Source: Why Not Me?
“He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.”
This is the opening line of the novel. Sabatini used it as his epitaph.
Variant: He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad. And that was all his patrimony.
Source: Scaramouche (1921), Ch. I: "The Republican"
“Laughter is the best medicine, y'know, besides medicine.”
Words, Words, Words (2010)
"Inferior Religions" (1917), cited from Lawrence Rainey (ed.) Modernism: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005) pp. 208-9.
“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
Variant: Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
"Boy in Darkness," Sometime, Never (1956)
Entertainment Weekly interview http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20006490,00.html (4 January 2007)
Context: I would say laughter is the best medicine. But it’s more than that. It’s an entire regime of antibiotics and steroids. Laughter brings the swelling down on our national psyche, and then applies an antibiotic cream... Obviously, it’s a challenge to make light of the darkness but, um, it’s better than crying about it.
From an interview http://www.avclub.com/article/john-cleese-14197 with The A. V. Club (2008)
