HUMOR QUOTES II

quotations about humor

I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things -- because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself.

WOODY ALLEN

interview, Der Spiegel, June 20, 2005

Tags: Woody Allen


Humor is a social lubricant that helps us get over some of the bad spots.

STEVE ALLEN

How to Be Funny: Discovering the Comic in You

Tags: Steve Allen


Gags die, humor doesn't.

JACK BENNY

attributed, The Ultimate Book of Quotations

Tags: Jack Benny


A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Love's Labour's Lost

Tags: William Shakespeare


Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations.

STEVE ALLEN

Funny People

Tags: Steve Allen


A sense of humor is a great resource against the problems of everyday life, a shield against the too serious effect of the tragic, and a wonderful remedy for petty annoyance. People whose humorous perception is keen become philosophers and are able to see the interrelations, causes and effects, and the nature of all parts of life; they thereby avoid taking any one part too seriously. They also refuse to take themselves too seriously, and are thereby spared many heartaches and problems.

MAURICE HINSON

Humor in Piano Music: Baroque to Modern


Humour is but the faint terrestrial echo of the hideous laughter of the blind mad gods that squat leeringly and sardonically in caverns beyond the Milky Way. It is a hollow thing, sweet on the outside, but filled with the pathos of fruitless aspiration.

H. P. LOVECRAFT

"The Defence Remains Open!"

Tags: H. P. Lovecraft


Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

PETER USTINOV

attributed, Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations

Tags: Peter Ustinov


Think of what would happen to us in America if there were no humorists; life would be one long Congressional Record.

THOMAS L. MASSON

attributed, Phillips' Treasury of Humorous Quotations


Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.

ISAAC ASIMOV

Opus 200

Tags: Isaac Asimov


I think if you have a comic perspective, almost anything that happens you tend to put through a comic filter. It's a way of coping in the short term, but has no long term effect and requires constant, endless renewal. Hence people talk of comics who are "always on." It's like constantly drugging your sensibility so you can get by with less pain.

WOODY ALLEN

The Paris Review, fall 1995

Tags: Woody Allen


The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortunes. That is what I am called upon to do every day.

BERT WILLIAMS

"The Comic Side of Trouble", The American Magazine, January 1918


That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously, because I think our opposition, whoever they may be, in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humor. You know, and we are humorous, we are, what are they, Laurel and Hardy. That's John and Yoko, and we stand a better chance under that guise, because all the serious people, like Martin Luther King, and Kennedy, and Gandhi, got shot.

JOHN LENNON

BBC interview, May 8, 1969

Tags: John Lennon


Good humor is the suspenders that keep our working clothes on.

AMERICAN PROVERB


Humor is when the joke is on you but hits the other fellow first.

LANGSTON HUGHES

prefatory note, The Book of Negro Humor


This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.

LIN YUTANG

The Importance of Living

Tags: Lin Yutang


A joke's a very serious thing.

CHARLES CHURCHILL

The Ghost

Tags: Charles Churchill


As soon as you realize everything's a joke, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.

ALAN MOORE

Watchmen


Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh;
And 'tis no marvel he is so humorous.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Henry IV, Part I

Tags: William Shakespeare


Humor is often considered to be trivial, and it seems that serious talk about humor is regarded as participating in that triviality. A presumption seems to exist that the consequential cannot emerge from a contemplation of the trivial.

ELLIOTT ORING

Engaging Humor