Satirical Quotes

• It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Distance, Government, Rome

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• Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

  Lord Byron

  Song, Sarcasm, Fool

  'English Bards and Scotch Reviewers' (1809) l. 5

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• Since Christianity is in fact a slave religion, it is satirical at
  least to see the negro adopt a slave religion, after chattel slavery was
  ended. It simply underlines the fact that consciously or unconsciously, weak
  humans desire the status of sheep, no matter what they say.

  Tom Metzger

  Sheep, Desire, Slavery

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• Good Humor is the best shield against the darts of satirical raillery

  Charles Simmons

  Humor, Shields, Darts

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• You can't write good satirical fiction in America because reality will quickly outdo anything you might invent.

  Philip Roth

  Writing, Reality, America

  "Military Secrets" by Adam Gopnik, www.newyorker.com. November 26, 2012.

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• You cant be satirical and not be offensive to somebody.

  Tom Lehrer

  Offensive, Cant

  "Tom Lehrer" by Stephen Thompson, www.avclub.com. May 24, 2000.

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• What was really great with Eleanor Roosevelt - I mean, of course, we all have this stereotypical, really satirical almost, version of how she speaks. What was really interesting to me was I found various radio and TV appearances of hers, but there was one talk show that I saw her on; she was the only woman, it was all men. They were talking about policy - I think it was after she was First Lady. I think it was more in the U.N. days.

  Cynthia Nixon

  Mean, Men, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• The thing is, when you're kind of creatively self-employed, your brain just kind of chooses the path of least resistance, so if you really exhausted and you've had a long day, then that's typically when you might respond to emails or if you're on a plane and have nothing else to do, then you might listen to music and write these satirical pieces trying to explain the charts with music theory.

  Owen Pallett

  Writing, Long, Brain

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• You simply cannot invent any conspiracy theory so ridiculous and obviously satirical that some people somewhere don't already believe it.

  Robert Anton Wilson

  Believe, People, Novelists

  "Everything Is Under Control : Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups" by Robert Anton Wilson, (p. 16), 1998.

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• Most important to any fake story is a plausible, realistic edge with a satirical twist that is topical.

  Joey Skaggs

  Fake People, Important, Twists

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• Jon Stewart is a dude who grew up in Jersey, hosted the show for 17 years, and created this new way of doing satirical news.

  Hasan Minhaj

  Source: www.mtv.com

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• Orwell is almost our litmus test. Some of his satirical writing looks like reality these days.

  John Pilger

  Writing, Reality, Looks

  Interview with David Barsamian, progressive.org. July 16, 2007.

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• Gradually compositions make an appearance again. Political - satirical - conceits expressed in one figure or a few.

  Paul Klee

  Political, Appearance, Figures

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• In the sixties, the recycling of pop culture turning it into Pop art and camp had its own satirical zest. Now we're into a different kind of recycling. Moviemakers give movies of the past an authority that those movies didn't have; they inflate images that may never have compelled belief, images that were no more than shorthand gestures and they use them not as larger-than-life jokes but as altars.

  Pauline Kael

  Art, Past, Zest

  "A Bad Dream/A Masterpiece". Review of "The Moon in the Gutter" on September 19, 1983. "State of the Art". Book by Pauline Kael, p. 48, 1985.

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• Italian politicians are too stupid to deserve my vote, but they can get over it with my critical, denunciatory, satirical, vitriolic and vituperative invectives.

  William C. Brown

  Stupid, Italian, Vote

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• Well, I think that if you sincerely try to imagine what life is like for another person - not in a mocking way, not in a satirical way, but in a sincere, compassionate way - I don't think that's exploitive.

  Curtis Sittenfeld

  Thinking, Life Is Like, Trying

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• Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.

  Jack Kerouac

  Burroughs

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• In my work, and in my psyche, there's some very sentimental, traditional, conventional side that's always in argument with a more radical, sarcastic side. Some of my stories are really sentimental, but they're layered over with weird, satirical stuff.

  George Saunders

  Sarcastic, Stuff, Sides

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• You may be witty, but not satirical.

  Horace Greeley

  Witty, May, Wit

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• This is really hard to do but I'd like to change the tone now and briefly mention today's terrible tragedy in France. Twelve people were killed because a satirical newspaper made jokes that some group found offensive. All of us are accustomed to bad news from around the world. But this story hits home for anybody who mocks anyone.

  Conan O'Brien

  Home, People, Tragedy

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• 10 years ago, I would've host Saturday Night Live. But to me, the show has declined. For some reason, humor isn't what it was. It just, to me, it's not as funny as it was, not as sharply satirical.

  Dick Van Dyke

  Night, Host, Reason

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• It is not uncommon for those who at their first entrance into the world were distinguished for attainments or abilities, to disappoint the hopes which they had raised, and to end in neglect and obscurity that life which they began in honour. To the long catalogue of the inconveniences of old age, which moral and satirical writers have so copiously displayed, may be often added the loss of fame.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Loss, Long, Age

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• Perhaps,” murmured his lordship, “I yielded to a compassionate impulse.” “A what?” gasped his best friend. “Oh, did you think I never did so?” said his lordship, the satirical glint in his eyes extremely pronounced. “You wrong me! I do, sometimes—not frequently, of course, but every now and then!

  Georgette Heyer

  Eye, Thinking, Sometimes

  Georgette Heyer (2011). “Frederica”, p.144, Random House

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• The satirical direction I have chosen is an indication of my disappointment in man, which is the opposite way of saying that I have high expectations for the human race.

  Jack Levine

  Disappointment, Race, Opposites

  Kenneth Wade Prescott, Jack Levine (1978). “Jack Levine: Retrospective Exhibition, Paintings, Drawings, Graphics”

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• I'm crushed by the responsibility of writing a satirical book.

  Al Franken

  Book, Writing, Responsibility

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