Henry James Quotes

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.

I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.

Jokes are grievances.

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.

David Sedaris is so good that it makes me mad.

Stand-up comedy and comedy in general is the ultimate form of free speech, because you get to poke holes in all the pretentious bubbles politicians and pundits and popes and pretenders try to float over our heads.

I'm a great admirer of 'The Simpsons.' It's very surprising because it's backed by a right-wing television company in the U.S., and quite often it's poking fun at the people who would be its audience.

When you make 'The Daily Show', it's usually not for a laurel, it's for a dart.

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

Bad times for the Republic are great times for satire.

Prison is essentially a shortage of space made up for by a surplus of time; to an inmate, both are palpable.

When it comes to politics, comedians read between the lines and see hypocrisies and half-truths. And we report those things to regular people who go, 'I noticed that, too!' or 'You're right, that doesn't make sense!'

People go, 'Oh, Trump must be good for comedy,' and I go, 'Ehhh.'

Politics is a thing that is kind of the same over and over and over again. But we have to find new ways of poking fun at it and letting the air out of people and satirizing things that are worthy of satire.

The cell door slammed behind Rubishov.

People don't understand that we're not warriors in their cause. We're a group of people that really feel that they want to write jokes about the absurdity that we see in government and the world and all that, and that's it.

Some times I think this whole world Is one big prison yeard Some of us are prisoners The rest of us are guards

I grow ominously tired of official confinement. Thirty years have I served the Philistines, and my neck is not subdued to the yoke. You don't know how wearisome it is to breathe the air of four pent walls without relief day after day, all the golden hours of the day between ten and four without ease or interposition ... these pestilential clerk-faces always in one's dish. O for a few years between the grave and the desk!

We've got Nancy Pelosi. She never shuts up. It's just occasionally we have to hood her like a falcon so we can get some sleep.

The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines...I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirize George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them. And that's not funny....OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire.

I've always said, "I love the women's movement, especially when walking behind it." And I have never understood why it is that people - you know, I hate liberalism. I'm totally opposed to liberalism. I do not like that at all.

As a comedian, I think we all look for those areas where the truth diverts from what people are saying. That's why politics is such a rich area for us, because politicians make promises, and they don't keep them, and when we point out the difference, we get the laugh.

If this is a Great Society, I'd hate to see a bad one.

Mock mockers after that That would not lift a hand maybe To help good, wise or great To bar that foul storm out, for we Traffic in mockery.