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
What this quote means
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.
Themes
SatireSocietyCritiqueTruthExpression
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing social issues, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of honest critique.
More from John Dos Passos
All quotes →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.
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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.
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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.
John Dos PassosRead
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
John Dos PassosRead
U.S.A. is the speech of the people
John Dos PassosRead
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