Allison Pearson Quotes

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

Washington's got to loosen up a little bit—learn to laugh at itself a little.

I don't think it's wrong to make fun of some of the stuff that we think and we do.

Comics are just mirrors. People can either laugh at the reflection or be disgusted by it.

If everything was good, maybe I wouldn't have a career. I wouldn't have anything to make fun of.

I write what I think is funny and I write from a sense of popping a balloon or a sense of injustice, whether it's about yourself, or whether it's about something else. It's my worldview; it doesn't mean that everybody has to agree with it.

I just use my life story as a kind of device on which to hang comic observations. It's not my interest or instinct to tell the world anything pertinent about myself or my family.

Comedy is all about having a point of view, and it's also about power.

The English can be a very critical, unforgiving people, but criticism can be good. And this is a country that loves comedy.

I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.

There's always been this tradition of satirizing these rich groups of people.

My speaking style was criticised by no less an authority than Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was a low moment, my friends, to have my rhetorical skills denounced by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg.

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.

I've spent my entire career being a satirist.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people - that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.

The show is 'Fix My Life!' Get it? Life. I do not fix people.

Activism isn't about holding your faults up to the light. That's what comedy is about, it's about saying, 'Look at this person who is so flawed and frail and damaged. And we're all this frail and damaged so let's laugh at it.'

I do not look at myself every morning and think: 'Oh, my gosh, I am so perfect, so beautiful, so talented.' No, I like to make fun of myself.

When we can begin to take our failures seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them. It is of immense importance to learn to laugh at ourselves.

It's not good for comedy to be like, 'Thanks for liking me.' Being popular is poison.

I detest jokes - when somebody tells me one, I feel my IQ dropping; the brain cells start to disappear. But something is funny when the person delivering the line doesn't know it's funny or doesn't treat it as a joke. Maybe it comes from a place of truth, or it's a sort of rage against society.

I've learned to have a sense of humor about myself. Lord knows everyone else does!

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

Canada is a balloon-puncturing country. You are not really allowed to be an icon unless you also make an idiot of yourself.

I think a lot of the time you just parody yourself.