Voltaire Quotes

It is difficult not to write satire.

Satire, whether it be satire or not, everything has to have boundaries.

I think satire is most effective when you love the thing you're satirizing rather than... have a vendetta against it.

In a satire, you need foolishness.

Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.

Praise to the undeserving is severe satire.

As a comedian, I think we all look for those areas where the truth diverts from what people are saying. That's why politics is such a rich area for us, because politicians make promises, and they don't keep them, and when we point out the difference, we get the laugh.

Satire is focused bitterness.

Praise undeserved, is satire in disguise.

Everything can be satirized.

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.

Satire of satire tends to be self-canceling, and deliberate shock tactics soon lose their ability to shock, especially when they're too deliberate.

The purpose of satire has been rightly stated as to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cosy half truth, and our job, as I see it, is to put it back again!

Wit is the most rascally, contemptible, beggarly thing on the face of the earth.

Satire is, by definition, offensive. It is meant to make us feel uncomfortable. It is meant to make us scratch our heads, think, do a double-take, and then think again.

I didn't necessarily set out to think of a show to make fun of reality shows.

Facetiousness is allowable when it is the most proper instrument of exposing things apparently base and vile to due contempt.

If you're going to get into social criticism with absurdity and satire, you can't be politically correct when you do that.

If nothing is serious anymore, then there's nothing to satirize.

Parody is homage gone sour.

I eventually saw the satirical nature of caricaturing individuals.

You can parody and make fun of almost anything, but that does not turn the universe into a caricature.

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

Satire works best when it hews close to the line between the outlandish and the possible - and as that line continues to grow thinner, the satirist's task becomes ever more difficult.

I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise.