Ron Silver Quotes

Human and moral factors must always be considered. They must never be missing from policies and from public discussion.

Oscar Wilde always makes me smile - with respect and admiration. His short stories prove that it is possible to be both sarcastic, even cynical, but deeply compassionate. Just seeing the cover of one of Wilde's books in a bookshop makes me smile.

I would think a sense of the absurd is more important for a political cartoonist, because that could define things like a sense of hypocrisy or a sense of the things one has to be skeptical about.

Comedy actually works best when you're living in an OK world, and you are pointing out the hypocrisy in apathy.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence.

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.

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

For me, human rights simply endorse a view of life and a set of moral values that are perfectly clear to an eight-year-old child. A child knows what is fair and isn't fair, and justice derives from that knowledge.

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.

You can't make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you're doing is recording it.

It is difficult not to write satire.

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.

Most jokes state a bitter truth.

The show is a satire, which gives us freedom to do anything we want. Satire is the magic word that wipes away any culpability. The media is jealous of this freedom.

On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.

Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it.

Some values must be universal, like human rights and the equal worth of every human being.

Everybody I know is a joke writer.

You can't build a new society by violating the rights of others.

There are times … when every one of us must make a stand for human right and justice, or you never feel clean again.

There is no place for a person like me in a world that only takes itself seriously. Satire is so necessary but fairly ineffective.

Human rights, no matter whom they affect, are something that should matter to all of us. It's always been a part of my life.

We actually became just what it was that we'd set out to make fun of.

I just believe in standing up for people and against discrimination. I consider myself an advocate for human rights.

My father was a humanitarian, but he didn't side one way or another with any certain right's groups. He just believed in people.