Maybe we'd forgotten what socialists are meant to look and sound like. Well, now we've been reminded. They're meant to look and sound like Jeremy Corbyn.Howard Jacobson
When I first went to Israel, I saw soldiers pushing Palestinians around and thought, 'I can't stand this'. Then I'd meet somebody in a bar saying what wonderful people the Palestinians are and what mamzers the Jews are, and I'd think, 'Hang on'. It should be hard to make up your mind on any serious subject.Howard Jacobson
People keep saying you can't satirize Trump because he's beyond satire, but it's not difficult to just let him out and let him walk upon the stage and say his own words.Howard Jacobson
If we doubt the power of literature and art to civilise, how come no one has ever been mugged by a person carrying a well-thumbed copy of 'Middlemarch' in his back pocket?Howard Jacobson
That's the great test: if you're going to be a great comic writer, not a humorist, you've got to take it into the throat of grief. Can you make laughter and seriousness so close that they are the same thing?Howard Jacobson
To my ear, the term 'comic novelist' is as redundant and off-putting as the term 'literary novelist'.Howard Jacobson
'Family Guy'. It's not only the funniest programme on television, it's the most wonderfully, indecorously literate.Howard Jacobson
If it's bathos you want - and I suspect we are all bathos junkies in the end - nothing gives it to you quite like watching sport. Unless it's playing sport.Howard Jacobson
If you had to say in one sentence what being Jewish means, it is being able to make fun of yourself Jewishly.Howard Jacobson
