Andrew O'Hagan Quotes

Comedy often comes at the expense of others, and to do that smartly, you don't want to make fun of vulnerable people. You want to make fun of people in power, and so you need to really understand the dynamics of power.

I certainly know there are people in positions of power in the business who lack imagination and, perhaps as a result of that, think of me as 'David'. But I wouldn't really want to work with those people, you know?

I know everybody wants humor to be subversive and speak truth to power. I don't think power's been listening, incidentally.

Technology, like art, is a soaring exercise of the human imagination.

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.

Words are power. And a book is full of words. Be careful what power you get from it. But know that you do.

As writers and readers, as sinners and citizens, our realism and our aesthetic sense make us wary of crediting the positive note.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

I grew up obsessed with science fiction, and when I was really young, I wanted to be a scientist.

A good comic explores the imagination, but it's always got to have those notes of truth running through it.

I have the instruments, ideas, technology, computer techniques. We try to create or see something, which has not been known before - just to discover something together. This is always my dream.

The spirit of adventure to embrace the new and the incredible belief in the power of invention attracted me to the Russian avant-garde.

Sarcasm all around the world is always against right wing and against people in power. That's the definition of political sarcasm.

Invention breeds invention.

Don't be deceived. There is no justice but strength.

To an imagination of any scope the most far-reaching form of power is not money, it is the command of ideas.

I have no right to be a king, but I have the right to create a king.

For one person who is blessed with the power of invention, many will always be found who have the capacity of applying principles.

Good science fiction is always based in contemporary truths.

Almost everything interesting hasn't been invented yet.

Science fiction's power, if it has any, is that it gives us reasonable extrapolations, not wild and woolly stuff.

A lot of times, you think of things as being science fiction, but the creation of the ideas makes you want to solve them. Then, in solving them, they give us greater capability.

You know, as a comedian, that's what you do. You speak truth to power by making people laugh.

I remember my first memory is sitting in my dad's chair in a small office and I used to imagine that I was picking up the phone and issuing commands. And I was only seven.