Karl Kraus Quotes

I started out making fun of comedy. Then I became the thing I was making fun of.

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

I don't take myself seriously. Others should take me seriously, I don't.

When you take a character seriously, there's more room for comedy because you're not aware of how absurd you are.

Politics is much too serious to be taken too seriously; equally, there are many aspects of it so laughable as to be lamentable.

He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little - or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.

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

The Times is speechless and takes three columns to express its speechlessness.

A large section of the intelligentsia seems wholly devoid of intelligence.

Irony is the word I forget the meaning of immediately after I look it up, but I kind of feel like I live in a constant state of it.

The funniest thing about some people is that they have no sense of humor.

I respect everything I make fun of.

Deep down, I happen to be very shallow.

I love playing the macho guy who looks like an idiot.

It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.

The great thing about irony is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates.

Nature not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write.

'The Importance of Being Earnest' is important, but it says nothing about anything.

Irony has seeped into the felt of any fedora hat I have ever owned - not out of any wish of mine, but out of necessity. A fedora hat worn by me without the necessary protective irony would eat through my head and kill me.

Churchill was one of the few men I have met who even in the flesh give me the impression of genius. George Bernard Shaw is another. It is amusing to know that each thinks the other is overrated.

Nothing gets a bigger laugh than when you refer to things like ethics or human rights.

A humorist is a person who feels bad, but who feels good about it.

I've turned arrogance into an artform, where it's so absurd that it becomes comedy. But I've never done anything to hurt anybody or steal from anyone.