Quotes About Humor

Wit is artificial; humor is natural. Wit is accidental; humor is inevitable. Wit is born of conscious effort; humor, of the allotted ironies of fate. Wit can be expressed only in language; humor can be developed sufficiently in situation.

The thing I have learned, especially in the Internet age, probably the easiest thing in the world is to declare that something is not funny. I mean it's not actually humor to say something is not funny, but it is viewed by a lot of people - and by that I mean mainly snarky young Internet men - as a kind of humor in and of itself is putting down other people's efforts at humor. And I don't care that much anymore about that because I know how easy that is to do.

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.

One of the first things every press secretary assures you is, the boss has a wonderful sense of humor, because not to have a sense of humor is considered flagrantly un-American.

For me, a lot of the humor comes not from innocence but from characters trying to figure out how to get what they need. I don't try to be funny, but am relieved when an opportunity comes up for humor.

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. I mean, you can compel fear, as we know. You can compel love, actually, if somebody is isolated and dependent — it’s like the Stockholm syndrome. But you can’t compel laughter. It happens when two things come together and make a third unexpectedly. It happens when you learn something, too.

My own mother died when I was 10 years old. My folks have told me that what little humor I have comes from her. I can't remember her humor, but I can remember her love and understanding of me.

I find that people find a way out of misery through humor and it's humor that's often unacceptable to people who are not in quite such a state of misery.

The Lord is not serious. In fact, it is a little hard to know just what else He is except loving. And love has to do with humor, doesn't it? For you cannot love someone unless you put up with him, can you? And you cannot put up with someone constantly unless you can laugh at him. Isn't that true? And certainly we are rediculous little animals wallowing in the fudge bowl, and God must love us all the more because we appeal to his humor.

If one tends to be a humorous person and you have a sense of humor the rest of your life then you can certainly lighten the load, I think, by bringing that to your trials and tribulations. It's easy to have a sense of humor when everything is going well.

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.

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.

The hardest thing to get is true emotion. I always believe you need to earn that with the audience. You can't just tell them ok, be sad now. Humor, you can add. Even to the last minute you can be adding little bits of humor. But the true earned emotion is something that you really have to craft.

Start dating someone who is funny, someone who has what in high school you called a "really great sense of humor" and what now your creative writing class calls "self-contempt giving rise to comic form." Write down all of his jokes, but don't tell him you are doing this. Make up anagrams of his old girlfriend's name and name all of your socially handicapped characters with them. Tell him his old girlfriend is in all of your stories and then watch how funny he can be, see what a really great sense of humor he can have.

Humor is important. If you're going to tell any sort of realistic story, you're going to have to have humor in it, because people are funny. Clever people especially.

Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.

I like to deal with EVERY aspect of our condition, and that means terror and humor in equal mix. Some books have more room for humor than others.

Lily Tomlin said something years ago, and I'm paraphrasing, that you have to find humor in everything, because by finding humor, you find humanity.

What I didn't really understand, but then I thought this makes perfect sense, as well - was how many people responded to it by being like, "It was just so nice to take a break." Because even the humor - the great stuff that Samantha Bee and John Oliver and Seth Meyers are doing - it's all anger humor. And for somebody to say, "Hey, we're all idiots," and just be able to laugh at ourselves and be able to connect through that. It's always about connecting with someone, never about scolding them. The only thing I knew right upfront is we're not going after [Donald] Trump supporters.

My comedy has no color, it's for everybody, black, white, Latino, Asian. It's not a pro-black show, not a def jam show; it's just straight, wholesome type of humor.

Women's humor seems to be a little more supportive. It's just kind of trying to make the other one laugh through funny voices and kind of talking about other people. I respond to that. I feel less like I'm going to get beat up in a room full of women than I do in a room full of guys.

Today's business and health care climate may not be pleasant. Cutbacks, pay cuts and layoffs do not make anyone's job easy. But that does not mean that the humor need stop.

The sense of humor has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter.

[My favourite are] the films of Agnes Varda, because of her sense of humor and the intimate, personal way she tells her stories. She is brave in taking creative risks, and her curiosity in others is so contagious. This brings me closer to the subjects in her films.

Good-fellowship, unflagging, is the prime requisite for success in our society, and the man or woman who smiles only for reasons of humor or pleasure is a deviate.

What Taika [Watiti] still bring to it [Hunt for the Wilderpeople], it really sums up what life is like in New Zealand, or what our sensibilities, our sense of humor, how we come together, how easy it would be, feels like. You know, we have a small population and so you know the bizarreness of the police getting involved in this manhunt, how the men... And then eventually, the army all get intwines.

Great love -- the kind that illumines and transforms us -- always includes a keen awareness of limitation as well. Though love may inspire us to expand and develop in new ways, we can never be all things to the one we love, or someone other than who we are. Yet once accepted, limitation also helps us develop essential qualities, such as patience, determination, compassion, and humor. When love comes down to earth -- bringing to light those dark corners we would prefer to ignore, encompassing all the different parts of who we are -- it gains depth and power.

I would say that I'm a nonviolent soldier. In place of weapons of violence, you have to use your mind, your heart, your sense of humor, every faculty available to you...because no one has the right to take the life of another human being.

As for the differences between audio and the printed page, the sonic aspects of poetry are important to me. I read my poems aloud to myself as I'm composing them. And I enjoy reading to an audience. I think people get tone more easily when they hear a writer read her work. Some people have told me they hear more humor in my poems at a live reading than when they see them on the page. I think that may be a matter of pacing. On the other hand, I've listened to a lot of poetry readings and I know how much you can miss. If you stop to really register one line, you miss the next three or so.

Some people are commended for a giddy kind of good-humor, which is as much a virtue as drunkenness.

The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.

In real life, Josh [Gad] is a different kind of lovable idiot. In real life, he's a much filthier idiot. He has a dirty sense of humor.

When you have humor, you have a base for collaboration. It is very important.

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.

We all know what feminists are. They are shrill, overly aggressive, man-hating, ball-busting, selfish, hairy, extremist, deliberately unattractive women with absolutely no sense of humor who see sexism at every turn. They make men's testicles shrivel up to the size of peas, they detest the family and think all children should be deported or drowned.

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

I'm just a dog person. I love dogs very much, especially big ones, hounds, and retrievers. I think they are funny and often have good senses of humor. Plus, they give unconditional love.

Humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be, to protect yourself.

The truth is I'm a dork. I collected comics. I still love cartoons. I'd rather be at home on a Friday night than out at some club… My sense of humor is that of a geek. My likes and dislikes are that of a geek. I've memorized every crappy sci-fi movie there is, but still haven't seen Schindler's List.

Sometimes you want to have a talk about race, about police violence. It's very hard to get through to somebody. Everyone's got their side staked out. They don't want to talk about it. But you can break the ice with a little humor.

There are times when I love to play all kinds of complicated games in painting. But this is one case when I need to be fairly straightforward. I'll just try to paint the man, his intelligence, his amiability and his stature, maybe paint him fairly close to humor and try to get it just right.

A lot of people into Tool, for some reason, are not interested in humor.

I always thought the biggest failing of Americans was their lack of irony. They are very serious there! Naturally, there are exceptions... the Jewish, Italian, and Irish humor of the East Coast.

I'm looking forward to a future where there are roles of greater vulnerability and humor involved.

Robert Walker as Bruno was excellent. He had elegance and humor, and the proper fondness for his mother

I want everything I do to have humor in it, because it seems to me that all of life has that.

The people who fear humor - and they are many - are suspicious of its power to present things in unexpected lights, to question received opinions and to suggest unforeseen possibilities.

Well, the most terrible fear that anybody should have is not war, is not a disease, not cancer or heart problems or food poisoning - it's a man or a woman without a sense of humor.