Quotes About Humor

I like the way that Dexter mixed humor, dark humor and tragedy, in a way I don't think that I've seen another show do. To handle those tonal shifts with so much confidence. Normally, you can mix humor and dark humor, you can mix dark humor and tragedy, but to mix all three... There are just moments with Robin and Reuben, the next door neighbors, that are just funny.

When people, especially from France, would ask me to talk about or so they could write about New York Jewish humor, I'd say I don't know anything about New York Jewish humor. I know who Zero Mostel was and I know Mel Brooks, but that's about all I could tell you about New York Jewish humor.

The best everyday example of relativity, the finest symptom of human intelligence, is humor. (...) Design without humor is not human. The word 'beautiful' does not mean anything. Only coherence counts. An object, design or not, is primarily an object that meets the parameters of human intelligence, which reconciles opposites. The lack of humor is the definition of vulgarity.

I think I love humor in poetry, but not that slapstick cheap easy humor, but that uncomfortable, "did she say that out loud?" kind of humor.

The people in Miami are so different from anywhere else I've been in America. They're so down to earth, really friendly, and quite self-effacing, with a good sense of humor. I'm not saying other parts of America don't have a sense of humor, but Miami maybe has to have a really good sense of humor for lots of different reasons, and it works. It works for me.

The irony or humor of my pieces is never really calculated, but they somehow always end up that way. Humor, especially when dealing with matters of extreme gravity, has a way of toppling set ideas and opening up new modes of interpretation. Furthermore, adding humor tends to shift the power balance.

Certainly, anyone whom I've witnessed, who has gone through something horrible and life-changing, has a sense of ironic humor, or an ability to look at the peculiarities of the world and find humor in it.

Good-humor is allied to generosity, ill-humor to meanness.

I can't have discussions about it anymore, I just can't. When someone asks me if I've found Jesus, I say, 'Yeah, I saw him at a Nirvana concert a couple of years ago.' It's like, Jesus has got things to do, he's got a ten o'clock. He's not going to fix things for me, I have to fix things for myself, so I try and have a sense of humor about it and nobody finds my humor very amusing. We've just got to lighten up on the savior bit, folks. You know, get off the cross, we need the wood.

How can you feel like an actual member of society casting a vote for a president when in a professional interview you said that farts make you laugh? And you're a professional in comedy? But then, have you ever seen a video of a small dog that farts? Welp. I don't need to explain that anymore. If you can't see the humor in that, good luck being a CEO somewhere where I'm not going to understand you. It's a harmless thing to laugh at. It's humor that's not at the expense of someone else. And it's silly. It's juvenile.

I've always found relationships, men and women, the fact that they are so radically different, and it manifests itself in so many different ways, and yet somehow we still try to live together and be friends. I find that endlessly valuable as a source of material for humor. Generally dogs are always funny in my opinion. And the federal government - just a relentlessly productive source of humor.

Community is extremely intimate. When we talk about humor, I love that you know when you're home because there is laughter in the room, there is humor, there is shorthand. That is about community.

To me, sadness and humor aren't disrelated and humor is the best tool I've had against the sadness in my life.

Many things have been written, including by me, linking humor and pain. Mostly, in my case, the humor part keeps me sane. If I spent all my hours writing things like "Fatal Distraction," I'd become a brooding, erratic melancholic. I'd be Raskolnikov.

It has always surprised me how little attention philosophers have paid to humor, since it is a more significant process of mind than reason. Reason can only sort out perceptions, but the humor process is involved in changing them.

Without humor, a sports fan is a religious fanatic. Without humor, a newscast is a terrible, depressing, unpalatable thing.

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.

Humor is hope's companion in arms. It is not brash, it is not cheap, it is not heartless. Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit.

Humor is necessary - it allows the reader to come up for air before dunking them under again. I need humor and I need it on the page to keep the reader going.

Humor and profundity are not mutually exclusive, and life can be, and mostly is, serious and funny simultaneously. It's not always easy to capture that in words, but when T.M. Shine manages to do so, it's a sign of a master at work.

There is a quiet humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life, every crumb of success, each encounter of love... In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of a frightened and hopeful humanity.

He was through playing games. When it came to Soteria, he had no sense of humor whatsoever. Anyone who threatened her, ended their life. It was that simple.

A sense of humor is regarded as a sign of mental health - apart from excessive punning, which is another matter entirely.

Humor, a good sense of it, is to Americans what manhood is to Spaniards, and we will go to great lengths to prove it. Experiments with laboratory rats have shown that, if one psychologist in the room laughs at something a rat does, all of the other psychologists will laugh equally. Nobody wants to be left holding the joke.

It's like geographical humor. You just don't get it unless you were there.

There's something about Southern women that is so unique yet so universal. Strong southern women are allowed to be soft and feminine and have a sense of humor. But what I love about Southern women in particular is their universality.

I come from a long ago era where men could be men and stereotypical humor didn't offend anybody.

Whatever you see you gotta keep a sense of humor; you gotta be able to smile through all the bullshit.

Bands from Akron have a sense of humor and don't tend to take themselves too seriously.

Half the battle is that people have to like you before you say one joke, one bit of humor.

Humor is a social lubricant that helps us get over some of the bad spots.

But if you read Jane Austen, you know that she had a wicked sense of humor. Not only was she funny, but her early writing was very dark and had a gothic tone to it.

I guess as I get older, I'm kind of getting drawn to the things that I really love the most, which is trying to figure out ways of blending politics with humor, and making it interesting. So I don't know if anybody's interested in this stuff, but I like it, so I get involved with it.

What about Isabelle?" Simon asked. "Where is she?" The humor, such as it was, left Jace's expression. "She won't come out of her room," he said. "She thinks that what happened to Max was her fault. She won't even come to the funeral." "Have you tried talking to her?" "No," Jace said, "we've been punching her repeatedly in the face instead. Why, do you think that won't work?" "Just thought I'd ask." Simon's tone was mild.

Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.

A book without potty humor is like a banana split without hot fudge. It can still be good, I suppose, but you kinda get the feeling that something is missing.

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

Good acting is thinking in front of the camera. I just do that and apply a sense of humor to it. You have to trust the audience to get it.

Elvis Presley's death deprives our country of a part of itself. He was unique, irreplaceable. More than twenty years ago, he burst upon the scene with an impact that was unprecedented and will probably never be equaled. His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense. And he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness and good humor of this country.

Such techniques, including meta-discursive stuff, self-reference, irony, black humor, cynicism, grotesquerie and shock, it would be safe to say that television or televisual values rule the culture. Television is successfully using a lot of those same techniques but using them for a very different agenda, which is to sort of create an ethos and please people and to sell products to consumers.

A sense of humor is the one thing no one will admit to not having.

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

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

I think you really have to tap into your sense of humor in order to survive.

I like a very dry wit, not the big kind of humor like Robin Williams. I don't think I'm capable of that.

Thank heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding - and He has a sense of humor.

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.

Many animal rescue organizations hit with a hard-core, heartbreaking message. Their videos and stories can become difficult for average people to watch. By taking a more positive, heartwarming approach to animal rescue, I've been able to engage people and keep them engaged for years. Instead of selling the agony and misery - and sadly, there is no shortage of that - I start with the happy endings. I work backwards so the first message they get is joy and success due to their involvement. Opening the mind with humor and joy gets the rescue message in that much deeper.