Abraham Lincoln Quotes

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

For such is the fate of parody: it must never fear exaggerating. If it strikes home, it will only prefigure something that others will then do without a smile--and without a blush--in steadfast virile seriousness.

The folly of others is ever most ridiculous to those who are themselves most foolish.

There is parody, when you make fun of people who are smarter than you; satire, when you make fun of people who are richer than you; and burlesque, when you make fun of both while taking your clothes off.

And the bigger the fall, the bigger the joke. It would be better fun to throw a custard pie at a bishop than at a curate.

The role of humour is to make people fall down and writhe on the Axminster, and that is the top and bottom of it.

I love you, don’t I? And the gods know you are definitely not easy to deal with. (Aimee) Thanks, Aim. By the way I still have a tiny bit of confidence left. Please make sure you stomp on it too while you’re at it. Gods forbid it should actually grow into something called self-esteem. (Fang)

But Lord! To see the absurd nature of Englishmen that cannot forbear laughing and jeering at everything that looks strange.

There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light.

Congratulations. That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen. Ever.

Humour is the making others act or talk absurdly and unconsciously; wit is the pointing out and ridiculing that absurdity consciously, and with more or less ill-nature.

You cannot dispute the ridiculous. You cannot argue reasonably with evil.

It was all very strange, Mr. Gray thought, as he wiped the coffee canister clean with a sponge. Very, very mysterious. You were born; you lived a whole life; and at the end, you wound up in a coffee canister. "Ah, well," he said out loud quietly. "That's just the way things are. Life's a funny business." Death, he supposed, was the punch line.

One of the most evil dispositions possible is that which satirizes and turns everything to ridicule. God abhors this vice, and has sometimes punished it in a marked manner

Here's what I suggest," he said. "You pretend that rats can think, and I'll promise to pretend that humans can think, too.

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

You're nothing but an apple, a silly t-shirt, a catchphrase and a stupid haircut.

Comedy aims at representing men as worse, Tragedy as better than in actual life.

The thing about Donald [Trump] is the jokes write themselves. I don't even think of it to be trolling. What he says is the joke.

What? Were you born stupid, or did you just die that way?

We have to be a little cautious about not trying to kill a gnat with an atom bomb. The performances are so utterly absurd regarding the "post-truth" moment that the proper response might best be ridicule.

Ridicule is the unfortunate destiny of the ridiculous.

I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces, so full of stupid importance.

I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything. "Hey Cass, "I'd say, "hand me that toothpaste." "Caitlin," she'd say, her voice dark and serious. "I can't hand you the toothpaste. But I CAN help you hand the toothpaste to yourself.