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.

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.

Reality - Dreams = Animal Being Reality + Dreams = A Heart-Ache (usually called Idealism) Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism) Dreams - Humor = Fanaticism Dreams + Humor = Fantasy Reality + Dreams + Humor = Wisdom

Life has three rules: Paradox, Humor, and Change. - Paradox: Life is a mystery; don't waste your time trying to figure it out. - Humor: Keep a sense of humor, especially about yourself. It is a strength beyond all measure - Change: Know that nothing ever stays the same.

The American public highly overrates its sense of humor. We're great belly laughers and prat fallers, but we never really did have a real sense of humor. Not satire anyway. We're a fatheaded, cotton-picking society. When we realize finally that we aren't God's given children, we'll understand satire. Humor is really laughing off a hurt, grinning at misery.

You know what make me laugh? Good, clean, honest humor. Not-trying-to-be-funny 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.

The first thing I look for is the humor, because you can tell what the character's fears and insecurities are through the humor.

The style is the man. Rather say the style is the way the man takes himself; and to be at all charming or even bearable, the way is almost rigidly prescribed. If it is with outer seriousness, it must be with inner humor. If it is with outer humor, it must be with inner seriousness. No other way will do.

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.

Within any drama in anyone`s life, there`s always a way to find the humor in it. Without humor no one cares about whatever drama is going on.

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.

I'll speak for myself, but there's a lot of humor to be found in sarcasm and darkness. You talk to any paramedic, they survive by developing a pretty off-kilter sense of humor.

My humor came from seeing my parents have sex, smoke weed, my mom being naked - just weird hippie stuff, twisted R-rated humor.

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.

With humor you have so many options with topics and length, I mean I can write humor essays in books now and they can be as long as I want them to be.

For instance, our music, They Might Be Giants, has this element of humor, which is probably the most uptight part of what we include in our music, because we're in part very self-conscious guys, and we want our music to stand up to the test of time, not just be visceral comedy records. We love humor and comedy, but there's this aspect to it that runs counter to what is included in most music.

I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have got its divisions and frontiers down on a piece of paper. I find it defined as a production of the brain, as the power of the brain to produce something humorous, and the capacity of percieving humor.

I think there's plenty of room, even in the most serious activist circles, for humor. Humor can be very effective both to inspire, and as a weapon. Just ask Frank Zappa and Charlie Chaplin.

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.

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.

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.

Humor is the balance of the tonal. Within the tonal you've got reason and humor. The two balance each other so that the tonal can accept and understand the journeys into the nagual.

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

There is no place for nostalgia in a progressive world. The new school not only ignores nostalgia, but condemns it. The world of yesterday is becoming an isolated world of remembrances and echoes so forbidden that, to decorate the present with it, you must often do so with a sense of humor or belong to a select group.

The author I wish I was reading right now and always is Nora Ephron. I love the humor, the awareness, the sense of self-deprecation. She is such a role model to me.

I really wouldn't want to live in America. I found New York claustrophobic and dirty. I missed England when I was there, simple things like smells and the British sense of humor.

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

Think about scary movies: There's a fine line between horror and humor.

Some sarcasm is best told simply. Some humor is best told big and some is best told small.

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

God forbid I should bleed to death, eh? Then you'd have to cart around my rotting corpse. (Kyrian) Could you be any more morbid? Jeez, who was your idol growing up? Boris Karloff? (Amanda) Hannibal, actually. (Kyrian) You're trying to scare me, aren't you? Well, it won't work. I grew up in a house with an angry poltergeist and two sisters who used to conjure demons just to fight them. Buster, I've seen it all and your gallows humor isn't working on me. (Amanda)

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

If you ever get in real trouble, don't panic. Sit down and think about it. Remember two things, always. There must be some way out of it and there must be humor in it somewhere.

My wife, my daughters, even my grandchildren are funny. You've got to keep a sense of humor because anger destroys you.

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.

Men of humor are always in some degree men of genius; wits are rarely so, although a man of genius may, amongst other gifts, possess wit, as Shakespeare.

Laugh at your worries and insecurities. View your anxieties with humor. It will be difficult at first, but you'll gradually get used to it.

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.

You have to realize that Mel [Gibson], he's a funny guy. He's got a wicked sense of humor.

To me, being funny is more important than making a point, but I don't know. Most politicians are so interested in making points that they don't ... I'd rather be funny myself, and I'd rather listen to somebody with a little sense of humor.

People want to complain... my point especially when it comes to racial humor is... we have that diversity, so I don't look at it like we are making fun of people, I look at it as how awesome is it that we can talk about this stuff, that we do have this kind of diversity, that we do live in a country that shows an array, unlike any other in the world.

When I step back from any moment of crisis that I've ever had, I'm always struck by how humor and tragedy can kind of live in the same moment, holding hands together. How life can go from the ridiculous to the sublime to the tragic all in one breath.

I am content in my later years. I have kept my good humor and take neither myself nor the next person seriously.

Humor (is) the process that allows one to brush reality aside when it gets too distressing.

Comedy is a very big part of the English culture, the sense of humor; it's a very dominant trait.

I find intelligence sexy. I find a sense of humor sexy. I find sensitivity sexy.