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Tom Lehrer
60 quotes
“I remember when Richard Pryor said something about how in South Africa, all the black people should pick up guns and kill all the white people, and they went right on with the interview, and nobody stopped him on that. "Oh good old Richard, what a card." As long as you're billed as a comedian, I guess you can say anything.”
Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I think the people who say we need satire often mean, "We need satire of them, not of us.”
Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“People are stupider than anybody.”
Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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. … OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire.”
Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Things are much more complicated. Feminism versus pornography, for example. There are a lot of feminists who think it is bad, but others think it's good. I have become, you might call it mature — I would call it senile — and I can see both sides. But you can't write a satirical song with 'but on the other hand' in it, or 'however'. It's got to be one-sided.”
Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The real issues I don't think most people touch. The Clinton jokes are all about Monica Lewinsky and all that stuff and not about the important things, like the fact that he wouldn't ban landmines.”
Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness … Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack.”
Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The audience usually has to be with you, I'm afraid. I always regarded myself as not even preaching to the converted, I was titillating the converted. 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 (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Last December 13th, there appeared in the newspapers the juiciest, spiciest, raciest obituary it has ever been my pleasure to read. It was that of a lady named Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel, who had, in her lifetime, managed to acquire as lovers practically all of the top creative men in central Europe. And, among these lovers, who were listed in the obituary, by the way, which is what made it so interesting, there were three whom she went so far as to marry: One of the leading composers of the day, Gustav Mahler, composer of "Das Lied von der Erde" and other light classics, one of the leading architects, Walter Gropius, of the "Bauhaus" school of design, and one of the leading writers, Franz Werfel, author of the "Song of Bernadette" and other masterpieces. It's people like that who make you realize how little you've accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”
Tom Lehrer (1928–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source