Satire Quotes

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

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

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

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

A Harvey Nicks chick with throwaway morals and a trustfund appetite.

~ Saira Viola

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

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

Our town was known for two things--no, three: salted fish, expertly dyed fabrics, and corruption.

~ Angela Elwell Hunt

I suppose that in no educational institution can one become an educated person.

~ Mikhail Bulgakov

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

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

Alice is fictional. This isn't.

~ Jess C. Scott

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

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

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

A satirist is never certain whether he/she will be acclaimed or punished.

~ Edgar Johnson

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

Kara knew je only recognised t and a on a string and he was nothing more than a sleazy pupeeter

~ Saira Viola

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

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

He was a boom boom shake the room kind of guy

~ Saira Viola

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

Akthent on thee latht thyllable.

~ Bret Easton Ellis

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

...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

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

She wore an A-line bridal gown with a V-shaped neckline while Apollo playing Bach's Air on the G string.

~ Tai

After riding like a moron all over the place, observes the face of an Indian when he crashes. He is stunned.

~ Manu Joseph

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

...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

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

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

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

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