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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
Fact
Satire
Facts
Audiences
Something
Mostly
Think
Satisfied
Thinking
Angry
Like
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They love us everywhere we go. So when in doubt, send the Marines.
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And although I'm all for freedom of expression and against censorship, there are certain things I'm not willing to go to jail for.
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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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But in the new (math) approach, the important thing is to understand what you're doing, rather than to get the right answer.
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In my youth there were words you couldn't say in front of a girl now you can't say 'girl.'
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Bad weather always looks worse through a window.
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I didn't feel the need for anonymous affection, for people in the dark applauding. To me, it would be like writing a novel and then getting up every night and reading your novel. Everything I did is on the record and, if you want to hear it, just listen to the record.
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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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Oh we will all fry together when we fry. We'll be french fried potatoes by and by. There will be no more misery When the world is our rotisserie, Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.
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Some of you may have met mathematicians and wondered how they got that way.
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Base eight is just like base ten really, if you're missing two fingers.
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Alas, irreverence has been subsumed by mere grossness, at least in the so-called mass media. What we have now - to quote myself at my most pretentious - is a nimiety of scurrility with a concomitant exiguity of taste.
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Be it ever so decadent, there's no place like home.
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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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Don't solicit for your sister, it's not nice. Unless you get a good percentage of her price.
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The reason most folksongs are so atrocious is that they were written by the people.
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Plagiarize! Plagiarize, Let no one else's work evade your eyes, Remember why the good Lord made your eyes, So don't shade your eyes, But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize... Only be sure always to call it please research.
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Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics/ And the Catholics hate the Protestants/ And the Hindus hate the Muslims/ And everybody hates the Jews.
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On my income tax 1040 it says 'Check this box if you are blind.' I wanted to put a check mark about three inches away.
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