Gary Shteyngart Quotes

Satire, like conscience, reminds us of what we often wish to forget.

Satire is an abuse of wit. It corrects few evils.

Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

Stupidity always accompanies evil. Or evil, stupidity.

A lot of times evil - or, in the case of comedy, stupid - is more interesting than the hero.

Satire can always be found everywhere. A people without love for satire is a dead people.

Comedians are obsessed with justice and the truth.

It's an old Elizabethan idea. The fool is the only one who is allowed to make fun of the king because he is a fool. I can say whatever I want about anybody else because I'm just an idiot talking - I'm not insisting that I'm any smarter than anyone else. It's satire.

Ridicule is also a weapon against forces of evil. Really clever, intelligent ridicule.

VITUPERATION, n. Saite, as understood by dunces and all such as suffer from an impediment in their wit.

Satire is moral outrage transformed into comic art.

Satire chooses and knows no objects. It arises by fleeing from them and their forcing themselves upon it.

We will, of course, without hesitation use art to parody, ridicule, debunk, or criticize ideologies.

Satire is a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended.

Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.

SATIRE, n. An obsolete kind of literary composition in which the vices and follies of the author's enemies were expounded with imperfect tenderness.

When dunces are satiric, I take it for a panegyric.

The only good imitations are those that poke fun at bad originals.

Satire, though it may exaggerate the vice it lashes, is not justified in creating it in order that it may be lashed.

Your stupidity is appalling!" "Most stupidity is!

Satire, being levelled at all, is never resented for an offence by any.

It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguished virtues.

If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up.

By rights, satire is a lonely and introspective occupation, for nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patient self-inspection.

But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the severest satire.... The greater the genius, the keener the edge of the satire.