Popular quotes about Laugh! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
I love seeing somebody act real earnest and serious, like Jackie Gleason. He makes me laugh because he reflects back to me my own serious-mindedness and how ridiculous it all is. It's always easier to see somebody else in that position than yourself, and you laugh. It's like the classic slipping on the banana peel, or someone getting hit by a pie in the face. Why do those things make us laugh? Is it from relief, like: Thank God it wasn't me? Or is it something else: I'm being very serious now. I'm pontificating earnestly and solemnly about-POW! PIE IN THE FACE! The bust-up of certainty.
Jeff BridgesBut when you're in front of an audience and you make them laugh at a new idea, you're guiding the whole being for the moment. No one is ever more him/herself than when they really laugh. Their defenses are down. It's very Zen-like, that moment. They are completely open, completely themselves when that message hits the brain and the laugh begins. That's when new ideas can be implanted. If a new idea slips in at that moment, it has a chance to grow.
George CarlinThe ultimate objective [of comedy] is to get a laugh, so if you can get a laugh off the fact that you did not get a laugh, then you've kinda saved the moment. Other professions don't have that luxury. You don't want to hear a brain surgeon say, "Man, am I so stupid! I cut on the wrong side of your head!!"
Brian ReganNo matter how you feel, you've got to be able to laugh at yourself. If you can laugh at Donald Trump, then you better be able to laugh at yourself, too. For us as comedians, we have to point out what's funny.
Michael CheI steeled myself against laughter; I would rather die than laugh. I didnโt laugh, I did not laugh. But I died, I did die.
Miranda JulyI make people laugh hard; I'm a comic, that's just the way it is. And I make them laugh because I'm funny, not because I'm filthy. The subject matter is dirty, but the pictures I paint are really funny. A lot of comics don't understand that that's what it's about. It's just, "I'll be dirty and they'll laugh." Nobody's becoming a superstar that way.
Andrew Dice ClayYou have more of a responsibility to make the audience laugh. In comedy, we do have to say, "All right, it's been two minutes in the film. We need another laugh here." With drama, there's no pressure in that regard. It's a different kind of pressure, but it's not like we need to make someone laugh.
Jonah HillDemons do not cry. You became a demon, because you couldn't cry anymore right? Humans cry and when their tears finally run dry, there's nothing left, not a demon nor a monster and one final prayer for death. So, laugh demon. Laugh that arrogant laugh of your and remember I beat you to it.
Alexander AndersonWhat I hope is that the book [Bink & Gollie] delights children. What I hope is that they laugh and laugh and laugh, just as we did when we wrote them.
Kate DiCamilloYou have to have horror that is entertaining, where you can laugh. Most people don't want you to laugh at horror. They just want you to just be disgusted and terrified.
Bruce CampbellEveryone has a sense of humor. If you don't laugh at jokes, you probably laugh at opinions
Criss JamiIn the modern conflict between the Smile and the Laugh, I am all in favor of laughing. The recent stage of culture and criticism might very well be summed up as the men who smile criticizing the men who laugh.
Gilbert K. ChestertonWhen you've learned to laugh at the things that should be laughed at, and not to laugh at those that shouldn't, you've got wisdom and understanding. -Aunt Jimsie
Lucy Maud MontgomeryI think it's because it's so different and it takes risks. Plus, it's really smart humor. It gives the audience credit in terms of not needing to tell them when to laugh. I love that about the show. There's no laugh track.
Sarah ChalkeUltimately, an audience wants to laugh. That's who they like, the comedian who makes them laugh.
Ted AlexandroI laugh at myself. I don't take myself completely seriously. I think that's another quality that people have to hold on to... you have to laugh, especially at yourself.
Madonna CicconeComedy exists to laugh at things that aren't laughable. But isn't it? That's what separates us from the animals. We laugh.
Joan RiversIf you don't laugh at all, you've missed the point. If you only laugh, you've missed your chance from illumination.
Robert Anton WilsonI'm a comic, and I'm supposed to outrage and make people laugh, Part of makin' people laugh is to shake up their thinkin'. That's what I came here to do.
Roseanne BarrWhen I watch TV I can tell when someone is punching the joke and telling me when to laugh (Iโll decide when to laugh, thank you very much).
Nathan FillionHalf of me is this wacked-out comedienne who will do anything for a buck and a laugh. Well, at least for a laugh. But the other half is a lot darker, sadder and more pensive. It's the dark side that feeds the outrageousness and allows it to surface. I think that's true for anyone with comic flair.
Faith PrinceThat being said, in my top five favorite movies, two of them are Alien and Aliens. I love to laugh, and I love to make people laugh. I love comedy, but I also love the darker things in life. I guess I'm an extremist. I'm an adrenaline junkie. Just cruising along at a normal capacity really doesn't do anything for me.
Angie HarmonCatharsis isn't art. You can't rely on catharsis to get a laugh. Because guess what? People do laugh when something's shocking, but that is, to me, the absolute fakest of laughs. That's not something that sustains a television series, or a movie, or even 45 minutes of a stand-up set at Carolines.
Mindy KalingWhy don't you laugh? If I did not laugh I should die, and you need this medicine as much as I do.
Abraham LincolnDon't be careless about yourselves--on the other hand not too careful. Live well but do not flaunt it. Laugh a little and teach your men to laugh--get good humor under fire--war is a game that's played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.
Winston ChurchillI laugh at weird times - at good and bad things alike. I laugh simply when things are incongruous. It's not necessarily a judgment - as it is noticing the oddity of something.
Eugene MirmanObserve it, the vulgar often laugh, but never smile, whereas well-bred people often smile, and seldom or never laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter, it pleases only the mind and never distorts the countenance.
Lord ChesterfieldIt isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit. It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win.
Jean WebsterHumor is so culturally based that when I try to tell a joke as me being a white American, if I tell other white Americans, they'll laugh. If I tell an African American, they might not laugh. In fact, they either might not find it funny, or they might find it offensive, and I didn't mean it to be offensive. So these are the sort of little things that build up over time, just like in a marriage. You know, the little things can build up over time.
Michael EmersonPeople think because I can make them laugh on the stage, I'll be able to make them laugh in person. That isn't the case at all. I am essentially a rather quiet, dull person who just happens to be a performer.
Rowan Atkinson[On being asked, 'Did you ever say that an actress needs to be able to laugh and to cry and that when you need to laugh you think of your sex life and when you need to cry you think of your sex life?':] No.
Glenda JacksonThe things we laugh at are awful while they are going on, but get funny when we look back. And other people laugh because they've been through it too. The closest thing to humor is tragedy.
James ThurberThere are certain things that are probably too mean. I don't particularly like fat jokes. Those kind of bother me. But I guess what I was trying to say is, if I said I would never laugh at this, you could probably dig around and find a situation where I did laugh. I try not to be a hypocrite with that one. I find when there's a controversy about someone saying something offensive, I usually take the angle of, "Well, I don't know if that was offensive; it just wasn't funny." I generally don't gasp, "Oh my God!" I think people have been getting raked over the coals lately.
Todd BarryI found out that if you made people laugh, they like you. Most people got to like me because I made them laugh. When they didn't, I hit them.
Buddy HackettThere is a relationship between humor and fear. Think of all the gags you ever heard that have to do with dismemberment, or something that's horrible in one way or another, even if it's just horrible in the sense that somebody's being embarrassed. What do kids laugh at? Kids laugh if your fly's down. That's hilarious. But for the kid whose fly is down, it's a horrible situation.
Stephen KingI laugh when I see people in pain. Sometimes I think it is a defense mechanism from childhood, where you're in so much pain you have to laugh. It is a survival mechanism.
Andy DickWhen I was growing up, I was obviously gay, and I got heckled every day of my life. The only way I knew how to survive was to make people laugh. If I could make them laugh, I wouldn't get hung in a locker for two hours. That's a blessing.
Carson KressleyLAUGHTER is the very essence of religion. Seriousness is never religious, cannot be religious. Seriousness is of the ego, part of the very disease. Laughter is egolessness. Yes, there is a difference between when you laugh and when a religious man laughs. The difference is that you laugh always about others - the religious man laughs at himself, or at the whole ridiculousness of man's being. Religion cannot be anything other than a celebration of life.
RajneeshEven the idea of a fart makes me laugh. Saying the word 'fart' makes me laugh. I have iFart on my phone. I have remote whoopee cushions. Farts. To me, there's nothing funnier.
George ClooneyYou need to laugh more. Life is filled with too many problems, to not laugh every day... We need to have a sense of humor going into this because it's too tough without it.
Ysabella BravePeople used to laugh that academics would study Disney movies. There's nothing more important for academics to study, because they shape the minds of our children possibly more than any single thing.
Joss WhedonEveryone knows how people who laugh easily create us by their laughter,--making us think of funnier and funnier things.
Brenda UelandThe reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and comcribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile, and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.
Billy Sunday