Bassem Youssef Quotes
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The worst thing ever that you have to explain your joke because I was very disappointed trying to explain why the joke is funny for the interrogator.
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We have Internet now and people are not stupid. But it seems that some people are trying to push the same agenda of the Cold War of conspiracy theories and amazing achievements that are very easily traced and validated.
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People would believe propagate, spread rumors or conspiracy theories in order to protect their own system of denial.
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It is very depressing to see that in the 21st century people are still using the same 1950s and '60s style of propaganda.
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People went out there and they wrote articles and went on television shows saying that I am an operative that the CIA who used Jon Stewart to recruit me. So Jon Stewart, who actually - a guy from America was used by the CIA in order to recruit me for the CIA and be - make me a CIA agent to use sarcasm to bring down the government and bring down the country because this was all, of course, part of a worldwide conspiracy against the country.
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I was accused of insulting the president, insulting Islam, insulting - spreading rumors, disturbing the peace.
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Egypt is kind of like the Hollywood of the Middle East. I mean, we had cinema maybe decades before the other Arab countries ever got independence.
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Everybody grows up with comedy. I mean, Egyptian comedy has a very, very old tradition. Our theater and our movies are just, like, amazing.
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It doesn't matter if the truth is right there out in front of your eyes. You will find a way, a mechanism, in order to keep your own system of denial. So as I always say it, denial is a river that runs in the - in Egypt. So we became very good in that.
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It is very difficult to imagine that you can actually get rid of a dictatorship that has been there for 60 years only in 18 days.
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I think by the time I left Egypt, there was about like 400 accusations against me in the drawer of the public persecutor office. It's a way for them to exhaust you, to push you, to put you under pressure, to distract you.
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I always tell people that a revolution is not an event, it's a process. It is a struggle. And it doesn't usually go smoothly.
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Donald Trump is not stupid. He knows exactly what he's saying. And he's just saying out there - I mean, forget about Muslims. He said I could go down on Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot someone in the face and people - and the voters will have no problem with it. This transcends any kind of religion and any kind of belief. This is actually an offense and attack on human values. He's just saying out there I will shoot people in the face and people wouldn't care.
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What I saw day-to-day is like people who are actually asking for freedom, calling for freedom - protesting, singing, chanting, calling for the removal of the regime - plain and simple. And of course there were clashes there because people, they tried to remove those protesters from Tahrir. And I was, like, doing my job as a doctor treating them.
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Satire has its limits. It is really up to the people to make the change. The satirist's role ends at the screen.
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I don't care about Donald Trump himself. I care and I worry about the very big base that supports him because this kind of language would have been absolutely nonexistent maybe 15, 20 - by the way, I follow the American elections, and I have never seen someone who is that offensive. I have seen people who are stupid. But stupid and offensive, that's new.
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There are people who believe in Egypt that I - I'm actually - I'm getting paid by external powers and external intelligence entities in order to use satire to bring down the government.
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People say, 'Are you afraid? Are you scared for your life?' and I tell them: If I choose today to tone it down, if I choose today to shut up, tomorrow me, you, and all of us will be forced to.
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The only the way that you can live and function without seeing the facts in front of you is to put yourself in a constant state of denial.
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I think that the religious and the military right wings are just two sides of the same coin if somebody uses God and religion and somebody uses country and security.
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I'm sure even in America, where you have, like, free speech people self-censor themself. And it's not - it happens because of different reasons. Because maybe it's politically incorrect, it doesn't have to really to be put in jail.
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The way that things happen in Egypt, the government - or the head of the government - don't get personally involved. They were always goonies and agents and people who do that kind of work for the government either by direct instructions or because they think that they're doing something good or they want to be on the good side of the government.
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Related Authors
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Mohamed ElBaradei Diplomat -
Hosni Mubarak Former President of Egypt -
Wael Ghonim Computer Engineer -
Jon Stewart Satirist -
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi President of Egypt -
Mohammed Morsi Former President of Egypt