I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky. In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics: Plagiarize! Plagiarize, Let no… - Tom Lehrer

His rivals used to say quite a bit That as a monarch he was most unfit. But still in all they had to admit That he loved his mother.

Take your cigarette from its holder, And burn your initials in my shoulder. Fracture my spine, And swear that you're mine, As we dance to the Masochism Tango.

I don’t think this kind of thing [satire] has an impact on the unconverted, frankly. It’s not even preaching to the converted; it’s titillating the converted. I think the people who say we need satire often mean, ‘We need satire of them, not of us.’ I’m fond of quoting Peter Cook, who talked about the satirical Berlin cabarets of the ’30s, which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler and prevent the Second World War.