“And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.”

—  Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Height of the Ridiculous; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "And since, I never dare to write As funny as I can." by Oliver Wendell Holmes?
Oliver Wendell Holmes photo
Oliver Wendell Holmes 135
Poet, essayist, physician 1809–1894

Related quotes

“I write jokes for a living, I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

track 11, "Three Easy Payments"
Mitch All Together (2003)

Robert Patrick (playwright) photo

“If you have to do something, write me a funny AIDS play. Sure you can. It's the biggest joke played on us since sex itself - and with the longest punch line.”

Robert Patrick (playwright) (1937) Playwright, poet, lyricist, short story writer, novelist

Pouf Positive
Untold Decades: Seven Comedies of Gay Romance (1988)

Anne Morrow Lindbergh photo

“I want to write — I want to write — I want to write and never never never will. I know it and I am so unhappy and it seems as though nothing else mattered. Whatever I'm doing, it's always there, an ultimate longing there saying, "Write this — write that — write —" and I can't. Lack ability, time, strength, and duration of vision. I wish someone would tell me brutally, "You can never write anything.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American aviator and author

Take up home gardening!"
Bring Me a Unicorn (1971)

Pablo Neruda photo

“If suddenly you do not exist,
If suddenly you are not living,
I shall go on living.

I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.

I shall go on living.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet
Amitabh Bachchan photo

“It's nothing really. It's the unique presentation that makes me look good in the action scenes. Why did I dare do them? That's a funny question! Why do I act? Why do I breathe!”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Quotable quotes by Amitabh Bachchan.

Emil M. Cioran photo

“Write books only if you are going to say in them the things you would never dare confide to anyone.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist
Brigitte Lin photo

“Writing is tiring and difficult, but I can sit at my desk for hours and hours, writing through the night to dawn. I never had any prior writing experience, but I learned that it’s not about using heavy vocabulary, and more about how I can express my sincerity.”

Brigitte Lin (1954) Taiwanese actress

As quoted in "Brigitte Lin, a timeless national treasure" in Taipei Times (15 May 2018) https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2018/05/15/2003693091

Tom Lehrer photo

“I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them. … And that's not funny.”

Tom Lehrer (1928) American singer-songwriter and mathematician

Quotes from interviews, Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
Context: I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them. … And that's not funny. … OK, well, if I say that, I might get a shock laugh, but it's not really satire.

Alfred Noyes photo

“Never since Drake and Raleigh won
Our freedom of the seas,
Have sons of Britain dared and done
More valiantly than these.”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

To the R.A.F., in Shadows on the Down and Other Poems (1941), p. 2

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more.”

H.P. Lovecraft book Dagon

"Dagon" - Written Jul 1917; First published in The Vagrant, No. 11 (November 1919) <!-- p. 23-29. -->
Fiction
Context: I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below.

Related topics