HUMOR QUOTES II

quotations about humor

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


A joke's a very serious thing.

CHARLES CHURCHILL

The Ghost

Tags: Charles Churchill


Gags die, humor doesn't.

JACK BENNY

attributed, The Ultimate Book of Quotations

Tags: Jack Benny


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

LANGSTON HUGHES

prefatory note, The Book of Negro Humor


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

AMERICAN PROVERB


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


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


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


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


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


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


Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

PETER USTINOV

attributed, Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations

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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


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


Humor is best described as a perception, for as we all know and have experienced, what one person finds funny someone else does not.

BRIAN LUKE SEAWARD

Managing Stress: Principles and Strategies for Health and Well-being


The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world.

VACLAV HAVEL

address upon receiving the Open Society Prize, June 24, 1999

Tags: Vaclav Havel


The law of levity is allowed to supersede the law of gravity.

R. A. LAFFERTY

Space Chantey


When Humor goes, there goes civilization.

ERMA BOMBECK

attributed, On Being Blonde: Wit and Wisdom from the World's Most Infamous Blondes

Tags: Erma Bombeck


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

ALAN MOORE

Watchmen


Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor.

WILL ROGERS

The Illiterate Digest

Tags: Will Rogers