LAUGHTER QUOTES IV
quotations about laughter
A laugh a day keeps the psychiatrist away.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
If ever the day should come when men and women shall be content to signal their perception of humour by the natural smile, and shall keep the laugh for its own unpremeditated act, shall laugh seldom, and simply, and not thrice at the same thing--once for foolish surprise, and twice for tardy intelligence, and thrice to let it be known that they are amused--then it may be time to persuade this laughing nation not to laugh so loud as it is wont in public. The theatre audiences of louder-speaking nations laugh lower than ours. The laugh that is chiefly a signal of the laugher's sense of the ridiculous is necessarily loud; and it has the disadvantage of covering what we may perhaps wish to hear from the actors. It is a public laugh, and no ordinary citizen is called upon for a public laugh. He may laugh in public, but let it be with private laughter there.
ALICE MEYNELL
"Laughter", Ceres' Runaway & Other Essays
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Lectures on the English Comic Writers
A laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
MARK TWAIN
The Mysterious Stranger
I laugh until I weep
And weep until I smile
RAY BRADBURY
"Christ, Old Student in a New School"
Casting for a comedy is not that difficult because laughing is an involuntary thing. They make you laugh? That's the person you should cast.
DAVID CASPE
"The Oral History of 'Happy Endings'", Complex, April 5, 2016
O, you shall see him laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry IV, Part II
Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Royal Truths
Laugh now, cry later.
ERMA BOMBECK
The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank
A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.
WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD
Woman's Day Magazine, Jun. 1, 2007
A hearty laugh lengthens your life.
SWEDISH PROVERB
A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.
JOHN CLEESE
interview, A. V. Club, February 5, 2008
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
CARL SAGAN
Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
Comedy naturally wears itself out--destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
"On Modern Comedy", The Round Table
You grow up the day you have your first real laugh -- at yourself.
ETHEL BARRYMORE
The Tell Tale, 1940
I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
BILLY JOEL
"Only the Good Die Young"
You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.
BILL COSBY
attributed, Humor Me
Do you know what I like about comedy? You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time -- of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid.
STEPHEN COLBERT
interview, Parade Magazine, Sep. 23, 2007
How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL? These days, I'd argue that LOL (commonly without caps) barely indicates an internal, silent chuckle, never mind an uproarious, audible guffaw.
GRETCHEN MCCULLOCH
"How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL?", Slate, May 23, 2014