Quotes About Humor

Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.

If you can't joke about the most horrendous things in the world, what's the point of jokes? What's the point in having humor? Humor is to get us over terrible things.

Each time we had a visiting writer, I asked what she thought of women and humor. By the end of the year, I had perfected my question and asked Adrienne Rich why there was so little written about women and humor. She looked at me right in the eye and said, 'You write it.' I took that as an order.

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 comics that are just conversing with you up there and drawing on their own life, yeah, I guess so. I guess some do political humor, some do topical humor, but the ones that I like, the ones that are appealing to me, were guys who were just talking to you about their life.

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.

Because of the movies I make, people get nervous. They think of me as difficult and angry. I am difficult and angry, but they don't expect a sense of humor. And the only thing that gets me through is a sense of humor.

Humor is not funny. Humor is something else. Funny is a joke, sometimes silly. Comedy is deep and connected to tragedy; comedy could be deeper than tragedy, in my view.

True humor is fun - it does not put down, kid, or mock. It makes people feel wonderful, not separate, different, and cut off. True humor has beneath it the understanding that we are all in this together.

I was interested in the mystical element of humor - was humor part of creation? Is God laughing at us, or with us?

I love humor. I always will fall back on humor. That's something that I think you can't ever get enough of and, if it's done well, it's great. When it's bad, it's horrible.

I don't like jokes in speeches. I do like wit and humor. A joke is to humor what pornography is to erotic language in a good novel.

Bad humor is an evasion of reality; good humor is an acceptance of it.

What you want in an interview is four things: You want someone who can explain what they do very well, who can have a sense of humor and hopefully is self - deprecating, who has a bit of a chip on their shoulder, and passion. If you have passion, a chip on the shoulder, a sense of humor, and you can explain what you do very well, it doesn't matter if you're a plumber or a singer or a politician. If you have those four things, you are interesting.

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.

I am a candid interview and I have a dark and dry sense of humor - a very Canadian sense of humor and I am only learning now stupidly that you can't read tongue. When I say something funny in a newspaper and I meant it to be funny, it doesn't read that way.

I actually pay careful attention to that sort of thing - infusing humor into my films - because that's how important I think humor is.

I don't know how many sacred cows there are today. I think there's a little confusion between humor and gross passing for humor. That's kind of regrettable.

Nobody in love has a sense of humor.

With John Wayne Gacy - the serial killer who dressed up as a clown - there's just something about clowns I don't trust. I don't think they're particularly funny. They're a little spooky. Not my sense of humor, I don't laugh at clowns.

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.

The most obvious ones inspiring me are probably women in political life. There are also many women in artistic endeavors, but if they're painters, you don't necessarily see them, or if they're actors, you see the role they're playing. In political life, you see women of enormous courage and smarts and humor, and that releases the talent, especially in little girls who are watching.

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.

Probably it is impossible for humor to be ever a revolutionary weapon. Candide can do little more than generate irony.

Humor is reason gone mad.

Cancer is probably the most unfunny thing in the world, but I'm a comedian, and even cancer couldn't stop me from seeing the humor in what I went through.

it’s as if the universe has a sense of humor, since at a deep level it’s impossible not to lead a spiritual life… the universe is living through you at this moment. with or without belief in god, the chain of events leading from silent awareness to physical reality remains intact.

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.

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

The funniest thing about some people is that they have no sense of humor.

Humor is just truth, only faster!

Style and taste do not have anything to do with the other. It's the difference between wit and humor.

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

I see the relationship sincerity/humor differently. Instead of seeing a balance between them, I see them more inextricably linked, as if one is the hard candy shell that gives to the other, or one is the apparition, the ghost-image that invokes the other.

To me, as a director and an actor, that's the main thing. "What's the heart of this story? What's the humanity of this story? And if the movie doesn't have it, then why am I watching it?" Even if it's a silly comedy, like Superbad or Knocked Up - Judd Apatow, I love, because he's all about heart. The humor comes out of the humanity.

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.

Humor is also a way of saying something serious.

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.

Older actresses apparently have no sense of humor about being older actresses.

I like a man who can be a real friend, has a good sense of humor, a good pair of shoes and a healthy gold card.

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.

Humor is an excellent method of keeping a tight rein on unproductive displays of emotion.

As a theatrical troupe, the Muppets haven't exactly been AWOL these past dozen years; the gang rocked YouTube in 2009 with their kick-ass rendition of Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody.' But they've certainly been lying low while our twitchy, tweet-y times have favored snarkier, more air-quote-driven entertainment, even from puppets. And in a way, that showbiz hiatus has worked in favor of The Muppets. For adults, the movie's gentle, clever, unironic humor feels freshly, trendily retro now, enhanced by laughs provided in cameos from a very up-to-date roster of stars.

I have a very silly sense of humor. I've never laughed harder in my entire life than seeing someone with toilet paper stuck on the bottom of their shoe.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

[Humor] could be dicey for a therapist and needs to be used very deftly.

I am a great believe that your humor is developed at a very early age and it doesn't ever change.

He who rules must fully humor as much as he commands.