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The audiences like to think that satire is doing something. But, in fact, it is mostly to leave themselves satisfied. Satisfied rather than angry, which is what they should be.

Tom Lehrer

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Tom Lehrer
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: April 9
Lyricist
Mathematician
Pianist
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
University Teacher
New York City
New York
Thomas Andrew Lehrer
Thomas Lehrer
Something
Mostly
Think
Satisfied
Thinking
Angry
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Leave
Audience
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Fact
Satire
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Audiences

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Don't write naughty words on the wall if you can't spell!
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You can make fun with Saddam Hussein jokes ... but you can't make fun of, say, the concentration camps. I think my target was not so much evil, but benign stupidity people doing stupid things without realising or, instead, thinking they were doing good.
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It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.
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You can raise welts like nobody else, as we dance to the Masochism Tango.
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Don't solicit for your sister, it's not nice. Unless you get a good percentage of her price.
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Filth, I'm glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder. When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.
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Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!
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When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.
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Once all the Germans were warlike and mean But that couldn't happen again We taught them a lesson in nineteen eighteen And they've hardly bothered us since then
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Disclaimer: If anyone disagrees with anything I say, I am quite prepared to not only retract it, but also to deny under oath I ever said it.
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For there is surely nothing more beautiful in this world than the sight of a lone man facing single-handedly a half a ton of angry pot roast!
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If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while.
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If I can't get people to commit themselves on whether or not there is a square root of two, then I won't touch on God or anything here
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Step up and shake the hand Of someone you can't stand, You can tolerate him if you try!
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In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics: plagiarize only be sure always to call it . . . research.
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To me, being funny is more important than making a point, but I don't know. Most politicians are so interested in making points that they don't ... I'd rather be funny myself, and I'd rather listen to somebody with a little sense of humor.
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I would do nightclubs and concerts - particularly concerts, which is mostly what I did - and only people who already agreed with me would show up. People weren't going to come and inadvertently turn on their television set and find this offensive stuff coming out.
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I'm not tempted to write a song about George W.Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them. And that's not funny.
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Everything is so weird in politics that it's very hard to be funny about it, I think.
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Well, you ask a silly question, and you get a silly answer.
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