Scott Simon Quotes

Charlie Hebdo was and is not The Onion or "The Daily Show." This is a different kind of satire. Might I put it this way - less politically correct.

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.

I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire.

Charlie Hebdo mocked everyone. They mocked the left. They mocked the right. They mocked, above all, the extreme right, the extreme right of Le Pen's. If anything could identify their politics, they were kinds of anarchists.

We've seen the uproars around the world concerning cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammad. Anyone who does not think comic strips are relevant never had a fatwa put on him/her for drawing a picture.

I believe comedy should be free to go anywhere. I believe that there is tasteful and untasteful, I think they're very close to each other, and it's how you handle it tonally. But I'm an equal opportunity offender.

Some felt as if 'Charlie Hebdo' was obsessed with its 'Screw Allah' stance. It's a sort of provocation that caused a lot of debates.

There was no joke I could make that was too offensive. I can actually remember at least one time where my mother told me something that, I was like, 'whoa!'

I've always been fascinated by the difference between the jokes you can tell your friends but you can't tell to an audience. There's a fine line you have to tread because you don't know who is out there in the auditorium. A lot of people are too easily offended.

In the 1990s, it's OK to do comedy about the Chernobyl disaster or the Space Shuttle blowing up. It's acceptable to ridicule the Pope or the President of the United States, but God forbid you do a joke... about gays. The gay community is the last sacred cow in this society.

Even conservative columnists tend to prefer humor that isn't fit to print.

I try not to apologize, especially publicly. That's a slippery slope, because I'm a comedian. If you take anything I'm saying too seriously, then you shouldn't be paying attention in the first place. If you find me offensive, don't follow me.

Adam Carolla is like Hitler if Hitler wasn’t funny.

I've learned to have absolutely no regrets about any jokes I've ever done. You can tune me out, you can click me off, it's OK. I am not going to bow to political correctness.

Charlie Hebdo were the licensed anarchist clowns of the society.

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.

I was a kid and it was kind of scabrous, and it wasn't the sacrilege that bothered me so much as the obscenity that challenged a 14-year-old American. But over the years, I came to have a keen appreciation of Charlie Hebdo and what it did.

I know the fashion is that everything is fair game [for comedy material] but I don't believe that.

To me, racist jokes are not funny. I am politically correct, in a weird way. I like to push the boundaries that are politically correct.

Many of the American cartoonists that want to have a job and go so much for the total right without thinking, sometimes they get a slap on the face when their politician lets them down. So it goes on and on. The thing is staying in the middle and not getting committed, trying to get the best of both and do that with a sense of humor.

My opinion is that somebody certainly has the right to do cartoons that make fun of somebody else's religion. But to reprint them just to provoke a fight and just to provoke it like thumbing your nose at someone else and going, "What are you gonna do about it?"

A good analogy [Charlie Hebdo] in lots of ways is "South Park" - the hugely popular American cartoon show - and the things that the "South Park" creators have created, like "The Book Of Mormon," the Broadway musical. If I were a devout Mormon, I would be offended by a lot of things that go on in "The Book Of Mormon," right? It mocks mercilessly the pretensions to truth of Mormonism and the pretensions to virtue of Mormon missionaries.

If someone tries to put limits on the press, I'll be the first one standing up for the right of press, left and right, to continue saying and being part of the discussion and forwarding the discussion.

The classic comedian says there's nothing that's taboo; if you laugh at one thing you've got to laugh at everything, that comedy is taking people to dark areas and showing them the light.

Things that are really offensive make me laugh because I like things that push the envelope, go out on a limb, and are bold.