Basically, my mum and dad bought me a CD player for my 14th birthday. They didn't really listen to music at all, but my dad had a couple of tapes that he'd listen to, like Tom Lehrer. My dad was a physicist and Tom Lehrer was like this really weird Harvard class professor, who was really cool because he was also a satirist and pianist.

KT Tunstall

I know that it's probably not a good idea for a comedian, especially a satirist, to support a public policy group or a politician. This is something I learned only too well years ago when I did a fundraiser for Pol Pot. A few years later I saw 'The Killing Fields,' and I've got to tell you, I just felt like a schmuck.

Al Franken

Minnesotans know the difference between the job of satirist and the job of senator. And so do I.

Al Franken

I've spent my entire career being a satirist.

Al Franken

Comedy to the Senate? Well, there certainly hasn't been a satirist or a political satirist who's done that. So, that really was uncharted territory during the campaign. But I think it's a good thing. Some people thought that it was an odd career arc, but to me it made absolute sense.

Al Franken

The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little - or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.

Anthony Trollope

I get very confused about being called a comedian, because when you say 'I'm a comedian,' people expect you to crack a joke. Maybe I use laughter and humour to make people think. I don't know what you call that - a humourist? A satirist? A pessimistic comedian? I don't know. Satirists can be very dark.

Bassem Youssef

The Dark Satirist, like the Dark Knight - that could be a good name for a superhero.

Bassem Youssef

As a comedian and satirist you have to be neutral, because everyone's fair game. Once you show bias, you lose that.

Bill Bailey

There's so much hate that we direct externally that we forget we have our own psychos. But that's the role of the satirist - you have to examine your own country and say, 'look!'

Carl Hiaasen

I'm accused of, and perhaps rightly so, of not being mean enough. I've been taken to task in many a book review; a good satirist has to, you know, has to kill.

Christopher Buckley

I love Washington. I have an affection for the place. For a satirist, I think it's sort of Disneyland. I mean, you know, there's always some inspiration in the morning's headlines.

Christopher Buckley

American voters tend to make their decisions based on a variety of vectors. Professional political satirists employ rather more scientific criteria. Namely: who will provide us with better material over the next four years?

Christopher Buckley

The needs of the nation are not necessarily convergent with the needs of the deadline satirist.

Christopher Buckley

Some critics of my work took the view that a satirist should defer to the finer feelings of his readers and respect widely held beliefs.

David Low

I found that not having a public profile was not hurting the work, and it freed me up to be the satirist I wanted to be.

Garry Trudeau

Satire works best when it hews close to the line between the outlandish and the possible - and as that line continues to grow thinner, the satirist's task becomes ever more difficult.

Graydon Carter

As satirists, we get to stand on the sidelines of life and comment on what's happening.

Hasan Minhaj

Trump's hobbled vocabulary is now the incontestable stuff of comedy: not just how few his words but how narrow their range, from boastful to irked and back again. For satirists and impressionists, a president who addresses the American people in abbreviated tweetspeak is a gift.

Howard Jacobson

The satirist is prevented by repulsion from gaining a better knowledge of the world he is attracted to, yet he is forced by attraction to concern himself with the world that repels him.

Italo Calvino

Many artists and writers have used cannabis for creative stimulation - from the writers of the world's religious masterpieces to our most irreverent satirists.

Jack Herer