Lloyd Alexander Quotes

The best thing about writing speculative fiction is the opportunity to satirize the whole wide world. The America in 'A Better World' isn't ours, but it's pretty close, so I could lampoon everything from partisan politics to the cult of celebrity to our general disaffection. To me, all that is the point.

As much as "The Lobster" feels like a world we recognize but not the world we live in, it's all drawn in an allegorical way from all the systems that exist.

Tomorrow is a satire on today, And shows its weakness.

I love Dead Ringers. A democratic set, the work was taken seriously.

Primarily I'm a social commentator rather than someone who's out to get the belly laugh.

Political satire is a serious thing. In democratic newspapers throughout the world there are daily cartoons that often are not even funny, as is the case especially in many English-language newspapers. Instead, they contain a political message, and the artist takes full responsibility.

I've always been interested in socially political, or overtly political, comedy.

Not many people were speaking truth to power in the '80s. I had a really good time doing it - I found it gratifying. It was a joy to have an opportunity to say what you believed. It's challenging to do it in fiction, but I liked writing the novels. I liked writing 'Democracy' particularly.

When part of what you're trying to get at is the truth hidden under a taboo, or when you want to nail a hypocrisy, laughter is a very useful tool. I want to show the painful side of existence, but there is no question I also want to make people laugh.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert. Those are the guys I look at who are telling me pretty much the truth. And they throw humor into it which makes it much more interesting to listen to.

One of the jobs of a stand-up comedienne is to expose hypocrisy.

I think the best science fiction, especially literature, is political in nature and is often an allegory about something problematic in our world, and it's something that makes the 'X-Men' comics so relevant - they're about xenophobia and prejudice.

Science fiction has always been a means for political comment. H.G. Wells' 'The War of the Worlds' wasn't about a Martian invasion - it was a critique of British colonialism, and... 'The Time Machine' is really an indictment of the British class system.

The 'Dead' films allow me to talk about things that a drama, say, won't. 'Dawn Of The Dead,' which was set in a shopping mall, is on one level about consumerism; 'Land Of The Dead' is a response to Bush.

I think the best comedians have that bravery and courage to say, 'This is what it is. This is unfair; that's not cool.'

My zombie films were all sort of satirical, with political messages. So I was doing them inexpensively and quietly off in left field somewhere.

The horror films that I've made have been satirical in one way or another or political, and I really think that's the purpose of horror. I don't see that happening very often.

Satire is not a social dynamite. But it is a social indicator: it shows that new men are knocking at the door.

Dawn Of The Dead is about how we're just a country cannibalizing itself, turning into one shopping mall, and everyone at the mall is just brain-dead, wandering around. Capitalism gone awry, and the worst parts of human nature coming out. All these different things that people read into the films that are all there, very strong anti-Bush sentiments that went into making those films. It's great. I like it when people get it the second or third time, when someone else points it out to them. They don't realize it's been there all along. Those are my favorite movies.

I know everybody wants humor to be subversive and speak truth to power. I don't think power's been listening, incidentally.

The jokes were perfect! Then George Carlin started talking about the seven dirty words you can't say on television, then it evolved into social commentary.

Drawing the kind of comics that I do takes so long that to specifically address something as transitory as a political matter in it would be about as effective as composing a symphony with hopes that it would depose a despot. On top of that, I personally don't think that my version of art is the best way to deal with political issues at all, or, more specifically, the place to make a point. Not that art can't, but it's the rare art that still creates something lasting if its main aim was purely to change a particular unfair social structure.

A satire should expose nothing but what is corrigible, and should make a due discrimination between those that are and those that are not the proper objects of it.

Comedy speaks for civilization; farce bears an ill-concealed, sometimes unconcealed animus against civilization. Often against civility too.