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
My dream in life is to write the one gag that makes everyone in the world laugh.
98% of the people who get the magazine say they read the cartoons first - and the other 2% are lying.
Bunbury? Oh, he was quite exploded. Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage? I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If so, he is well punished for his morbidity. My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was found out! The doctors found out that Bunbury could not , that is what I mean—so Bunbury died. He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of his physicians.
I have no wish to talk nonsense." "If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense.
I respect a man who knows how to spell a word more than one way.
When I'm up there, I'm just thinking that I've got to make them laugh or they won't show up next time.
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