c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
— Jonathan Swift
It is proved...that things cannot be other than they are, for since everything was made for a purpose, it follows that everything is made for the best purpose.
— Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary
Since my trips to Earth, I've only managed to assemble a few basics facts about humans, condensing them in to four, overall points: kids got Reese's, teens got recess, adults got recessions, and seniors got receding.
— Tai, Cupid's Academy: The Miseducation of Mergatroyd, Love god in Training
I've always felt I deserved a wider audience, so thank you for reading this.
— Ivana Hruba
They see nothing indecent in sexual intercourse, whether heterosexual or homosexual, and indulge in it quite openly, in full view of everyone. The only exception was Socrates, who was always swearing that his relations with young men were purely Platonic, but nobody believed him for a moment, and Hyacinthus and Narcissus gave first-hand evidence to the contrary.
— Lucian of Samosata, Satirical Sketches
Maud: Young women are never happy.Betty: Mother, what a thing to say.Maud: Then when they're older they look back and see that comparatively speaking they were ecstatic.
— Caryl Churchill, Cloud 9
A Harvey Nicks chick with throwaway morals and a trustfund appetite.
— Saira Viola, Slide, a Modern Satire on the Excess of Greed
Were you terrified, Murgatroyd?" Murgatroyd nodded eagerly. "There you go, girl: You're a terrorist. You make me twitchy, and under Article Forty-One of the 2000 Terrorism Bill, that's all I need. Time for some reasonable force, I think.
— China Miéville, Un Lun Dun
hobos' (a slang term that combines the words 'hope' and 'bowl of beans given to me for free by a woman who then initiated intercourse')
— Patton Oswalt, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland
Our town was known for two things--no, three: salted fish, expertly dyed fabrics, and corruption.
— Angela Elwell Hunt, Magdalene
I suppose that in no educational institution can one become an educated person.
— Mikhail Bulgakov, The Life of Monsieur de Moliere
I suppose that saves us from having to determine what to do with a butler who goes around killing people. It certainly reflects badly upon our domestic staff. Still, I shall miss him. There was a man who knew how to brew a good cup of tea.
— Gail Carriger, Timeless
I replied that England (the dear place of my nativity) was computed to produce three times the quantity of food, more than its inhabitants are able to consume, ... But, in order to feed the luxury and intemperance of the males, and the vanity of the females, we sent away the greatest part of our necessary things to other countries, from whence in return we brought the materials of diseases, folly, and vice, to spend among ourselves. Hence it follows of necessity that vast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing, stealing, cheating, pimping, forswearing, flattering, suborning, forging, gaming, lying, fawning, hectoring, voting, scribbling, freethinking,
— Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Alice is fictional. This isn't.
— Jess C. Scott, Zombie Mania: A Zombie Apocalypse Parody
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend- provided of course he really is dead.
— Voltaire
Sex is mathematics. Individuality no longer an issue. What does intelligence signify? Define reason. Desire -- meaningless. Intellect is not a cure. Justice is dead. Fear, recrimination, innocence, sympathizing, guilt, waste, failure, grief, were things, emotions, that no one really felt any more. Reflection is useless, the world is senseless. Evil is its only permanence. God is not alive. Love cannot be trusted. Surface, surface, surface was all that anyone found meaning in...this was civilization as I saw it, colossal and jagged...
— Bret Easton Ellis
But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.
— Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore.
— Jonathan Swift
Oh well," McWatt sang, "what the hell.
— Joseph Heller
It was madness to leave without your useless shit. You came in with it, you left with it--that was how it worked. What would you use to clutter a new office with if not your useless shit? We could remember Old Brizz with this box of useless shit, shifting the box from arm to arm as he talked with the building guy. Of course, Old Brizz never had an office again. His useless shit really was useless. He had cause to leave his useless shit behind. But his was a rare case. All things considered, it was better to take your useless shit with you.
— Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End
A satirist is never certain whether he/she will be acclaimed or punished.
— Edgar Johnson, A Treasury of Satire
The robots came bearing a gift and the name of it was "Plenty."Plenty is a habit-forming drug. You do not cut the dosage down. You kick it if you can; you stop the dose entirely. But the convulsions that follow may wreck the body entirely.
— Frederik Pohl, The Midas Plague
Kara knew je only recognised t and a on a string and he was nothing more than a sleazy pupeeter
— Saira Viola, Crack Apple And Pop!
Oh, I don’t mean to infer that you’re not a great guy. I’m sure you’re the exception to the rule.
— Jaye Frances, The Cruise - All That Glitters
Processions, meetings, military parades, lectures, waxwork displays, film shows, telescreen programs all had to be organized; stands had to be erected, effigies built, slogans coined, songs written, rumours circulated, photographs faked.
— George Orwell, 1984
He was a boom boom shake the room " kind of guy
— Saira Viola, Slide, a Modern Satire on the Excess of Greed
I hope Marcus (giggle) is there. Maybe he can defeat the evil Cullens with his mighty battle cry, "I can see relationships!!!
— Dan Bergstein
Irreverence is our only sacred cow.
— Paul Krassner
We pay people and reward them for greed and sleaze . When a sex tape gets made a star is born with a publicity agent on speed dial a six figure pay cheque and a tacky lingerie line....selling filth so you can get your face on Time magazine... From Jukebox
— Saira Viola
Akthent on thee latht thyllable.
— Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
Like vampires and extremely rich people, black folk can sense one another. Use your Spidey Sense (Blacky Sense?). Use your blackdar to inspect the workplace for signs of Other Negroes. They may be working security for the building. They may be in administrative support. They may be among the associate pool, or they may even be in upper management. Black folk can be anywhere. After all, you're here. But one of the biggest mistakes you can make as The Black Employee is to assume you are the only one.
— Baratunde R. Thurston
To be self-contented is to be vile and ignorant, ans that to aspire is better than to be blindly and impoitently happy.
— Edwin A. Abbott
...I could feel her burrowing into my heart. I didn't know if the burrowing was like a kitten cuddling up to its mother or if it was like a chigger depositing its larvae underneath the skin of my ankles.
— Jason Porter, Why Are You So Sad?: A Novel
Though firm, we are never too firm, though we love fun, we never have fun in a silly way that makes us appear ridiculous, unless that is our intent.
— George Saunders, The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
She wore an A-line bridal gown with a V-shaped neckline while Apollo playing Bach's Air on the G string.
— Tai, Cupid's Academy: Argus' Big Fat Greek Wedding Ring
Let Sporus tremble — "What? that thing of silk, Sporus, that mere white curd of ass's milk?Satire or sense, alas! can Sporus feel?Who breaks a Butterfly upon a Wheel?"Yet let me flap this Bug with gilded wings,This painted Child of Dirt that stinks and stings; Whose Buzz the Witty and the Fair annoys,Yet Wit ne'er tastes, and Beauty ne'er enjoys,
— Alexander Pope
Attend to your Configuration.
— Edwin A. Abbott
After riding like a moron all over the place, observes the face of an Indian when he crashes. He is stunned.
— Manu Joseph, Serious Men
The Prayer of the Middle-Aged ManAmid the doctors in the Temple at twelve, between mother & host at Cana implored too soon, in the middle of disciples, the midst of the mob, between High-Priest and Procurator, among the occupiers,between the malefactors, and 'stetit in medio, et dixit, pax vobis' and 'ascensit ad mediam Personarum et caelorum,' dear my Lord,mercy a sinner nailed dead-centre too, pray not to late,-for also Ezra stood between the seven & the six, restoring the new Law.
— John Berryman, Delusions, Etc.
He would be a consul no doubt by and by, at some foreign port, of the language of which he was ignorant; though if ignorance of language were a qualification he might have been a consul at home.
— Mark Twain
...the very greatest satire, I came to think -- the kind that lives forever -- ultimately grew out of a debunking attitude toward the self. To see the world mock-heroically was necessarily to engage in a sort of preliminary self-burlesque. You couldn't take yourself *that* seriously. You were part of it. All the Lilliputian preening and pomposity was, at bottom, one's own.
— Terry Castle, The Professor and Other Writings
Now we go in and take over," answered A. "It's our duty to help these people.
— Katerina Stoykova Klemer, The air around the butterfly/Въздухът около пеперудата
You will be very visible in the company photo, also the website and any other marketing materials. There's no way to avoid it. The photo will only be scheduled when you are in the office, so don't try pretending to be sick. They'll wait for you.
— Baratunde R. Thurston
Satire is the antidote to Pollyanna and Dr. Pangloss. It focuses our gaze sharply upon the the contrast between things as they are and as they should be.
— Edgar Johnson, A Treasury of Satire
Does it not whet your appetite for the critical opera omnia of such an author, where he will freely have at the lenth and breath of Scripture? Can you not see his promised land flowing with peanut butter and jelly; his apocalypse, in which the great whore of Babylon is given the cup of ginger ale of the fierceness of the wrath of God?
— Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection
Jason Mashak’s SALTY AS A LIP is grounded in a voice patiently bridging the “steeples and ‘scrapers” of an inquisitive mind. The poems are at once syllogistic, hard-edged, satirical, reflective, and finally as playful as love notes. The true joy of this book is that we are deliciously engaged in a "pantomime of pleasure" which the language and imagery generously evoke.
— James Ragan
ISIS stands for Islamic State In Syria. It's an acronym. ISIS is also the name of a bad ass Egyptian goddess. So for a group that is so anti woman I find it interesting and ironic that they named themselves after one
— Johnny Corn
That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?''Yes' Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a plop of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.'Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five
... the sea pirates who had the most to do with the creation of the newgovernment owned human slaves. They used human beings for machinery, and, evenafter slavery was eliminated, because it was so embarrassing, they and theirdescendants continued to think of ordinary human beings as machines.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Breakfast of Champions
People who regularly abuse power don't like being laughed at'.
— Pieter-Dirk Uys
I denounce the do-gooders, the feel-gooders, the “activist clubs,” and anyone else who makes people feel like the problem is being taken care of. Trust me. The problem is not being taken care of.
— Blake Nelson, Destroy All Cars
That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?''Yes' Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.'Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five
[An] explanation that was simply in the best traditions of female logic:"I don't know why, but I want it, so you need to give me that expensive thing.
— Michael Atamanov, Stay on the Wing
When it comes to assassination, execution is everything.
— R.S. Gompertz, No roads lead to Rome
History repeats, again.
— R.S. Gompertz, Aqueduct to Nowhere
For instance, the cards that I wrote for the company's 'I'd Like to Declare My Confused and Ambiguous Fondness for You' line were all notorious failures, some of which were blamed as the single direct cause of several nasty divorces, and some of their purchasers had actually taken the effort to discover the identity of their anonymous author, sending me hate mail, dead fish, and poorly wrapped, oil-stained packages emitting ticking noises.
— Dexter Palmer, The Dream of Perpetual Motion
Did you know that the United States is ranked fiftieth in the world in life expectancy? And the forty-nine loser countries where they live longer than us...they live shackled to the tyranny of nonprofit health care. Here in America, you're not coughing up blood, little Bobby, you're coughing up freedom!
— Bill Maher, The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass
It's nice to be able to do things for other people, isn't it?That's why it's fun to talk in the third person sometimes.
— Patrick Bryant, Hum A Radiant Sickness
They tugged plans and ambitions out their asses and held tight to the first that didn't smell so strongly of shit.
— Patrick Bryant, Hum A Radiant Sickness
Preferring the nausea of the path to its fated and certain ending.
— Patrick Bryant, Hum A Radiant Sickness
The madrigore of verjuice must be talthibianised.
— C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength
Get some sleep, Secretary General, get some sleep. Revolution can wait till the morning.
— Mohammed Hanif, A Case of Exploding Mangoes
Valentine's Day is a disaster. Any day that is designed to perfectly encapsulate something as messy and personal as two people in a romantic relationship would have to be. But in Night Vale it also kills people. This is called satire.
— Joseph Fink, Mostly Void, Partially Stars
Dwayne's bad chemicals made him take a loaded thirty-eight caliber revolver fromunder his pillow and stick it in his mouth. This was a tool whose only purpose was tomake holes in human beings. It looked like this:In Dwayne's part of the planet, anybody who wanted one could get one down at hislocal hardware store. Policemen all had them. So did the criminals. So did the peoplecaught in between.Criminals would point guns at people and say, "Give me all your money," and thepeople usually would. And policemen would point their guns at criminals and say, "Stop"or whatever the situation called for, and the criminals usually would. Sometimes theywouldn't. Sometimes a wife would get so mad at her husband that she would put a holein him with a gun. Sometimes a husband would get so mad at his wife that he would puta hole in her. And so on.In the same week Dwayne Hoover ran amok, a fourteen-year-old Midland City boyput holes in his mother and father because he didn't want to show them the bad reportcard he had brought home. His lawyer planned to enter a plea of temporary insanity,which meant that at the time of the shooting the boy was unable to distinguish thedifference between right and wrong.· Sometimes people would put holes in famous people so they could be at least fairlyfamous, too. Sometimes people would get on airplanes which were supposed to fly tosomeplace, and they would offer to put holes in the pilot and co-pilot unless they flewthe airplane to someplace else.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Breakfast of Champions
He was eager to tell me about his latest work, which consisted of him vomiting on a footpath, then cordoning it off. Each artwork lasted until the first ‘philistine’ thought to take the rope down.‘In that way, the philistine is drawn – whether he likes it or not – into my art. He becomes part of it…and the vomit part of him. Essentially, it is the cosmic vomit. We all spew it. It blurs the boundaries, subverts the liminal…
— Paul Christensen, Reveries of the Dreamking
Thom pulled nervously at his ‘Kings’ t-shirt. The Kings are a brutal West African gang that he follows onscreen. Such ‘tourist shows’, as I understand they are called, have become wildly popular in recent years, as global unrest makes actual travel less popular. Armoured imaging teams, using tiny remote drone cameras known as ‘flies’, take the viewer inside the violent, gang-controlled regions of Nigeria and Cameroon. Using a touch screen, viewers (or ‘zoners’ as they are sometimes called) can follow the action from multiple angles while cheering on their favourite gang.
— Paul Christensen, Reveries of the Dreamking
He hiccupped and continued: "I write therefore I come...But unfortunately, my orgies are never eternal!...
— Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Tram 83
If you are against abortions, don't have one.
— Scott Andrews, PiSlamistan
Every single day an estimated eighteen million men gratuitously waste the future of our country, by needlessly ejaculating one hundred million citizens of our country, which had they been born, would have made us the strongest country on the planet.
— Scott Andrews, PiSlamistan
In such societies it is common for ordinary people to seek out celibate spiritual leaders for marriage, love and sometimes sexual guidance. This strikes me as a particularly stupid kind of folly. Nobody ever asks a vegetarian for a recommendation for a steak house
— Scott Andrews, PiSlamistan
Leave it to the Americans to use love as a motivational tool while challenging insects to declare whether they are with you or against you.
— Taiyo Fujii, Gene Mapper
They say you can fool some of the people all of the time. Accordingly, I think we should concentrate on this group initially. We can move on to the people you can only fool some of the time at a later date if we deem it necessary.
— Stephen    Mitchell, Ray D. Shosay's Journal: Dispatches from a (Junior) Suite in Paris
The burden is on the sane.
— Warren Alexander
I was only hit on once at the grocery store. I remember it was early one Saturday morning and I was buying my daily bacon, when I got tapped on the shoulder. I turned around and I saw a rather short and very feeble eighty-year-old lady looking up at me. She said in a weak, scratchy voice, "Excuse me, young man, could you reach up and grab some ketchup for me?" Well I'm no dummy. I know when I'm getting hit on. I smiled politely and reached up for the ketchup, knowing full well that she just wanted to get a gander at my derriere. As I handed her the ketchup, she said, "Thank you," like I was some piece of meat, a boy toy, or something. Finally I just blurted out, "Look, I'm married, lady!" She acted all surprised and confused. "Excuse me? I don't understand!" I shook my head with a smirk, raised my left hand, and showed her my wedding ring. "Married!" I loudly told her. "I'm taken!" A stock boy at the end of the aisle looked at us and inquired, "Is everything okay?" "I'm fine," I assured him. "I know how to deal with predators." Well, suddenly this sex-crazed lady got all angry at me. Like I was out of line. She huffed off. "Well, I never!" "And you ain't gonna with me either, " I yelled after her. I have to admit, it was nice to get the attention.
— Jim Gaffigan, Food: A Love Story
But you understand the relationship between pi and Gaussian curvature, right? pg 264
— Danyl McLauchlan, Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley
Steve needed to be careful here. He'd read mid-twentieth-century science fiction so he knew that once you started switching realities you ran into problems with nested levels of existence.
— Danyl McLauchlan, Mysterious Mysteries of the Aro Valley
Perhaps there's an innate human emotion inside us all that when we are presented with something we don't understand, we immediately want to kill it.
— Todd Berger
Satire today has become a flat ‘tyre'.
— Amit Abraham
If you are not wrong only Pontius Pilate can crucify you.
— Amit Abraham
What kind of God is it who's upset by a cartoon in Da
— Salman Rushdie
If you want to make God laugh, tell him-her your plan
— Anonymous
A first edition of Peter Pan appeared gift-wrapped on my bed - Lucy admitted that Asher had drafted her to help deliver that present.
— Corrine Jackson, Touched
A question I have often asked is, ‘What would an inoffensive political cartoon look like?’ What would a respectful cartoon look like? The form requires disrespect and so if we are going to have in the world things like cartoons and satire, we just have to accept it as part of the price of fre
— Salman Rushdie
Somewhere in the distance he could hear a wireless playing Judy Garland's 'Over the Rainbow.' Wolf had seen the film but, had he been the one swept up to the magical land of Oz, he would have raised an army of flying monkeys, stuck the witches in a concentration camp, razed the Emerald City to the ground and executed the wizard for communist sympathies, being a Jew, a homosexual, intellectually retarded, or all of the above.He did like the tune, though.
— Lavie Tidhar
The problem with you khakis is that you have started believing your own nonsense.
— Mohammed Hanif
I write humor as it's pretty much the only thing keeping me out of an asylum.
— Bonnie Daly, Christmas Madness, Mayhem, and Mall Santas: Humorous Insights into the Holiday Season
Proceed with caution when you befriend a writer, for if you fall out of their good graces they have the delightful capability of doing any number of dastardly things to you upon the written page.
— Bonnie Daly
A good joke doesn’t necessarily need appreciation from others. One can freely laugh at one’s own deserving jokes.
— Pawan Mishra, Coinman: An Untold Conspiracy
He passed the lighter down the table until Descartes held it in one hand while setting the greasy cylinder down on the table. After smoothing it out, Descartes sparked up the lighter. With the lighter drawn near the grease, the aroma of burnt hair filled the board room.
— Dylan Callens, Operation Cosmic Teapot
...Mrs. Percy understood that staying beautiful all day long is the most important aspect of being married...
— Tevin Hansen, Mummy Mouse
Would you like to try some cocaine?” Freud offered, “I think you will find it picks you up quite nicely.”“No thanks,” God declined, holding his soft hands up to show his resistance.
— Dylan Callens, Operation Cosmic Teapot
What’s the matter for you? You wanna see a stereotypa, suck on my Italian sausage and…”Einstein interrupted by leaping out of his chair, hovering over Da Vinci with his eyes as wide open as possible. His long pointy tongue stuck out like a frog ready to snap at a fly.“Oh, you wanna licka my bocce balls, do you?
— Dylan Callens, Operation Cosmic Teapot
We should have smashed through the door long ago,” grunted Thor. Everyone had always thought of Thor as Lennie from Of Mice and Men: too big and too slow. The chief difference being that while Lenny accidentally hugged little animals to death, Thor had a penchant for beating the shit out of them with his war hammer, Mjolnir.
— Dylan Callens, Operation Cosmic Teapot
Disguised in a handlebar mustache with a ten gallon hat hanging low against his brow, Loki moseyed into Odin's party, despite the fact that he wasn't invited. Being dressed like Juan Valdez in a room full of people dawning Viking braids and pointy horned hats, however, tended to call attention to oneself. Odin's wife, Frigg, noticed Loki the moment that he stepped through the door, “What the Hel are you doing here? You weren't invited.
— Dylan Callens, Operation Cosmic Teapot
But to understand English is one thing
—  to understand an Englishman who talks is another.
This Henry lived in Edinburgh, making him inaccessible and giving her something to do on the weekends — 'Oh, just flying up to Scotland, Henry's taking me fishing,' which is the kind of thing she imagined people doing in Scotland — she always thought of the Queen Mother, incongruous in mackintosh and waders, standing in the middle of a shallow brown river (somewhere on the outskirts of Brigadoon, no doubt) and casting a line for trout.
— Kate Atkinson, Case Histories
Ernst was still in the Eastern Zone, about ninety kilometres from Berlin, when the truck emerged so inexplicably out of nowhere that it seemed to have been created by the rain itself.
— Mordecai Richler, A Choice of Enemies
If you do it in the bookies, it's a bet. . . . If you pay some 23-year-old in an Armani suit two hundred grand to go to the window for you, it's a derivative.
— Paul Murray, The Mark and the Void
I satirize at all times, and my hyperboles are as nothing compared to the events to which they refer.
— Marshall McLuhan
There may come a day when internet comments sections are deemed, for the good of humanity and the sanity of civilization in general, to be a form of biohazard or metaphysical catastrophe.
— Jonathan Kieran, Confessions from the Comments Section: The Secret Lives of Internet Commenters and Other Pop Culture Zombies
A book that is written for the quirky, mischievous, and decidedly irreverent-minded modern reader, Confessions from the Comments Section will appeal to anyone who enjoys a clever, no-holds-barred roast of our contemporary cultural chaos.
— Jonathan Kieran, Confessions from the Comments Section: The Secret Lives of Internet Commenters and Other Pop Culture Zombies
Social media is basically standing at a bucket filled with other people’s vomit and you suck the vomit through a straw, and gag and wince at the unbearable taste of other people’s vomit. Yet strangely we continue to suck through the straw as if we’ve never tasted such lovely vomit. And then before you know it you’re old and you’re grey. And that’s the end of you. A lonely death. Your gravestone is marked with the six saddest words: Social Media Drained My Soul AwayAnd they all mourn your loss at a budget funeral service while updating their social media statuses on mobile phones apps. And in years to come nobody remembers any of your updates; even those updates that you deep-down believed were going to bring about world peace. The Digital Age is more disposable than nappies and just as full of shit.
— Rupert Dreyfus, The Rebel's Sketchbook
Here’s one secret no one will tell you about getting laid after a date. DON’T TALK. Most girls blame either their looks or excessive timidity for their virginity. This is only true to an extent. These girls are also horribly annoying.”—Aurelia Nichols & Jillie Bean, 101 Tips to Lose Your Virginity after 25
— Camilla Monk, Spotless
If girls could spit venom, it'd be through their eyes.
— S.D. Lawendowski, Snapped
If a queen comes to America, crowds fill the station squares, and attendant British journalists rejoice, 'You see: the American Cousins are as respectful to Royalty as we are.'But the Americans have read of queens since babyhood. they want to see one queen, once, and if another came to town next week, with twice as handsome a crown, she would not draw more than two small boys and an Anglophile.Americans want to see one movie star, one giraffe, one jet plance, one murder, but only one. They run up a skyscraper or the fame of generals and evangelists and playwrights in one week and tear them all down in an hour, and the mark of excellence everywhere is 'under new management'.
— Sinclair Lewis, World So Wide
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.
— Thomas Jefferson
I don’t think this kind of thing [satire] has an impact on the unconverted, frankly. It’s not even preaching to the converted; it’s titillating the converted. I think the people who say we need satire often mean, ‘We need satire of them, not of us.’ I’m fond of quoting Peter Cook, who talked about the satirical Berlin cabarets of the ’30s, which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the Second World War.
— Tom Lehrer
Yet, Malice never was his Aim;He lash'd the Vice but spar'd the Name. No individual could resent,Where thousands equally were meant. His Satry points at no Defect, But what all Mortals may correct...Verses on the death of Dr Swift
— Jonathan Swift
Have we all become so desperate to share everything that we've stopped enjoying our lives?
— Lucy Sykes, Jo Piazza
When things in the country are in the pits, start a war with somebody.
— Vladimir Lorchenkov, The Good Life Elsewhere
Peter Pastmaster and the absurdly youthful colonel of the new force were drawing up a list of suitable officers in Bratts Club. 'Most of war seems to consist of hanging about,' he said. 'Let's at least hang about with our own friends.
— Evelyn Waugh
I never tried to ingratiate myself with great writers. When a great writer has nothing to say, he does something else, like chopping firewood. A great writer doesn't try to find something to write about, he only writes when he has to. I was no great writer. I've always had the need to unload my thoughts, and so had to live with a kind of mental incontinence, but I've never felt forced to write a novel. Nor, for that matter, have I ever chopped firewood.
— Jostein Gaarder
Gossip columnists patrol their mundane arena with the same sort of mysterious merit the advice-givers do. Plainly put, how does anyone become a gossip columnist? I can't simplify it down to a lower scale than that. Are there universities that offer courses in gossip writing? How about plain old Gossip 111? Are there that many literate people who could not write a gossip column? What then, qualifies the chosen few above the rest?
— Donald Jeffries, The Unreals
Do whatever you want, as long as you say you want to be a part of Europe. And then you’ll get away with anything. Look, the Albanians do God knows what. They sell weapons and women, they take hostages. And the world forgives then, as long as they’re pro-Europe and pro-NATO. They’ll forgive us, too. That’s the trend in today’s world.
— Vladimir Lorchenkov, The Good Life Elsewhere
Then why do they come?”Buonarroti shrugged his shoulders.“Because things are in such a bad way in their homeland, they’re ready to flee into a black hole in space, to a concentration camp, to the Sargasso Sea of international criminal brigands.”“Between the devil and the deep blue sea,” said the new consul, demonstrating his knowledge of international idioms.
— Vladimir Lorchenkov, The Good Life Elsewhere
An evergreen flower is never scared of the upcoming fall.
— Faramarz Ashenai Ghasemi فرامرز آشنای قاسمی, Humorous-Satirical Works
The Money River, where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it-and so were most of the mediocre people we grew up with, went to private schools with, sailed and played tennis with. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts' content. And we can even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Everyday she loses a bit more of herself , every day another nail in her coffin house payments medical bills and middle aged isolation
— Saira Viola, Jukebox: a stylish London crime novel
The only candidate I'd allow to play my music would be Bigfoot, and unless we're talking about foraging for squirrels, he's notoriously apolitical.
— Greg Gutfeld, Not Cool: The Hipster Elite and Their War on You
When a sex tape gets made a star is born with a publicity agent on speed dial a six figure payout and a line of tacky lingerie in the works
— Saira Viola, Jukebox: a stylish London crime novel
Trying to be offensive for the sole purpose of being offensive should always deem one the least offensive of offenders.
— Criss Jami, Healology
Mass shootings are all part of a vast Left-wing conspiracy to undermine the 2nd Amendment and deprive your 6-year-old of his God-given right to bring a Bushmaster to class for "show and tell" ... The one he got from his psychotic, meth-addicted uncle's trailer while the latter was out getting the Confederate flag tattooed on his face. Remember, guns don't kill: the dimwits who insist EVERYONE should have the right to own 'em do.
— Quentin R. Bufogle
Miss New Mexico stared, dumbfounded. "Stand out? Stand out? I have a freaking tray stuck in my forehead!" She broke into fresh sobs.Taylor clapped for attention. "Miss New Mexico, let's not get all down in the bummer basement where the creepy things live. There are people in heathen China who don't even have airline trays. We have a lot to be grateful for.
— Libba Bray, Beauty Queens
Here you will meet singular side-whiskers, tucked with extraordinary and amazing art under the necktie, velvety whiskers, satiny whiskers, black as sable or coal, but, alas, belonging only to the foreign office. Providence has denied black side-whiskers to those serving in other departments; they, however great the unpleasantness, must wear red ones. Here you will meet wondrous mustaches, which no pen or brush is able to portray; mustaches to which the better part of a lifetime is devoted––object of long vigils by day and by night; mustaches on which exquisite perfumes and scents have been poured, and which have been anointed with all the most rare and precious sorts of pomades, mustaches which are wrapped overnight in fine vellum, mustaches which are subject to the most touching affection of their possessors and are the envy of passers-by. A thousand kinds of hats, dresses, shawls––gay-colored, ethereal, for which their owners' affection sometimes lasts a whole two days––will bedazzle anyone on Nevsky Prospect.
— Nikolai Gogol, The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
Poverty, hatred, war, police-criminals, bureaucracy, insanity, all symptoms of The Human Virus.
— William S. Burroughs
The living and dead were thrown together, and the dead looked away first.-Description of Doomsday
— Stanley Elkin
I'm sorry to disturb you, madam,' said Nurse, 'but I thought I'd better speak to you. It's about Miss Delia's knickers' she continued, after a glance at the Vicar and a rapid decision that his cloth protected him. 'She really hasn't a pair fit to wear...
— Angela Thirkell, The Brandons
Excerpt from Magel's Daughter:"I think we're all like the lutefisk, steeped in poison, and then we try to clean it up for Christmas.
— Nancy  Baker, Magel's Daughter
The misnomer is that satirists are pessimists, or even misanthropes, but usually it is just a way to unlock human potential.
— Marietta Rodgers, The Bill
At my lowest point, when things were at their most desperate and uncomfortable, I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I'd touched bottom.
— Paul Theroux
You're hopeless dumbif you blindly tweet rumours and get ripped on-line.
— Ibnu Din Assingkiri
Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
— Tom Lehrer
Miss Mapp moved towards the screen."What a delicious big screen," she said."Yes, but don't go behind it, Mapp," said Irene, "or you'll see my model undressing."Miss Mapp retreated from it precipitately, as from a wasp's nest, and examined some of the studies on the wall, for it was more than probable from the unfinished picture on the easel that Adam lurked behind the delicious screen. Terrible though it all was, she was conscious of an unbridled curiosity to know who Adam was. It was dreadful to think that there could be any man in Tilling so depraved as to stand to be looked at with so little on...Irene strolled round the walls with her."Studies of Lucy," she said."I see, dear," said Miss Mapp. "How clever! Legs and things! But when you have your bridge-party, won't you perhaps cover some of them up, or turn them to the wall? We should all be looking at your pictures instead of attending to our cards. And if you were thinking of asking the Padre, you know..."They were approaching the corner of the room where the screen stood, when a movement there as if Adam had hit it with his elbow made Miss Mapp turn round. The screen fell flat on the ground and within a yard of her stood Mr. Hopkins, the proprietor of the fish-shop just up the street. Often and often had Miss Mapp had pleasant little conversations with him, with a view to bringing down the price of flounders. He had little bathing-drawers on..."Hullo, Hopkins, are you ready," said Irene. "You know Miss Mapp, don't you?"Miss Mapp had not imagined that Time and Eternity combined could hold so embarrassing a moment. She did not know where to look, but wherever she looked, it should not be at Hopkins. But (wherever she looked) she could not be unaware that Hopkins raised his large bare arm and touched the place where his cap would have been, if he had had one."Good morning, Hopkins," she said. "Well, Irene darling, I must be trotting, and leave you to your--" she hardly knew what to call it--"to your work."She tripped from the room, which seemed to be entirely full of unclothed limbs, and redder than one of Mr. Hopkins's boiled lobsters hurried down the street. She felt that she could never face him again, but would be obliged to go to the establishment in the High Street where Irene dealt, when it was fish she wanted from a fish-shop... Her head was in a whirl at the brazenness of mankind, especially womankind. How had Irene started the overtures that led to this? Had she just said to Hopkins one morning: "Will you come to my studio and take off all your clothes?" If Irene had not been such a wonderful mimic, she would certainly have felt it her duty to go straight to the Padre, and, pulling down her veil, confide to him the whole sad story. But as that was out of the question, she went into Twemlow's and ordered four pounds of dried apricots.
— E.F. Benson, Miss Mapp
...in the worst of circumstances, the hypocrite who pretends to be good does less harm than the public sinner.
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
...if the verses are for a literary competition, your grace should try to win second place; first is always won through favor or because of the high estate of the person, second is won because of pure justice, and by this calculation third becomes second, and the first becomes third...
— Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Marcia was silent a moment. Then a sort of softer gleam came into her angry eye."Tell me some more about her," she said.Adele clapped her hands."Ah, that's splendid," she said. "You're beginning to feel kinder. What we would do without our Lucia I can't imagine. I don't know what there would be to talk about.""She's ridiculous!" said Marcia relapsing a little."No, you mustn't feel that," said Adele. "You mustn't laugh at her ever. You must just richly enjoy her.""She's a snob!" said Marcia, as if this was a tremendous discovery."So am I: so are you: so are we all," said Adele. "We all run after distinguished people like--like Alf and Marcelle. The difference between you and Lucia is entirely in her favour, for you pretend you're not a snob, and she is perfectly frank and open about it. Besides, what is a duchess like you for except to give pleasure to snobs? That's your work in the world, darling; that's why you were sent here. Don't shirk it, or when you're old you will suffer agonies of remorse. And you're a snob too. You liked having seven--or was it seventy?--Royals at your dance.""Well, tell me some more about Lucia," said Marcia, rather struck by this ingenious presentation of the case."Indeed I will: I long for your conversion to Luciaphilism. Now to-day there are going to be marvellous happenings...
— E.F. Benson, Lucia in London
This was all splendid stuff for Luciaphils; it was amazing how at a first glance she recognised everybody. The gallery, too, was full of dears and darlings of a few weeks' standing, and she completed a little dinner-party for next Tuesday long before she had made the circuit. All the time she kept Stephen by her side, looked over his catalogue, put a hand on his arm to direct his attention to some picture, took a speck of alien material off his sleeve, and all the time the entranced Adele felt increasingly certain that she had plumbed the depth of the adorable situation. Her sole anxiety was as to whether Stephen would plumb it too. He might--though he didn't look like it--welcome these little tokens of intimacy as indicating something more, and when they were alone attempt to kiss her, and that would ruin the whole exquisite design. Luckily his demeanour was not that of a favoured swain; it was, on the other hand, more the demeanour of a swain who feared to be favoured, and if that shy thing took fright, the situation would be equally ruined. . . . To think that the most perfect piece of Luciaphilism was dependent on the just perceptions of Stephen! As the three made their slow progress, listening to Lucia's brilliant identifications, Adele willed Stephen to understand; she projected a perfect torrent of suggestion towards his mind. He must, he should understand. . . .Fervent desire, so every psychist affirms, is never barren. It conveys something of its yearning to the consciousness to which it is directed, and there began to break on the dull male mind what had been so obvious to the finer feminine sense of Adele. Once again, and in the blaze of publicity, Lucia was full of touches and tweaks, and the significance of them dawned, like some pale, austere sunrise, on his darkened senses. The situation was revealed, and he saw it was one with which he could easily deal. His gloomy apprehensions brightened, and he perceived that there would be no need, when he went to stay at Riseholme next, to lock his bedroom-door, a practice which was abhorrent to him, for fear of fire suddenly breaking out in the house. Last night he had had a miserable dream about what had happened when he failed to lock his door at The Hurst, but now he dismissed its haunting. These little intimacies of Lucia's were purely a public performance."Lucia, we must be off," he said loudly and confidently. "Pepino will wonder where we are.
— E.F. Benson, Lucia in London
Luck ever attends the bold and constructive thinker: the apple, for instance, fell from the tree precisely when Newton's mind was groping after the law of gravity, and as Diva stepped into her grocer's to begin her morning's shopping (for she had been occupied with roses ever since breakfast) the attendant was at the telephone at the back of the shop. He spoke in a lucid telephone-voice."We've only two of the big tins of corned beef," he said; and there was a pause, during which, to a psychic, Diva's ears might have seemed to grow as pointed with attention as a satyr's. But she could only hear little hollow quacks from the other end."Tongue as well. Very good. I'll send them up at once," he added, and came forward into the shop."Good morning," said Diva. Her voice was tremulous with anxiety and investigation. "Got any big tins of corned beef? The ones that contain six pounds.""Very sorry, ma'am. We've only got two, and they've just been ordered.""A small pot of ginger then, please," said Diva recklessly. "Will you send it round immediately?""Yes, ma'am. The boy's just going out."That was luck. Diva hurried into the street, and was absorbed by the headlines of the news outside the stationer's. This was a favourite place for observation, for you appeared to be quite taken up by the topics of the day, and kept an oblique eye on the true object of your scrutiny...
— E.F. Benson, Miss Mapp
If there is a god, I think he has a sense of humour. He does not require human beings to protect him from satire.
— James K. Morrow
Now Miss Mapp's social dictatorship among the ladies of Tilling had long been paramount, but every now and then signs of rebellious upheavals showed themselves. By virtue of her commanding personality these had never assumed really serious proportions, for Diva, who was generally the leader in these uprisings, had not the same moral massiveness. But now when Elizabeth was so exceedingly superior, the fumes of Bolshevism mounted swiftly to Diva's head. Moreover, the sight of this puzzling male impersonator, old, wrinkled, and moustached, had kindled to a greater heat her desire to know her and learn what it felt like to be Romeo on the music-hall stage and, after years of that delirious existence, to subside into a bath-chair and Suntrap and Tilling. What a wonderful life! . . . And behind all this there was a vague notion that Elizabeth had got her information in some clandestine manner and had muddled it. For all her clear-headedness and force Elizabeth did sometimes make a muddle and it would be sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to catch her out. So in a state of brooding resentment Diva went home to lunch and concentrated on how to get even with Elizabeth.
— E.F. Benson, Miss Mapp
Miss Mackintosh waved her arms wildly."Oh, please stop, and let me guess," she cried. "I shall go crazy with joy if I'm right. It was an old Peerage, and so she found that Lady Deal was Helena Herman--""Whom she had seen ten years ago at a music hall as a male impersonator," cried Diva."And didn't want to know her," interrupted Miss Mackintosh."Yes, that's it, but that is not all. I hope you won't mind, but it's too rich. She saw you this morning coming out of your house in your bath-chair, and was quite sure that you were that Lady Deal."The three ladies rocked with laughter. Sometimes one recovered, and sometimes two, but they were re-infected by the third, and so they went on, solo and chorus, and duet and chorus, till exhaustion set in."But there's still a mystery," said Diva at length, wiping her eyes. "Why did the Peerage say that Lady Deal was Helena Herman?""Oh, that's the last Lady Deal," said Miss Mackintosh. "Helena Herman's Lord Deal died without children and Florence's Lord Deal, my Lady Deal, succeeded. Cousins.""If that isn't a lesson for Elizabeth Mapp," said Diva. "Better go to the expense of a new Peerage than make such a muddle. But what a long call we've made. We must go.""Florence shall hear every word of it to-morrow night," said Miss Mackintosh. "I promise not to tell her till then. We'll all tell her.""Oh, that is kind of you," said Diva."It's only fair. And what about Miss Mapp being told?""She'll find it out by degrees," said the ruthless Diva. "It will hurt more in bits.""Oh, but she mustn't be hurt," said Miss Mackintosh. "She's too precious, I adore her.""So do we," said Diva. "But we like her to be found out occasionally. You will, too, when you know her.
— E.F. Benson, Miss Mapp
She was a gardener of the ruthless type, and went for any small green thing that incautiously showed a timid spike above the earth, suspecting it of being a weed. She had had a slight difference with the professional gardener who had hitherto worked for her on three afternoons during the week, and had told him that his services were no longer required. She meant to do her gardening herself this year, and was confident that a profusion of beautiful flowers and a plethora of delicious vegetables would be the result. At the end of her garden path was a barrow of rich manure, which she proposed, when she had finished the slaughter of the innocents, to dig into the depopulated beds. On the other side of her paling her neighbour Georgie Pillson was rolling his strip of lawn, on which during the summer he often played croquet on a small scale. Occasionally they shouted remarks to each other, but as they got more and more out of breath with their exertions the remarks got fewer. Mrs. Quantock's last question had been "What do you do with slugs, Georgie?" and Georgie had panted out, "Pretend you don't see them.
— E.F. Benson, Lucia in London