George Lois Quotes

America's two great specialties are demagogues and rock and roll, and we've all heard plenty of both in our time.

I don't want to speak for my movies; you could say my movies are just completely silly and dumb, but in the case of 'Idiocracy' and 'Borat,' without a doubt there is a really subversive and sophisticated assault on American culture. It's one thing to mess stuff up and break stuff, but [Borat] is really pointing out the ideology of America. It's one thing to break stuff and damage people's possessions, but when you start aiming at the ideology of America, that's dangerous comedy.

I find America falling in love with a TV show flattering and interesting, but at the same time a little sad.

I never wanted to do political satire because it seems too surface to me.

The reason I wrote political satire was because I thought it - politics - was important... that public policy was important. Then I transitioned into books, then into radio.

'American Dad' is, by its nature, much more political.

Politics is developing more comedians than radio ever did.

The Rockwell magazine cover was more a part of the American reality than a record of it.

Political satire is a serious thing. In democratic newspapers throughout the world there are daily cartoons that often are not even funny, as is the case especially in many English-language newspapers. Instead, they contain a political message, and the artist takes full responsibility.

If you're watching a comedian on television and he's making a political point, I would say he's gotten too serious.

The biggest threat to any politician is an artist. Comedians unleashed can do a great deal of damage. David Letterman can do more damage than any Republican assault by Newt Gingrich.

I've always been interested in socially political, or overtly political, comedy.

The fact that the Kardashians could be more popular than a show like 'Mad Men' is disgusting. It's a super disgusting part of our culture, but I still find it funny to make a joke about it.

I don't want to speak for my movies; you could say my movies are just completely silly and dumb, but in the case of 'Idiocracy' and 'Borat,' without a doubt there is a really subversive and sophisticated assault on American culture.

Is there a sharper commentary on American culture and the world than The Simpsons?

Everybody who's ever influenced me, from a Richard Prior to a Whoopie Goldberg to, you know, any of the voices that have resonated with me as a performer since I was a kid, you know, you couldn't really say that their work didn't have some element of political commentary in it.

Politics is pop. Our job as comedians - especially me, as a late-night talk show, which is a broader audience - is to amplify what we think America is thinking.

You know, I'm a comedian the same as Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. We all came up the same way. The three of us have interest in politics; I call us fundits, we're fundits! We're not pundits!

Occasionally, the horrors of life in North Korea do show up in our American satire.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

It seems ironic that the same convention which thinks Will Rogers is a clown thinks Huey Long is a statesman.

Ksenia Sobchak as president is like Sergei Shnurov as an artist. It's satire. It's a very high-level art project.

Comedy has become, I think, a very important branch of public intellectualism. But it still ain't Washington.

I think that humor has become a principle means of communication among Americans about politics.

I feel like comedy is important, and I think political satire can be really important.