Anything that happens to you has some bearing upon what you write.
John Dos PassosRead
A satirist is a man whose flesh creeps so at the ugly and the savage and the incongruous aspects of society that he has to express them as brutally and nakedly as possible in order to get relief.
Interpretation
A satirist critiques society's flaws, using harsh expression to cope with its unpleasantness.
In this quote, John Dos Passos highlights the role of a satirist as someone deeply affected by the negative and absurd elements of society. The satirist's need to confront and articulate these harsh truths serves both as a form of personal relief and a call for societal reflection, showcasing the uncomfortable realities that many choose to ignore.
In practice
In a speech addressing social issues, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of honest critique.
Anything that happens to you has some bearing upon what you write.
Breaking with old friends is one of the most painful of the changes in all that piling up of a multitude of small distasteful changes that constitutes growing older.
Love is cheap. You can buy it anywhere. Lives are cheap. It's money that's dear. You have to work days and sit up nights thinking how to make money.
There's something wonderfully exciting about the quiet sing song of an aeroplane overhead with all the guns in creation lighting out at it, and searchlights feeling their way across the sky like antennae, and the earth shaking snort of the bombs and the whimper of shrapnel pieces when they come down to patter on the roof.
The mind cannot support moral chaos for long. Men are under as strong a compulsion to invent an ethical setting for their behavior as spiders are to weave themselves webs
U.S.A. is the speech of the people
It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
If I were the first of May, I should be ashamed of myself.
I've found nothing but support and generosity from older comics. I think comedians are a lot nicer than the stigma is, at least from my experience.
Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke? Porter: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.
Whether a party can have much success without a woman present I must ask others to decide, but one thing is certain, no party is any fun unless seasoned with folly.
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