ContraPoints Quotes

If you can make someone laugh about something that your opponent or your opposition thinks, that means you've done a really good job of highlighting what's wrong with their argument or their position.

I never failed to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away.

My favorite comedians are just presenting an argument, and they're doing it in a funny way.

Jokes are unanswerable objections.

Obviously, I'm a fan of satire. I'd debate anyone, but it would have to be the actual person. That would be my only hesitation about debating Stephen Colbert. If he were playing a character, it wouldn't really work.

Okay Mr. Environmentalist. Come here and explain this.

If they [the Russians] want to fight with me, let them come and we see who wins.

We all joke about Bush. You go to a meeting and just say “Bush” and everyone will laugh.

Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument.

I think comedy is a good way to help people change their minds. I think that if you're laughing and getting a message across, it's a lot easier than when somebody is screaming in your face.

I always feel that comedy, at its best, tackles issues that are controversial, polarizing, volatile, and sheds light onto those issues and the people involved.

Comedy is very, very hard to achieve.

I've been making fun of Donald Trump - we all have - for 10 years, and just bringing up his name... I mean, even if you're supportive of Donald Trump, there's still a lot to make fun of.

All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing in the bread line - right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.

If you're showing people where it's smooth sailing, where is the joke? If you go back to any movie, even a conventional movie, with any comedians, they're either not terribly intelligent or they're not doing something well.

And sometimes you can make your point better with comedy than you can through shouting about it.

Comedy is not an easy genre.

Let's make Donald Trump explain his hair.

I wouldn't want to debate me every day.

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

It's a challenge to do satire when the thing you're satirizing is almost beyond satire, but I think that's a challenge for everybody.

The common thread of my comedy shows is conflict and, I guess, the frustration of people who either argue with you or just say stuff which is blatantly incorrect, and nobody calls them out on it.

Bite me, Goth princess,” Shane called from the back. “Not literally or anything.” “Maybe you should say that to Michael.” “Not funny, Eve,” Michael said. Eve raised her eyebrows and held her fingers up, measuring off about an inch. “Little bit,” she said.

Well I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about things. That is exactly what things were originally made for.

Demosthenes, when taunted by Pytheas that all his arguments "smelled of the lamp," replied, "Yes, but your lamp and mine, my friend, do not witness the same labours.