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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
Rather
Fact
Satire
Facts
Audiences
Something
Mostly
Think
Satisfied
Thinking
Angry
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Audience

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My last public performance for money was in 1967. For free, it was 1972, with the exception of two little one-shot, one-song things. But that's just for friends, out of friendship for the people involved, and also because it was fun.
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Be careful not to do your good deeds when there's no one watching you.
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You can raise welts like nobody else, as we dance to the Masochism Tango.
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I feel that if a person has problems communicating the very least he can do is to shut up.
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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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When you attend a funeral, It is sad to think that sooner o' Later those you love will do the same for you. And you may have thought it tragic, Not to mention other adjec- Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do. (But don't you worry.
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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 went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity.
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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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I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!
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Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.
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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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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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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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Filth, I'm glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder. When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.
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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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I've heard it quoted that I was dead. You can't believe anything you read. That was just an off-hand remark somebody picked up, and now it's been quoted and quoted, and therefore misquoted.
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Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!
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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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If the hoods don't get you, the monoxide will.
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