Satire Quotes Page 2

The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: we are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.

By rights, satire is a lonely and introspective occupation, for nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patient self-inspection.

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

You can judge the moral bearing of a political system, a political institution, a political man by the degree of danger they attach to the fact of being observed through the eyes of a satiric poet.

Good satire comes from anger. It comes from a sense of injustice, that there are wrongs in the world that need to be fixed. And what better place to get that well of venom and outrage boiling than a newsroom, because you're on the front lines.

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.

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

I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity.

Films, like memories, seem to re-shoot themselves over the years, reflecting our latest needs and obsessions. In many cases they can change completely, and reveal unexpected depths and shallows. Will Four Weddings and a Funeral be seen one day as a vicious social satire? Could Jaws become as tearful and sentimental as Bambi?

All the satires of the stage should be viewed without discomfort.

They are public mirrors, where we are never to admit that we seeourselves; one admits to a fault when one is scandalized by its censure.

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

It is within the established American tradition of satire, if America surrenders on this point, the freedom of speech is a relic of history.

All serious art, music, literature is a critical act.

It is so, firstly, in the sense of Matthew Arnold's phrase: "a criticism of life." Be it realistic, fantastic, Utopian or satiric, the construct of the artist is a counter-statement to the world.

Satire is moral outrage transformed into comic art.

Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.

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.

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.

All satire is blind to the forces liberated by decay.

Which is why total decay has absorbed the forces of satire.

Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits, that distinguish themselves by the flourishes of imagination, sharpness of repartee, glances of satire, and bear away the upper part in every consort.

Tis not the wholesome sharp mortality, Or modest anger of a satiric spirit, That hurts or wounds the body of a state, But the sinister application Of the malicious, ignorant, and base Interpreter; who will distort and strain The general scope and purpose of an author To his particular and private spleen.

After the horrific massacre Wednesday at the French weekly satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, perhaps the West will finally put away its legion of useless tropes trying to deny the relationship between violence and radical Islam.

Satire must not be a kind of superfluous ill will, but ill will from a higher point of view. Ridiculous man, divine God. Or else, hatred against the bogged-down vileness of average man as against the possible heights that humanity might attain.

Producing satire is kind of hopeless because of the literacy rate of the American public.

It is difficult not to write satire.

One easily bears moral reproof, but never mockery.

When dunces are satiric, I take it for a panegyric.

If satire is to be effective, the audience must be aware of the thing satirized.

A fondness for satire indicates a mind pleased with irritating others;

for myself, I never could find amusement in killing flies.

Satire is tragedy plus time.

Hollywood is horrible... it's beyond satire.

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

People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.

Conventional show-biz savvy held that Americans hated to be the objects of satire.

It has been said that the historian is the avenger, and that standing as a judge between the parties and rivalries and causes of bygone generations he can lift up the fallen and beat down the proud, and by his exposures and his verdicts, his satire and his moral indignation, can punish unrighteousness, avenge the injured or reward the innocent.

There is parody, when you make fun of people who are smarter than you;

satire, when you make fun of people who are richer than you; and burlesque, when you make fun of both while taking your clothes off.