at the strokes she gave;
Whose souls have felt more terrible alarms
From her one line, than from a world in arms.
Charles Churchill
#54. It is woven with the most powerful paradoxes in the Nine Worlds - Wi-Fi with no lag, a politician's sincerity, a printer that prints, healthy deep fried food, and an interesting grammar lecture!'
'Okay, yeah,' I admitted. 'Those things don't exist.
Rick Riordan
#55. She said when a boy and a girl dog copulate, the head of the boy's penis swells and the vaginal muscles of the girl constrict. Even after sex, both dogs remain locked together, helpless and miserable for a brief period of time.
The Mommy said this same scenario described most marriages.
Chuck Palahniuk
#56. [On school uniforms] Don't these schools do enough damage making all these kids think alike, now they have to make them look alike too? It's not a new idea, either. I first saw it in old newsreels from the 1930s, but it was hard to understand because the narration was in German.
George Carlin
#57. Facebook this week announced that it's experimenting with a tag that will mark sites such as the Onion, Clickhole and Empire News as satire and, hopefully, alert the millions of gullible people who share information from these sites as truth each week.
Anonymous
#58. If they projected the fact that they are dangerous any harder, there would be little puddles of "danger" on the floor around them. Look, it's "danger", don't step in it!
Mercedes Lackey
#59. You will be very visible in the company photo, also the website and any other marketing materials. There's no way to avoid it. The photo will only be scheduled when you are in the office, so don't try pretending to be sick. They'll wait for you.
Baratunde R. Thurston
#60. Satire is used for political purposes all the time, but obviously there's a time and a place. I think in the current climate, it can be very difficult to speak your mind, but sometimes, I believe, we're all in danger and I think this discussion needs to be widened.
George Michael
#61. Satire is fascinating stuff. It's deadly serious, and when politics begin to break down, there is a drift towards satire, because it's the only thing that makes any sense.
Ben Nicholson
#62. I'm a kindhearted but highly competitive pragmatist. When I seek to win something, I always make certain it's never at the expense of anything more serious than the inadequate efforts of others.
Jonathan Kieran
#63. But that's men all over ... Poor dears, they can't help it. They haven't got logical minds.
Dorothy L. Sayers
#64. To me, that's where a lot of satire lies. News used to hold itself to a higher plane and slowly it has dissolved into, well, me.
Jon Stewart
#65. I just make what I like - warm and human stories, ones about historic characters and events, and about animals. If there is a secret, I guess it's that I never make the pictures too childish, but always try to get in a little satire of adult foibles.
Walt Disney
#66. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a family is defined as two or more people living together who are related by birth, marriage or adoption. In other words, the U.S. Census Bureau is run by radical leftists. Why do you think there's a whole category for the unemployed?
Stephen Colbert
#67. You know what people are doing on the other side of the world, what's happening on another planet, but not what's going on inside the person next to you.
Graham Spaid
#68. Moreover, you can't stand so much as an hour of your own company
or spend your leisure properly; you avoid yourself like a truant
or fugitive, hoping by drink or sleep to elude Angst.
But it's no good, for that dark companion stays on your heels
Horace
#70. Since my trips to Earth, I've only managed to assemble a few basics facts about humans, condensing them in to four, overall points: kids got Reese's, teens got recess, adults got recessions, and seniors got receding.
Tai
#71. Not another word, not another thought, not another sniffle. If you need to pass gas, I pray you'll clench your backside and keep walking until we are certainly alone.
S.C. Barrus
#72. She wore an A-line bridal gown with a V-shaped neckline while Apollo playing Bach's Air on the G string.
Tai
#73. It's supposed to feel good to throw a brick at the right people. There is a long tradition of naming and ridiculing and shaming and calling the villains what they are. Usually it was the artistocracy of the day and satire was the only way to speak truth to power.
John Cusack
#74. Nick sat alone reading a copy of The Independent . Cocaine socialists were trying their hardest to juice up Britain's economy with super casinos
Saira Viola
#75. Whenever you feel like feeling like a devil's advocate, Bible-thump. That, in a worldly world, is the great irony and satire of evangelism.
Criss Jami
#76. Peter Pastmaster and the absurdly youthful colonel of the new force were drawing up a list of suitable officers in Bratts Club.
'Most of war seems to consist of hanging about,' he said. 'Let's at least hang about with our own friends.
Evelyn Waugh
#77. To take away a man's sanity, answer all his prayers and solve all his problems. Or give him everything and everyone he wants.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#78. Right now, the economy is a whole lot like a fairly good-looking brain-dead chick in a persistent vegetative coma. You can't really wake her up, but there's things she's still good for.
Cintra Wilson
#79. On the other side of that coin, and far outweighing it, is the fact that I've been able to use genre of Fantasy/Horror and express my opinion, talk a little about society, do a little bit of satire and that's been great, man. A lot of people don't have that platform.
George A. Romero
#80. Ellison's Theorem: the further right your position, the less telling your satire. A corollary of which is that you can't lampoon anywhere near where you stand, because you'd annihilate your own troops.
Harlan Ellison
#81. Organizations like the CIA and the FBI are still kind of supermen, kind of SS troops: We're blond and the best and everyone else should be incinerated. They don't know right from wrong. That's what makes a satire of these government bureaus really funny.
Mel Brooks
#82. If Time have any wrinkle graven there; If any, be a satire to decay, And make time's spoils despised every where. Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life, So thou prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife.
William Shakespeare
#84. His joy was a release of Paul's conversion, not the heavy backslapping practical-joking humor of the Victorians, nor the cynical satire or the flippancy of the twenty first century mass media, just the gift of not taking himself or his adversaries too seriously.
John Charles Pollock
#85. Grabbing someone's ass doesn't count as capturing them!
Kathy Bryson
#86. The emperor is naked!"
The parade stopped. The emperor paused. A hush fell over the crowd, until one quick-thinking peasant shouted:
"No, he isn't. The emperor is merely endorsing a clothing-optional lifestyle!
James Finn Garner
#87. The critics try to intellectualize my material. There's no satire involved. Satire is a concept that can only be understood by adults. My stuff is straight, for people of all ages.
Andy Kaufman
#88. By and large, the mission of any ghost is to offer humility. They point out what's important by mocking what is not.
(Joshua Malina, Sports Night)
Aaron Sorkin
#89. The Irish and British, they love satire, it's a large part of the culture.
Ben Nicholson
#90. A satirist, often in danger himself, has the bravery of knowing that to withhold wit's conjecture is to endanger the species.
Penelope Gilliatt
#91. Nobody and nothing beats The Simpsons. Even after all this time, it's still the best satire since Monty Python.
Alice Cooper
#92. Good satire is about attacking the powerful, and that tends to be more the purview of the left. Maybe there's something about the conservative mindset that confuses mean-spirited name-calling and insults with actual humor.
Tom Tomorrow
#93. Excerpt from Magel's Daughter:
"I think we're all like the lutefisk, steeped in poison, and then we try to clean it up for Christmas.
Nancy Baker
#94. Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city's reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.
P.G. Wodehouse
#95. It's nice to be able to do things for other people, isn't it?
That's why it's fun to talk in the third person sometimes.
Patrick Bryant
#96. For my wife Mary Corliss and me, 'Colbert' has been destination viewing. Even in the early years, we never took the show's excellence for granted, agreeing that someday we'd look back on the double whammy of 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report' as the golden age of TV's singeing singing satire.
Richard Corliss
#97. Every single day an estimated eighteen million men gratuitously waste the future of our country, by needlessly ejaculating one hundred million citizens of our country, which had they been born, would have made us the strongest country on the planet.
Scott Andrews
#98. Next door to the Bensons is Emmet Frag, a retired pacemaker who is credited with inventing the notion of happiness. He's currently working on a method for categorising ducks based on their singing voice. He's also the owner of the world's largest collection of tenor geese.
St John Morris
#99. I write humor as it's pretty much the only thing keeping me out of an asylum.
Bonnie Daly
#100. Man is an artifact designed for space travel. He is not designed to remain in his present biologic state any more than a tadpole is designed to remain a tadpole.
William S. Burroughs
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