Edward Abbey Quotes

I would think a sense of the absurd is more important for a political cartoonist, because that could define things like a sense of hypocrisy or a sense of the things one has to be skeptical about.

The liberation of the human mind has never been furthered by dunderheads; it has been furthered by gay fellows who heaved dead cats into sanctuaries and then went roistering down the highways of the world, proving to all men that doubt, after all, was safe - that the god in the sanctuary was finite in his power and hence a fraud. One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.

The only non-believer I encountered was Oscar Levant who wouldn't visit Disneyland because he said he had his own hallucinations.

Irony is a great tool to deal with things. It's an intellectualization, a way to go above things, which can work.

I like a woman with a head on her shoulders. I hate necks.

I am kind of a curmudgeonly person, so I don't gravitate to groups or traditions, which is probably just pretentious of me.

Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize.

A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye.

There are two kinds of people. The smart people ... who sit around the table and kind of examine life. And then there are the other people—who run for public office, and some of the idiots like myself who are just in there fighting.

The House of Commons starts its proceedings with a prayer. The chaplain looks at the assembled members with their varied intelligence and then prays for the country.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

There is no place for a person like me in a world that only takes itself seriously. Satire is so necessary but fairly ineffective.

I'm now the poster child for not believing everything I'm told.

I am a student of stupidity. I am a political reporter.

Comedy actually works best when you're living in an OK world, and you are pointing out the hypocrisy in apathy.

I have the comedic chops and intelligence to raise points and discuss both sides of whatever is on our mind as a society.

It was lovely to see cynicism in one so young. It positively restored his faith in human nature.

People who believe in politics are like people who believe in God: they are sucking wind through bent straws.

In comedy, I hate that cop-out where you say, "Just kidding." I know you're just kidding. Don't insult my intelligence by spelling it out for me that much.

[On Malcolm Muggeridge:] He thinks he was knocked off his horse by God, like St. Paul on the road to Damascus. His critics think he simply fell off it from old age.

First, I was an idealist (that was early - fools are born, not made, you know); next I was a realist; now I am a pessimist, and, by Jove! if things get much worse I'll become a humorist.

My brother believed in all sorts of mythical creatures: pixies, dragons, werewolves, honest men.

They’d say, ‘If you play the record backwards, you can hear evil things like 'grrrr!'’ and I would think, ‘Geez, I didn’t know the devil sounded like that. I thought he was coherent like the rest of us.’

A sense of humour is common sense dancing.

If smart people are parodying it, that's a sure sign that some less smart people are believing it.