Quotes About Satire

Ridicule is often employed with more power and success than severity.

Can anything be more boring than an upper-class Englishman?

Steak swallowers zonked on Television!

SAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.

TRUTHFUL, adj. Dumb and illiterate.

Marriage , n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two.

NOVEL, n. A short story padded

for the clown himself imitated the serious characters

LUNARIAN, n. An inhabitant of the moon, as distinguished from Lunatic, one whom the moon inhabits.

PORTUGUESE, n.pl. A species of geese indigenous to Portugal. They are mostly without feathers and imperfectly edible, even when stuffed with garlic.

BALLOON, n. A contrivance for larding the earth with the fat of fools.

ARCHBISHOP, n. An ecclesiastical dignitary one point holier than a bishop.

Ambrose Bierce

AIR, n. A nutritious substance supplied by a bountiful Providence for the fattening of the poor.

Called to be a writer, but not a minister, Twain depicted his work as an author in theological terms, humorously describing himself as preacher, prophet, and even saint. Twain's work frequently reminds one of the Menippean satirist, who drew on traditional genres for their burlesques and "ostensibly improvised sermons," as Gilbert Highest notes, even while developing their own views in response to their opponents.

Though I could agree with him that Miss Gamache had a good heart, I couldn't read her book without wanting to plunge an ice pick into it while screaming, 'That's for chapter four!

Books are a way of saying: This room seems to have more than its fair share of bozos in it.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they find to laugh at.

Men show their characters in nothing more clearly than in what they think laughable.

The biggest laughs are based on the biggest disappointments and the biggest fears.

I believe I once considerably scandalized her by declaring that clear soup was a more important factor in life than a clear conscience.

Life deserves laughter, hence people laugh at it.

Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children.

Think of what would happen to us... if there were no humorists; life would be one long Congressional Record.