Quotes About Humor

An interesting difference between African-American humor and Jewish humor, in it's kind of basic or maybe most austere type form is, African-American humor, some of it comes out of playing the dozens in which you insult the other person or insult the other person's mother, and so much of Jewish humor is like, you're insulting yourself. It's totally self-deprecating.

I just play to progressive audiences. You know, if they're watching Discovery Channel, History Channel, that kind of thing, "Monty Python" have already laid the groundwork. They're known around the world. People like that kind of surrealist, left-field humor, and that's what I do. And "Saturday Night Live," a lot of American humor. "The Simpsons," above all, the weird, left-field humor, which I love. And sardonic. So that's all I'm doing. I find that audience, and they're in every developed country around the world.

. . .a sense of humor can be a great help-particularly a sense of humor about (oneself). William Howard Taft joked about his own corpulence and people loved it; took nothing from his inherent dignity. Lincoln eased tense moments with bawdy stories, and often poked fun at himself-and history honors him for this human quality. A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.

I always had to rely on humor and sarcasm. And when I started having kids, that doesn't work with kids. Kids don't understand sarcasm, and they certainly don't understand my humor.

There's a difference between a sense of humor and a sense of funny. A sense of humor is knowing what makes you laugh and a sense of funny is knowing what makes other people laugh. The journey of comedy, in a sense, is negotiating those two worlds.

It's terrible to write what are essentially comedies for people with no sense of humor. Everyone thinks they have a sense of humor, but observably not.

I think up until the point when we started in the business, which was in the early 70s, most of the humor was political. The smart humor was political satire.

Seriousness is a sickness; your sense of humor makes you more human, more humble. The sense of humor - according to me - is one of the most essential parts of religiousness.

I was always kind of finding humor to be an access point to the conversation, to a pain relief, if you will. My mother was in a wheelchair since I was very young, so she was in pain and we used humor.

. . . Cultivating good humor may be helpful in finding our own identity. Young people who are trying to find out who they really are often have concerns as to their ability to meet and cope with the challenges that confront them and that lie ahead. They will find that it is easier to ride over the bumps and come quickly to their own identity if they cultivate the good humor that comes naturally. It is important that we all learn to laugh at ourselves.

Feminist humor raises consciousness. And the reason it's funny is because it stands something on its head. Goodness knows you've got to have a sense of humor if you do feminism full-time, I tell you.

Humor is a bit like Mary Poppins' sugar-it helps the medicine go down. A little bit of humor allows people to think about very difficult subjects.

Not everybody, however, has a genuine sense of humor. That calls for an altruistic detachment from oneself and a mysterious sympathy with others which is felt even before they open their mouths. Only the person who has also a gift for affection can have a true sense of humor. A good laugh is a sign of love; it may be said to give us a glimpse of, or a first lesson in, the love that God bears for every one of us.

A big part of the humor is in identifying with the tragic elements of the film. The New Zealand sense of humor is very dark. Our films are usually very dark and it's always someone being killed. Usually a child.

Short people have long faces, and long people have short faces. Big people have little humor, and little people have no humor at all.

What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back the burden of grief that is laid on each one of us. In youth we don't feel it, but as we grow to manhood we find the burden on our shoulders. Humor? It is nature's effort to harmonize conditions. The further the pendulum swings out over woe the further it is bound to swing back over mirth.

I have always employed humor, and I think it's absolutely crucial that we do because, among other things, humor is the only free emotion.

Humor is not an unconditional virtue; its moral character depends on its object. To laugh at the contemptible, is a virtue; to laugh at the good, is a hideous vice. Too often, humor is used as the camouflage of moral cowardice.

Anger and humor are like the left and right arm. They complement each other. Anger empowers the poor to declare their uncompromising opposition to oppression, and humor prevents them from being consumed by their fury.

Theater roles are written by the great masters. The greatest literature that you can possibly know are the theater roles like King Lear, Hamlet, and all of those great roles. So all you do is you dive into these unchallenged roles and see how far you can get, what kind of accolades you can get, and how good you can be in them. In movie roles, you can actually improve them by knowing a lot about your own stage technique, which helps a great deal in the cinema and how you can project inner humor even though the particular dialogue is not necessarily funny, but you can infuse it with humor.

There is humor that's just whimsy, that we smile at, but the humor that we laugh at, someone has to be - someone's dignity has to be reduced.

Conservative humor is frankly harder than liberal humor. You get points for just being liberal. You can get more points if you make fun of your own side sometimes.

I remember when humor was gentle pokes. I used to call it 'arm around the shoulder' humor. Now they go for the jugular and they take no prisoners. It's mean, mean stuff.

I always tried not to be too mean, but my problem is that the people I tend to find hilarious don't usually have senses of humor. So interacting with them is a little bit of an awkward engagement, because I can't really make them laugh, on top of which I've been doing an impression of them.

We censure others but as they disagree from that humor which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us.

Humor is an amazing way to talk people down off a ledge.

I think I'm too cynical for L.A. My sense of humor doesn't go down well here, which probably affects my love life. I need to have a laugh track following me around so people know I'm trying to be funny.

I was a product of a divorced family and I used humor as a weapon to combat sadness. I used comedy to make my mother laugh in light of the darkness that she faced, and to me it became a very powerful tool at a very young age, at six. I saw how therapeutic it could be.

Shame cannot exist in conditions of light, sunshine, and humor. So the very moment that you share your most shameful moments - and can learn to laugh about them - then the spell is lifted. And you, too, are free.

Humor is a kind of emotional chaos told about calmly and quietly in retrospect.There is always a laugh in the utterly familiar.

The reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks. If my daughter has a mediocre sense of humor, I'm just gonna tell her, "Be a staff writer for a sitcom. Because they'll have to hire you, they can't really fire you, and you don't have to produce that much. It'll be awesome."

Marriage requires the giving and keeping of confidences, the sharing of thoughts and feelings, respect and understanding always, marriage requires humility - the humility to repent, the humility to forgive. Marriage requires flexibility (to give and take) and firmness: not to compromise principles. And a wise and moderate sense of humor. Both need to be pulling together in the same direction.

The source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow.

We’re all pros already. 1) We show up every day 2) We show up no matter what 3) We stay on the job all day 4) We are committed over the long haul 5) The stakes for us are high and real 6) We accept remuneration for our labor 7) We do not overidentify with our jobs 8 ) We master the technique of our jobs 9) We have a sense of humor about our jobs 10) We receive praise or blame in the real world

Will Ferrell is probably the funniest comic actor, certainly of my generation. I am a huge, huge Will Ferrell fan. I'm not a huge comedy buff, truthfully. What I find funny is either something unbelievably stupid, like Dumb And Dumber or Airplane!, where the jokes are just so stupid and pointless, or something like The Office or The Comeback, where the humor is in the excruciating awkwardness of a situation. Stella kind of explores both of those, stupidity and awkwardness.

A Jazz man should be saying what he feels: humor, sadness, joy... all the things that humans have.

The binders, the charts, the grids may seem formidable, but the meetings themselves are built around informality, trust, emotion and humor.

Feeling different, feeling alienated, feeling persecuted, feeling that the only way to deal with the world is to laugh - because if you don't laugh you're going to cry and never stop crying - that's probably what's responsible for the Jews having developed such a great sense of humor. The people who had the greatest reason to weep, learned more than anyone else how to laugh.

Everyone has a sense of humor. If you don't laugh at jokes, you probably laugh at opinions

If one has no sense of humor, one is in trouble.

What keeps faith cheerful is the extreme persistence of gentleness and humor. Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music, and books, raising kids-all the places where the gravy soaks in and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake.

If I had no sense of humor I should long ago have committed suicide.

I love the diversity of America. I love the plain, normal sense of humor Americans have. It is not wicked, like in some countries. And I also love how new America is.

Janet Mock's honest and sometimes searing journey is a rare and important look into la vida liminal, one that she manages to negotiate remarkably well, with grace, humor, and fierce grit. Mock doesn't only redefine what realness means to her, but challenges us to rethink our own perceptions of gender and sexuality, feminism and sisterhood, making this book a transcendent piece of American literature.

Sometimes the only way to deal with horrific things in life is through a dark sense of humor.

American humor ... is not subtle. It is something that makes you laugh the moment you hear it, you have not to think a scrap.

When a comic becomes enamored with his own views and foists them off on the public in a polemic way, he loses not only his sense of humor but his value as a humorist.

Ultimate seriousness in not without a dose of humor.