Quotes about laughter
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“You and I are created for transcendence, laughter, caring. God deliberately did not make the world perfect, for God is looking for you and me to be fellow workers with God.”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

Wallenberg Lecture (2008)

God, World, Perfection

“…when I went out I tried to push the door instead of pulling it. 'Pull it, mate,' said someone, and I had to obey. I nearly tripped over a footscraper and, the door closed, had the impression of loud laughter. The vile blunt-razor-blade wind blew hard from my sister’s house. I felt ashamed and furious. In the East there was politeness, doors opened the right way, there were no footscrapers.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Right to an Answer (1960)

Way, Sister, Housing

“I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moonglow in the mind;
My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind.
I am the fire upon the hills, the dancing flame that leads afar
Each burning-hearted wanderer, and I the dear and homeward star.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Star, Heart, Dance

“My mother … had a wonderful sense of humor, and I learned from her that the highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion.”

Richard Feynman book What Do You Care What Other People Think?

"The Making of a Scientist," p. 19
What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988)

Understanding, Sense, Learning

“We are tired who follow after
Phantasy and truth that flies:
You with only look and laughter
Stain our hearts with richest dyes.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

Truth, Heart

“On that September morning I spent more than an hour with John Paul II. During the meal he asked me my age. I told him that I was thirty-four years old. He then let out a great burst of laughter and exclaimed: "But then you are a baby bishop! Un vescovo Bambino!" There was no arguing with that; I was at that time the youngest bishop in the world…”

Robert Sarah (1945) Roman Catholic bishop

God or Nothing: A Conversation on Faith (2015)

Age, World, Time, Baby

“When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.”

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet

Epitaph on a Tyrant (1939), lines 5–6

Children

“Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" in Farming: A Hand Book (1970).
Poems

“I have always been a laugher, disturbing people who are not laughers, upsetting whole audiences at theatres… I laugh, that's all. I love to laugh. Laughter to me is being alive. I have had rotten times, and I have laughed through them. Even in the midst of the very worst times I have laughed.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

Sons Come and Go, Mothers Hang in Forever (1976)

Love, People, Time

“Over seven thousand US veterans die of suicide every year, which is funny… [false laughter]… because you'd think they'd die over there, but they come home! Right? I thought that must be funny, because nobody was taking it that seriously.”

Maria Bamford (1970) American actress and comedian

Ask Me About My New God! (2013)

Home, Thinking, Suicide, Falseness

“I've been blogging — however irregularly — over at Amazon. com for a few years now, but I've always felt that arena was for the "official" JMD. It was as if I was standing in the aisle of a book store, greeting potential readers: sharing my thoughts, certainly — but also trying to get them interested in my wares. I'm hoping that this blog will be more like a living room: a little more casual and personal. A place where I can talk about, well, anything that comes to mind, from the trivial to the profound. And I hope to do it at least once a week.”

J.M. DeMatteis (1953) comics illustrator

I'll wait a moment for the laughter to die down. "Welcome (A Day Late)" (10 September 2009) http://www.jmdematteis.com/2009_09_01_archive.html. J.M. DeMatteis's CREATION POINT (2009 – present)

Books, Hope, Waiting, Personality

“The task which lies ahead is adventure as well as duty, and I am anxious to get at it. I feel better in mind and body than I have for ten years and am quite certain I can meet the foe confident and unafraid…Truly, we have shared to the full life, love, and laughter. Comforted in the knowledge that your thought and prayer go with us every minute, and sure that your faith and courage will never falter, no matter the outcome, I bid you au revoir.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Letter to his parents (April 24, 1943)

Love, Life, Faith, Feeling

“I've begged more than a starved beggar and dearly miss my princess mi amore cadenza
And afraid of the laughter of the cunning Moon, the fierce hunter who starves himself to win the prey,
Under the threat of things that will never pass…
For all terror is nothing more than nightmares that are made manifest for forever in the prison that is a false reality.”

Tristan Corbière (1845–1875) French poet

Heures, http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Heures third stanza, from Les arountia tyinse (1865).

Reality, Princess, Falseness

“I looked at the high walls where once-white paint had grayed and then peeled. Barbara had always said the house had good bones, and she was right about that; but it had no heart, not with us living inside it. In place of laughter, trust, and joy, there was a hollow emptiness, a kind of rot, and I marveled at my blindness. Was it the alcohol, I wondered, that had made it bearable? Or was it something else, some inner failing? Maybe it was neither. They say that if you drop a frog into boiling water, he'll hop right out. But put the same frog into cold water and slowly turn up the heat, and he'll sit quietly until his blood begins to boil. He'll let himself be cooked alive. Maybe that's how it was for me. Maybe I was like that frog.”

John Hart (1965) American author with multiple books and awards

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 31.

Alcohol, Water, Heart, Joy

“In each of the cathedral churches there was a bishop, or an archbishop of fools, elected; and in the churches immediately dependent upon the papal see a pope of fools. These mock pontiffs had usually a proper suit of ecclesiastics who attended upon them, and assisted at the divine service, most of them attired in ridiculous dresses resembling pantomimical players and buffoons; they were accompanied by large crowds of the laity, some being disguised with masks of a monstrous fashion, and others having their faces smutted; in one instance to frighten the beholders, and in the other to excite their laughter: and some, again, assuming the habits of females, practised all the wanton airs of the loosest and most abandoned of the sex. During the divine service this motley crowd were not contended with singing of indecent songs in the choir, but some of them ate, and drank, and played at dice upon the altar, by the side of the priest who celebrated the mass. After the service they put filth into the censers, and ran about the church, leaping, dancing, laughing, singing, breaking obscene jests, and exposing themselves in the most unseemly attitudes with shameless impudence. Another part of these ridiculous ceremonies was, to shave the precentor of fools upon a stage erected before the church, in the presence of the populace; and during the operation, he amused them with lewd and vulgar discourses, accompanied by actions equally reprehensible. The bishop, or the pope of fools, performed the divine service habited in the pontifical garments, and gave his benediction to the people before they quitted the church. He was afterwards seated in an open carriage, and drawn about to the different parts of the town, attended by a large train of ecclesiastics and laymen promiscuously mingled together; and many of the most profligate of the latter assumed clerical habits in order to give their impious fooleries the greater effect; they had also with them carts filled with ordure, which they threw occasionally upon the populace assembled to see the procession. These spectacles were always exhibited at Christmas-time, or near to it, but not confined to one particular day.”

Joseph Strutt (1749–1802) British engraver, artist, antiquary and writer

pg. 345
The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England (1801), Festival of Fools

People, Fools, Sex, Fashion

“Midnight is a wonderful thing in a vast city—and midnight was upon Vienna. The shops were closed, the windows darkened, and the streets deserted—strange that where so much of life was gathered together there could be such deep repose; yet nothing equals the stillness of a great town at night. Perhaps it is the contrast afforded by memory that makes this appear yet more profound. In the lone valley, and in the green forest, there is quiet even at noon—quiet, at least, broken by sounds belonging alike to day and night. The singing of the bee and the bird, or the voice of the herdsman carolling some old song of the hills—these may be hushed; but there is still the rustle of the leaves, the wind murmuring in the long grass, and the low perpetual whisper of the pine. But in the town—the brick and mortar have no voices of their own. Nature is silent—her soft, sweet harmonies are hushed in the great human tumult—man, and man only, is heard. Through many hours of the twenty-four, the ocean of existence rolls on with a sound like thunder—a thousand voices speak at once. The wheels pass and re-pass over the stones—music, laughter, anger, the words of courtesy and of business, mingle together—the history of a day is the history of all time. The annals of life but repeat themselves.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The Monthly Magazine

Life, Music, History, Business

“Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily her own tail? If you could look with her eyes, you might see her surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups and downs of fate, — and meantime it is only puss and her tail. How long before our masquerade will end its noise of tambourines, laughter, and shouting, and we shall find it was a solitary performance?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience

Fate

“…. There was a good deal of drunkenness - … There was lechery, nakedness. It was a warm afternoon,’ he added, as if to excuse the nakedness….
‘I saw the ceremony between the Empress and Gaius Silius and I assumed it was all a game. There was a great deal of laughter and little solemnity. Then the marriage or mock marriage was …. consummated at once and in public. And, in sympathy as it were, the other guests - A great mass of naked bodies. Men and women. Fornication for them. There were boys there too, Ganymedes. ….
‘And when does Gaius Silius think he can strike the blow that will secure him the imperial c -’
I do not think,’ Narcissus said, ‘that Gaius Silius has such an ambition. He is a weak man besotted by the erotic, no more.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Kingdom of the Wicked (1985)

Women, Men, Marriage, Game

“Do not be cross with the child; you cannot afford it. If you are cultivating a plant, developing it into something finer and nobler, you must love it, not hate it; be gentle with it, not abusive; be firm, never harsh. I give the plants upon which I am at work in a test, whether a single one or a hundred thousand, the best possible environment. So should it be with a child, if you want to develop it in right ways. Let the children have music, let them have pictures, let them have laughter, let them have a good time; not an idle time but one full of cheerful occupation. Surround them with all the beautiful things you can. Plants should be given sun and air and the blue sky; give them to your boys and girls. …for all the years. We cannot treat a plant tenderly one day and harshly the next; they cannot stand it. Remember that you are training not only for to-day, but for all the future, for all posterity.”

Luther Burbank (1849–1926) American botanist, horticulturist and pioneer in agricultural science

The Training of the Human Plant (1907)

Love, Hate, Children, Beauty

“The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live. With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland - happy, vigorous, spiritual - that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved. One hundred years ago, the Young Irelanders, by holding up the vision of such an Ireland before the people, inspired and moved them spiritually as our people had hardly been moved since the Golden Age of Irish civilisation. Fifty years later, the founders of the Gaelic League similarly inspired and moved the people of their day. So, later, did the leaders of the Irish Volunteers. We of this time, if we have the will and active enthusiasm, have the opportunity to inspire and move our generation in like manner. We can do so by keeping this thought of a noble future for our country constantly before our eyes, ever seeking in action to bring that future into being, and ever remembering that it is for our nation as a whole that future must be sought.”

Éamon de Valera (1882–1975) 3rd President of Ireland

Radio broadcast http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/eamon-de-valera/719124-address-by-mr-de-valera/, "On Language & the Irish Nation" (17 March 1943), often called "The Ireland that we dreamed of" speech

Life, Wisdom, Men, God

“I find it [science] analytical, pretentious and superficial—largely because it does not address itself to dreams, chance, laughter, feelings, or paradox—in other words,—all the things I love the most.”

Luis Buñuel (1900–1983) film director

Mon Dernier soupir (My Last Sigh, 1983)

Love, Dreams, Feeling, Science

“He took a lie detector test. I had him take a polygraph, which he passed, which forever destroyed my faith in polygraphs”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

laughter Recorded audio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2f13f2awK4, speaking about a man, on trial for raping a 12 year old girl, whom she was appointed to defend. Quoted at Frontpage Mag http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/234515/former-12-year-old-rape-victim-hillary-clinton-daniel-greenfield and ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/06/hillary-clinton-dogged-by-1975-rape-case. Audio recording at: Free Beacon http://freebeacon.com/politics/audio-hillary-clinton-speaks-of-defense-of-child-rapist-in-newly-unearthed-tapes. 1980s

Lie, Faith

“Strange, when you come to think of it, that of all the countless folk who have lived before our time on this planet not one is known in history or in legend as having died of laughter.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

Laughter (1920) And Even Now http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/evnow10.txt (1920)

History, Thinking, Time

“I find the totality of metamorphosis most terrifying when I'm Woyzeck… Suffering through that had as devastating an impact on me as if I hadn't only always suffered as Woyzeck but continue to do so over and over. Malaria of the soul, recurring again and again. My total being is one large breeding ground for the shocks of the world past, present and future. All living and dying, all vibrations pass through me. The entire universe pours into me, rages in me, rampages through and over me. Annihilates me. It comes and goes whenever it likes. It rules me, commands me, envelops me, threatens me, and waits for me everywhere and all the time. It sucks me up, sucks me dry, grows through me. It's in my spinal marrow. In my brain mass. In my blood, in my bones. My muscles. Guts. Genitals. Sperm. Flesh. Eyes. Hearing. Taste. Smell. Balance. Laughter. Tears. In my days and nights. In my thoughts. In my feelings. In my courage and my fear. In my despair and my hope. In my weakness and my strength. Everywhere and all the time.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

On his performance in Woyzeck. p. 315
Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996)

World, Fear, Hope, Feeling

“The pain and laughter of the day are done
So strangely hushed and still the long ward seems,
Only the Sister's candle softly beams.
Clear from the church near by the clock strikes 'one';
And all are wrapt away in secret sleep and dreams.”

Eva Dobell (1876–1963) British poet

Unsourced, Night Duty

Pain, Secret, Dreams, Sister

“I was on this German talk show and this woman said to me, she said, "Mr. Williams, why do you think there's not so much comedy in Germany?" I said, "Did you ever think you killed all the funny people?" [laughter and applause] And…it was…and here's where it got interesting. She didn't bat an eyelash. She just went "No". At that point, even God's going, "Do you get it?!"”

Robin Williams (1951–2014) American actor and stand-up comedian

German comedy: "Knock-knock--We ask the questions!".
Weapons of Self Destruction (2010)

God, People, Question, Thinking

“Beneath all this gaiety and baroque complexity lay the simple and so carefully denied: beyond the thin metal surrounding us was the endless humorless void. Hollow rings the laughter of orphans in the night.”

Norman Spinrad book The Void Captain's Tale

Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 11 (p. 139)

Night

“I hated the devil and was sick with his temptations and tortures; and I could not tell why the voice in his departing words was so sweet that when he returned often and offered himself to me, it was with sorrow I refused him. Then I discovered it was Krishna at His tricks and my hate was changed into laughter.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Bhakti

Hate, Change

“to a young woman suing a former friend for a broken toilet: The toilet broke while she was using it - that doesn't mean that she broke it, and it doesn't mean that she's responsible for it! Toilets break - I had one just break in my apartment last week! Cost me $650 to put in a new toilet! You think I went around to try to find the last person who sat on it? [audience breaks into laughter] Don't be STUPID! GROW UP! That's all.”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STuOR7RE5Oo
Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Dismissing a statement or case

Stupidity, Thinking, Personality

“It is a great adventure to contemplate the universe, beyond man, to contemplate what it would be like without man, as it was in a great part of its long history and as it is in a great majority of places. When this objective view is finally attained, and the mystery and majesty of matter are fully appreciated, to then turn the objective eye back on man viewed as matter, to view life as part of this universal mystery of greatest depth, is to sense an experience which is very rare, and very exciting. It usually ends in laughter and a delight in the futility of trying to understand what this atom in the universe is, this thing — atoms with curiosity — that looks at itself and wonders why it wonders. Well, these scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man's struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.”

Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All

lecture II: "The Uncertainty of Values"
The Meaning of It All (1999)

Life, God, History, Understanding

“Make portraits of people in familiar and typical positions, above all give their faces the same choice of expression one gives their bodies. Thus if laughter is typical for a person, make him laugh – there are, naturally, feelings that one cannot render…”

Edgar Degas (1834–1917) French artist

Quote from Degas' Notebook of 1869; as quoted in Impressionism and Post Impressionism 1874 – 1904, 'Sources and Documents', Linda Nochlin, Englewood Cliffs, New Yersey, 1966, p. 62
1855 - 1875

People, Feeling, Nature, Personality

“… And if you are a man wearing capri pants…? [Laughter] You need to take your guy card out of your wallet and pass it forward. Then… yeah, then, on the way home I want you to buy a tube of Vagasil, a VW convertible, and have your boyfriend drive you the rest of the way home, 'cause you are dismissed.”

Christopher Titus (1964) actor, writer, podcaster

Love is Evol (2009)

Way, Guy, Home

“From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.”

S.J. Perelman (1904–1979) American humorist, author, and screenwriter

Groucho Marx on Perelman’s Dawn Ginsbergh’s Revenge (1928), quoted in Dorothy Herrmann S. J. Perelman: A Life (1986) p. 61.
Criticism

Books, Reading

“If all the wisdom of the world and all its art—all the spoils that it has won from nature, all the fire that it has snatched from heaven—were gathered together and divided into heaps, and we could point and say, for instance, these mighty truths were flashed forth in the brilliant salon amid the ripple of light laughter and the sparkle of bright eyes; and this deep knowledge was dug up in the quiet study, where the bust of Pallas looks serenely down on the leather-scented shelves; and this heap belongs to the crowded street; and that to the daisied field—the heap that would tower up high above the rest as a mountain above hills would be the one at which we should look up and say: this noblest pile of all—these glorious paintings and this wondrous music, these trumpet words, these solemn thoughts, these daring deeds, they were forged and fashioned amid misery and pain in the sordid squalor of the city garret. There, from their eyries, while the world heaved and throbbed below, the kings of men sent forth their eagle thoughts to wing their flight through the ages. There, where the sunlight streaming through the broken panes fell on rotting boards and crumbling walls; there, from their lofty thrones, those rag-clothed Joves have hurled their thunderbolts and shaken, before now, the earth to its foundations.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Wisdom, Men, Pain, Truth

“Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) — neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"The Indian Jugglers" Table Talk: Essays On Men And Manners http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Essays/TableHazIV.htm (1821-1822)

Teachers, Time

“Mr. Pritchard was a businessman, president of a medium-sized corporation. He was never alone. His business was conducted by groups of men like himself who joined together in clubs so that no foreign element or idea could enter. His religious life was again his lodge and his church, both of which were screened and protected. One night a week he played poker with men so exactly like himself that the game was fairly even, and from this fact his group was convinced that they were very fine poker players. Wherever he went he was not one man but a unit in a corporation, a unit in a club, in a lodge, in a church, in a political party. His thoughts and ideas were never subjected to criticism since he willingly associated only with people like himself. He read a newspaper written by and for his group. The books that came into his house were chosen by a committee which deleted material that might irritate him. He hated foreign countries and foreigners because it was difficult to find his counterpart in them. He did not want to stand out from his group. He would like to have risen to the top of it and be admired by it; but it would not occur to him to leave it. At occasional stags where naked girls danced on the tables and sat in great glasses of wine, Mr. Pritchard howled with laughter and drank the wine, but five hundred Mr. Pritchards were there with him.”

John Steinbeck book The Wayward Bus

Source: The Wayward Bus (1947), Ch. 3

Life, Men, Hate, People

“If I tried to imagine the public as a particular person (for although some better individuals momentarily belong to the public they nevertheless have something concrete about them, which holds them in its grip even if they have not attained the supreme religious attitude), I should perhaps think of one of the Roman emperors, a large well-fed figure, suffering from boredom, looking only for the sensual intoxication of laughter, since the divine gift of wit is not earthly enough. And so for a change he wanders about, indolent rather than bad, but with a negative desire to dominate. Every one who has read the classical authors knows how many things a Caesar could try out in order to kill time. In the same way the public keeps a dog to amuse it. That dog is the sum of the literary world. If there is some one superior to the rest, perhaps even a great man, the dog is set on him and the fun begins. The dog goes for him, snapping and tearing at his coat-tails, allowing itself every possible ill-mannered familiarity – until the public tires, and says it may stop. That is an example of how the public levels. Their betters and superiors in strength are mishandled – and the dog remains a dog which even the public despises. The leveling is therefore done by a third party; a non-existent public leveling with the help of a third party which in its significance is less than nothing, being already more than leveled.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

The Present Age 1846 by Søren Kierkegaard, translated by Alexander Dru 1962, p. 65-66
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

World, Dogs, Way, Imagination

“She's a good hearted woman in love with a good timin' man.
She loves him in spite of his ways she don't understand.
With teardrops & laughter they pass through this world hand in hand,
A good hearted woman, lovin' a good timin' man.”

Waylon Jennings (1937–2002) American country music singer, songwriter, and musician

Good Hearted Woman, title track from Good Hearted Woman, written with Willie Nelson (1972).
Song lyrics

Love, World, Way, Understanding

“On my graduation there was a party by the junior students, and I was given a hair brush as a gift — if I take off my hat, you know what I mean.”

Hamid Karzai (1957) President of Afghanistan

laughter Commencement Address to Boston University Class of 2005 http://www.bu.edu/news/2005/05/22/transcript-of-president-hamid-karzais-commencement-address/ (May 22, 2005) 2005

“The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people. I mean, they're a pretty monolithic party. They pretty much, they all behave the same, they all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party. Again, the Democrats abduct everybody you can think of. So, as this gentleman was talking about, it's a coalition, a lot of it independent. The problem is, we gotta make sure that turns into a party, which means this: I've gotta spend time in the communities, and our folks gotta spend time in the communities. I think, we're more welcoming to different folks, because that's the type of people we are. But that's not enough. We do have to deliver on things, particularly on jobs, and housing, and business opportunities and college opportunities, and so fourth. I think, there has been a lot of progress in the last 20-40 years, but the stakes keep changing. I think there's a lot of folks who vote, maybe right now, in the Asian-American communities, who don't wanna vote Democrats, but they're angry with the President on his immigration policy, the Patriot Act. But, what we need to do while this is going on, is develop a really close relationship with the Asian-American community, so later on there's gonna be a benefit, you know, more equal division. There'll be some party loyalty, as people would rememeber that we were there when it really made a difference. That's really what I'm trying to do. If I come in here 8 weeks before the elections, we're not getting anywhere. Asking if you would vote, you're still mad at the lesser of two evils. So that's why I'm here 3.5 years before the elections. We want different kind of people to run for office, too. We want a very diverse group of people running for office, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Latinos. I think Villaraigosa's election in Los Angeles is incredibly important for the Democratic Party. Bush can go out and talk all he wants about "this is the party of opportunity", you know, he can make his appointments, Condi Rice, or, what's this guy's name, Commerce Secretary, Gutierrez. But you can't succeed electorally if you're a person of color in then Republican Party, there're very few people who have succeeded. You can pick some out, JC Watts, I'm trying to think of an Asian-American who's been a success who's a Republican, I can't think of one off the top of my head. You know, there's always a few, but not many. Because this is the party of opportunity for people of color, and for communities of color. And we're hoping to cement that relationship so that'll always be that way. [Q: You've been very tough on the Republicans, some Democrats criticized you over the weeked for doing that, Joe Biden…] I just got off the phone with John Edwards. What happened was, John Edwards was, in a sense, set up by the reporter, "well you know, Governor Dean said this". Well what I said was, the Republican leadership didn't seem to care much about working people. That's essentially the gist of the quote, and, you know, the RNC put out a press release. I don't think there's a lot of difference between me and John Edwards right now, I haven't spoken to Senator Biden, but I'm sure that I will. Today, it's all over the wires that Durbin and Sheila Jackson Lee and all of these folks are coming to my defense. Look, we have to be tough on the Republicans; the Republicans don't represent ordinary Americans, and they don't have any understanding of what it is to have to go out and try to make ends meet. You know, the context of what I was talking about was these long lines that you have to wait in to vote. How could you design a system that sometimes causes people to vote, to stand in line for 6 or 8 hours, if you had any understanding what their lives are like: they gotta pick up the kids, they gotta work, sometimes they have two jobs. So that was the context of the remarks. [crosstalk/laughter] This is one of those flaps that comes up once in awhile when I get tough, but I think we all wanna be tougher on the Republicans.”

Howard Dean (1948) American political activist

Source: Discussion with reporters Portia Li and Carla Marinucci, in San Francisco http://web.archive.org/web/20060427191647/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/07/MNdean07.TMP&o=1, June 6, 2005

People, Hope, Angels, Color

“I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.”

Francis Thompson The Hound of Heaven

St. 1.
The Hound of Heaven (1893)

Way, Tear, Night

“Technological consciousness takes itself dead seriously; it has no sense of humor. The fool can play no role in it, for there is no other realm that is can see beyond itself to which the fool can point. Consciousness in the throes of desire cannot tolerate laughter any more than criticism of laughter can be tolerated in a moment of sexual lust.”

Donald Phillip Verene (1937) philosopher

Source: Philosophy and the Return to Self-Knowledge (1997), p. 169

Fools, Sense, Dead

“Burns's Brother Gilbert, a man of much sense and worth, has told me that Robert, in his young days, in spite of their hardship, was usually the gayest of speech; a fellow of infinite frolic, laughter, sense and heart; far pleasanter to hear there, stript cutting peats in the bog, or such like, than he ever afterwards knew him. I can well believe it. This basis of mirth, a primal element of sunshine and joyfulness, coupled with his other deep and earnest qualities, is one of the most attractive characteristics of Burns. A large fund of Hope dwells in him; spite of his tragical history, he is not a mourning man. He shakes his sorrows gallantly aside; bounds forth victorious over them.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Man of Letters

Hope, History, Sense, Victory

“You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.”

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) English poet, diarist and memoirist

"Suicide in the Trenches"
The Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)

Youth, Home, Hell

“A trembling and some laughter, / a squirt of pee, a spit, / whispers of the heart, / a smell, / the drift to sleep, / pursuit by Gods, / exposure of the bum, / mathematics …”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

"The Schultz Song"
M is for Man, Music, and Mozart

God, Mathematics, Sleep, Heart

“I dream of you too, Mariam jo. I miss you. I miss the sound of your voice, your laughter. I miss reading to you, and all the times we fished together. Do you remember all the times we fished together? You were a good daughter, Mariam jo, and I cannot ever think of you without feeling shame and regret. -Jalil's letter”

Khaled Hosseini book A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007)

Dreams, Feeling, Thinking, Fish

“I have transcended that phase in my intellectual growth where I discover humour in simple freakishness. What exists is real; therefore it is tragic, since wherever lives must die. Only fantasy, the vapours rising from sheer nonsense, can now excite my laughter.”

Jack Vance Lyonesse Trilogy

Source: Lyonesse Trilogy (1983-1989), The Green Pearl (1985), Chapter 5, section 3 (p. 430)

“Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power; that is all.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Tear, Water

“This said, he reached to take his son; who, of his arms afraid,
And then the horse-hair plume, with which he was so overlaid,
Nodded so horribly, he clinged back to his nurse, and cried.
Laughter affected his great sire, who doffed and laid aside
His fearful helm, that on the earth cast round about it light;
Then took and kissed his loving son, and (balancing his weight
In dancing him) these loving vows to living Jove he used,
And all the other bench of Gods: "O you that have infused
Soul to this infant, now set down this blessing on his star:
Let his renown be clear as mine; equal his strength in war."”

George Chapman (1559–1634) English dramatist, poet, and translator

Book VI, line 506, p. 94
The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets (1611)

Love, God, War, Fear

“Pain and penitence forsaking,
Hearts like cloisters dim and grey,
By your laughter lured, awaking
Join with you the dance of day.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

Pain, Heart, Dance

“And I, whose childhood
Is a forgotten boredom,
Feel like a child
Who comes on a scene
Of adult reconciling,
And can understand nothing
But the unusual laughter,
And starts to be happy.”

Philip Larkin book The Less Deceived

Coming
The Less Deceived (1955)

Happiness, Feeling, Understanding, Childhood

“[Lloyd George] saw [Eamon de Valera] again on Friday [15 July]… He (DeV.) insisted that what the people of Ireland wanted was a republic, & asked [Lloyd George] if the name of republic could not be conceded at any rate. [Lloyd George] replied that that was just what they cold not have—that the people of this country would not tolerate it after all that had happened. 'There must be some other word', said [Lloyd George]. 'After all, it is not an Irish word. What is the word for republic in Irish?' 'Poblacht', was DeV.'s reply. 'That merely means "people",' said [Lloyd George]. 'Isn't there another word?' 'Saorstaat', said DeV. 'Very well', said [Lloyd George]. 'Why do you insist upon Republic? Saorstaat is good enough!'”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

[Lloyd George] said that for the first time DeV. simply roared with laughter.
Frances Stevenson's diary entry (18 July 1921), A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George: A Diary (London: Hutchinson, 1971), p. 228.
Prime Minister

People, Time, Country

“1. Laughter is the Wild Body's song of triumph.
2. Laughter is the climax in the tragedy of seeing, hearing and smelling self-consciously.
3. Laughter is the bark of delight of a gregarious animal at the proximity of its kind.
4. Laughter is an independent, tremendously important, and lurid emotion.
5. Laughter is the representative of Tragedy, when Tragedy is away.
6. Laughter is the emotion of tragic delight.
7. Laughter is the female of Tragedy.
8. Laughter is the strong elastic fish, caught in Styx, springing and flapping about until it dies.
9. Laughter is the sudden handshake of mystic violence and the anarchist.
10. Laughter is the mind sneezing.
11. Laughter is the one obvious commotion that is not complex, or in expression dynamic.
12. Laughter does not progress. It is primitive, hard and unchangeable.”

Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957) writer and painter

"Inferior Religions" (1917), cited from Lawrence Rainey (ed.) Modernism: An Anthology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005) pp. 208-9.

Spring, Fish, Strong, Animals

“Can there be joy and laughter When always the world is ablaze? Enshrouded in darkness Should you not seek a light?”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Source: Pali Canon, Sutta Pitaka, Khuddaka Nikaya (Minor Collection), Dhammapada

World, Light, Joy

“Poets have imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into laughter that rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly reverberated among the hills.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) American novelist and short story writer (1804 – 1879)

p, 125
"Ethan Brand" (1850)

Imagination, Heart, Night

“This mortal Don Quixote died and descended into hell, which he entered lance on rest, and freed all the condemned, as he freed the galley slaves, and he shut the gates of hell, and tore down the scroll that Dante saw there and replaced it by one on which was written "Long live hope!" and escorted by those whom he had freed, and they laughing at him, he went to heaven. And God laughed paternally at him, and this divine laughter filled his soul with eternal happiness.”

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher

The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), Conclusion : Don Quixote in the Contemporary European Tragi-Comedy

God, Happiness, Hope, Soul

“Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations.”

Steve Allen (1921–2000) American comedian, actor, musician and writer

Funny People (1981)

Life, Thinking

“New Zealand interviewer: What's it like for you guys, has it been "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll", that stuff?
Josh: Six drugs? There's been more than that!
[All laugh]
Josh: I need to hear that question again, I'm sorry.
Dave Grohl: Why? That was the best answer you could possibly have given!
[Laughter continues]
Josh: I wake up in the middle of stuff, sometimes. 'Cause of my condition, y'know.
New Zealand interviewer: Which is?
Josh: I'm a badass.”

Josh Homme (1973) American musician

Them Crooked Vultures interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zjxJ6MYR1Q, New Zealand (2010)

Sex, Guy, Question

“I simultaneously believe that languages are wonderful and awful. You have to hold both of those. Ugly things can be beautiful. And beautiful can get ugly very fast. You know, take Lisp. You know, it's the most beautiful language in the world. At least up until Haskell came along. (laughter) But, you know, every program in Lisp is just ugly. I don't figure how that works.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

Public Talks, "Present Continuous - Future Perfect"

World, Beauty

“On John Edwards, U. S. Senator from North Carolina: "The stump speech of pretty-boy Senator John Edwards, which I've heard often enough to be able to mouth along with him, has room for everything, including vivid, wrenching portraits of despair: 'Tonight somewhere in America a ten-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm.'”

Mark Steyn (1959) Canadian writer

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be doubled up in laughter at that line. " It's the war, stupid http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0304/steyn030104.asp", 1 March 2004

Hope, Girl, Boy, Heart

“Happy in the time of Jesus were those who wept! Happy, now, are those who can laugh, because laughter is the attribute of man, as the great prophet of the Renaissance, Rabelais, said. Laughter is forbearance; laughter is philosophy. The heavens clear when they laugh, and the great secret of divine omnipotence resides in an eternal smile!”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Book Two: The Royal Mystery or the Art of Subduing the Powers, Chapter V: The Outer Darkness
The Great Secret: or Occultism Unveiled

Happiness, Secret, Smile, Time

“There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow
Just you wait and see.
There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after
Tomorrow
When the world is free.”

Nat Burton (1901–1945)

Song The White Cliffs of Dover

Love, World, Peace, Waiting

“Love is the closest thing to laughter and the closest thing to tears. Love is the motive power of everything in the universe that has beauty in it. Love is the reason for everything and the reward for everything.
It’s always seemed strange to me that we have to use the word love for so many things. And yet when you come to think of it, that’s all right, too, because love is in everything in some form or another. Without it, I imagine the flowers would stop blooming and the sun would stop shining and people would stop laughing, and even the rain wouldn’t fall.
So love is always growth.
I think if I could have just one word for love—it would be understanding.
Love must always be unselfish, and strangely enough, love is the only thing in the world that ever is unselfish. And if it isn’t unselfish, it’s only a counterfeit of love.”

Harold Lloyd (1893–1971) American film actor and producer

"What is Love? Twelve Men of the Screen Give Their Ideas". Photoplay, February 1925, p. 36. (Photoplay Publishing Company). https://archive.org/stream/pho28chic#page/n163/mode/2up

Love, People, World, Beauty

“A man shall not be full of laughter and mockery, nor sad and mournful, but joyful. … His desire shall not be so great that he rushes for wealth, nor shall he be lazy and refrain from working. But he shall live in contentment, have a modest occupation, and be occupied mainly with the Torah.”

Maimónides (1138–1204) rabbi, physician, philosopher

Source: Hilkhot De'ot (Laws Concerning Character Traits), Chapter 2, Section 7, p. 33

Sadness, Wealth

“The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved — cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell — in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

The Great Infidels (1881)

Love, God, Pain, Hate

“The dominant propaganda systems have appropriated the term "globalization" to refer to the specific version of international economic integration that they favor, which privileges the rights of investors and lenders, those of people being incidental. In accord with this usage, those who favor a different form of international integration, which privileges the rights of human beings, become "anti-globalist." This is simply vulgar propaganda, like the term "anti-Soviet" used by the most disgusting commissars to refer to dissidents. It is not only vulgar, but idiotic. Take the World Social Forum, called "anti-globalization" in the propaganda system -- which happens to include the media, the educated classes, etc., with rare exceptions. The WSF is a paradigm example of globalization. It is a gathering of huge numbers of people from all over the world, from just about every corner of life one can think of, apart from the extremely narrow, highly privileged elites who meet at the competing World Economic Forum, and are called "pro-globalization" by the propaganda system. An observer watching this farce from Mars would collapse in hysterical laughter at the antics of the educated classes.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Sniježana Matejčić, June 2005 http://www.galerija-rigo.hr/05/chomsky_en_2.htm. Quotes 2000s, 2005

Life, People, World, Education

“I learned a lot from the stories my uncle, aunts, and grandparents told me: that no one is perfect but most people are good; that people can't be judged only by their worst or weakest moments; that harsh judgements make hypocrites of us all; that a lot of life is just showing up and hanging on; that laughter is often the best, and sometimes only response to pain.”

Bill Clinton My Life

My Life (2004), page 15
2000s

Life, Pain, People, Learning

“Death is another milestone on their way.
With laughter on their lips and with winds blowing round them
They record simply
How this one excelled all others in making driving belts.”

Stephen Spender (1909–1995) English poet and man of letters

"The Funeral" (l. 1–4)

Death, Way

“Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

"Warning to Jokers: Lay off the Prince"
The Illiterate Digest (1924)

“…what would be most extraordinary is this, that anybody who considered the state of the Liberal party then [1896] and now should expect me voluntarily to return to the Liberal party. (Laughter.) I left the Liberal party because I found it impossible to lead it, in the main owing to the divisions to which I referred in my letter. (Hear, hear.) The Liberal party in that respect is no better now, but rather worse; and it would indeed be an extraordinary evolution of mind if, after having left the Liberal party on that ground, I were to announce my intention of voluntarily returning to it in its present condition. No, gentlemen, so far as I am concerned, I must repeat what I have said on that subject in all my speeches, that for the present, at any rate, I must proceed alone. I must plough my furrow alone.”

Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician

Speech to the City Liberal Club (19 July 1901), reported in The Times (20 July 1901), p. 15.

“Now it was all behind him — but by God, he did not, he would not regret it. He had taken the only way, and if it had pleased Fate to sport cruelly with him, that was no fault of his. He had sacrificed one loyalty to a more urgent, and with the thought bitterness went out of his soul. […] Tragedy had ensued, but the endeavour had been honest. He saw the ironic pattern of life spread out beneath him, as a man views a campaign from a mountain, and he came near to laughter — laughter with an undertone of tears.”

John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician

Source: Midwinter (1923), Ch. XVIII

Life, God, Fate, Way

“[On David Cameron] When I heard this inherited multi-million ex-Etonian talking about a culture of entitlement, well, I'm sorry, but my irony meter went through the red and then exploded in a gale of bitter laughter. It actually went "HAA!" I was furious, because I've only just had a new irony metre installed after Rebekah Brooks complained about how she had been unfairly reported by the British press.”

Marcus Brigstocke (1973) comedian

The Now Show

“There Shakespeare, on whose forehead climb
The crowns o’ the world; oh, eyes sublime
With tears and laughter for all time!”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

A Vision of Poets (1844)

World, Tear, Time

“And I know you're frightened
By my laughter
But you're not afraid
To hold my pain
You see I'm never sure
Just what you're after, Babe
But it seems you only love me
When it rains.
How come you only love me when it rains?”

Harry Chapin (1942–1981) American musician

It Seems You Only Love Me When It Rains
Song lyrics, Living Room Suite (1978)

Love, Pain

“It's a nice feeling. I was not like the popular guy in high school. This is revenge for all the bullies in high school [laughter]. It's a great feeling. Maybe women sometimes are more open to romantic music.”

Josh Groban (1981) American musician and actor

Inside Connection, February 2004

Women, School, Music, Guy

“The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

A Handful of Sand on the Shore

Tear

“Although I have always loved the noise of laughter, I really can't fear the coming of quiet. As for funerals, I rather like them. Such nice things are always said about the deceased, I feel sad that they had to miss hearing it all by just a few days.”

Bob Monkhouse (1928–2003) English entertainer

Obituary in The Independent http://web.archive.org/web/20100507114758/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/bob-monkhouse-549171.html

Love, Sadness, Fear, Feeling

“What magic is this” asked one young German thickly.
”Not magic. Science. Preferable to magic.”
“Oh really?” said Sagitta in a freezing tone, and William blushed.
“You yourself have said there are very few people with the talent of magic. Science is open to all.”
“When knowledge ends, only faith remains,” said Armand.
“So we should abandon the pursuit of knowledge lest we diminish faith? That’s stupid,” said William belligerently.
“The simple folk of village and cottage are happier if they’re not confused with things beyond their understanding,” declared Sagitta.
“Sagitta, how do we know it’s beyond their understanding?”

Melinda M. Snodgrass (1951) American writer

“Because if it weren’t they wouldn’t be common,” cried Solms-Braunfels, and there was another shout of laughter from the table.
Source: Queen's Gambit Declined (1989), Chapter 8 (p. 89)

People, Stupidity, Faith, Understanding

“And finally, to my husband, who understands so well the awesome responsibilities resting on the shoulders of President Obama and Vice President Biden and all of us who serve with them. I am so grateful to him for a lifetime of… all kinds of experiences – (audience laughter) – which have given me a – (applause) – which have given me an extraordinary richness that I am absolutely beholden to and grateful for.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Official Swearing-in Ceremony http://web.archive.org/web/20090204230553/http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2009a/02/115841.htm, February 2, 2009 Secretary of State (2009–2013)

Understanding

“Call a truce, then, to our labours let us feast with friends and neighbours,
And be merry as the custom of our caste;
For if “faint and forced the laughter,” and if sadness follow after,
We are richer by one mocking Christmas past.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Christmas in India, Stanza 5.
Departmental Ditties and other Verses (1886)

Sadness, Past, Christmas

“I rejoiced so greatly when I heard of your answer in the case of some who seemed to be filled with extravagant ambition
for the office of legate, and to hope for it with impudence, even more than I can say. And not only I but all who love your name rejoiced with exceeding great joy. Moreover, when I read your letter written in the cause of the Church of Rodez,
then was my mouth filled with laughter and my tongue with joy. Such things as these are worthy of your Apostleship, they honour the highest See, they are just what is becoming to the Bishop of the world. Whence, also, I bow my knees to the Author of your unique Primacy…
In truth, you have been raised to this chair for the fall and rising again of many.”

Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) French abbot, theologian

Bernard to Pope Eugene III, letter 240:1, A.D. 1146, concerning the election of a certain unworthy bishop at the Church of Rodez (see letter 328). In The Life and works of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, John Mabillon, Samuel J. Eales, Volume 2, p. 705

Love, Truth, World, Hope

“The human soul yearns for discovery. By unlocking the mysteries of the universe, we unlock truths within ourselves. That's true. Our journey into space will not only make us stronger and more prosperous, but will unite us behind grand ambitions and bring us all closer together. Wouldn't that be nice? Can you believe that space is going to do that? I thought politics would do that. (Laughter.) Well, we'll have to rely on space instead.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2017, June

Truth, Soul, Universe

“Daybreak comes quickly nowadays
The scent of wind has changed
It seems familiar yet unfamiliar
It makes my heartbeat quicker
It's sweet and sad
We ran along the road to the sea
Screaming with laughter innocently
In the far-away summer days”

Ayumi Hamasaki (1978) Japanese recording artist, lyricist, model, and actress

Fairyland
Lyrics, (Miss)Understood

Sadness, Change, Summer, Sea

“There were mornings in the make-up trailer where I'd have fits of laughter because of the extraordinary daily events of the shoot. Sometimes, it was all too much to believe. But the wildest things happened. And Daniel was a wonderful and trustworthy partner. And a fine prankster as well.”

Madeleine Stowe (1958) American actress

Mohican Press interview (2005)

“The Abbey always reminds me of that old toast, 'Above lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter, as though the dead were there.”

Garrett Fort (1900–1945) screenwriter

On the house Count Dracula has just leased
Dracula (1931)

Dead

“Laughter is a strange response. I mean, what is it? It's a spasm of some kind! Is that always joy? It's very often discomfort. It's some sort of explosive reaction. It's very complex.”

Madeline Kahn (1942–1999) American actress

1989 interview. Reported in William H. Honan, The New York Times (December 4, 1999) "Madeline Kahn: Funny Actress in 'Blazing Saddles'", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p. A-11
Attributed

Joy

“And he (Andy Van Dam) put his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it's such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it's going to limit what you're going to be able to accomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word "you're being a jerk." [laughter] Right? He doesn't say you're a jerk. He says people are perceiving you this way and he says the downside is it's going to limit what you're going to be able to accomplish.”

Randy Pausch book The Last Lecture

The Last Lecture (2008)
Variant: And he put his arm around my shoulders and we went for a little walk and he said, Randy, it’s such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant. Because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish in life. What a hell of a way to word “you’re being a jerk.” [laughter] Right? He doesn’t say you’re a jerk. He says people are perceiving you this way and he says the downside is it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish.

Life, People, Jerk, Way

“Laughter for the soul, and wine for the body.”

François Béroalde de Verville (1556–1626) French writer

Le rire pour l'âme et le vin pour le corps.
Le Moyen de Parvenir (1617).
Unsourced

Soul, Wine

“I met [Meyerbeer] at the performance of my "Battle." Most of the composers then in Vienna were kind enough to undertake something or other in my orchestra, and the young man played the big drum. Ha! ha! ha! (a peal of laughter). I had reason not to be very well satisfied with him. He was always behindhand, and I had to give it him roundly. (New peal of laughter.) He must have felt mortified by my observations; but there is no reliance to be placed in him; he has not the courage to raise his arm at the proper moment.”

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Romantic composer

10th October, 1814
In: Johann Wenzel Tomaschek, "A Talk with Beethoven", The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 33, Beethoven Supplement (Dec. 15, 1892)

Courage

“I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves in drink—oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of course—very shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin. But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means. Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam of riot and stench. Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge back into it again they never live one moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when their baby eyes first look out upon their sordid world to the day when, with an oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill to a single thought, never start to a single hope. In the name of the God of mercy; let them pour the maddening liquor down their throats and feel for one brief moment that they live!”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Love, Life, Women, God

“When I called the Right Hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) a pompous sod, Mr. Speaker said to me, 'You had better withdraw that'. I said I would withdraw 'pompous', but said, Mr. Speaker 'That's not the word I'm looking for.' There was laughter in the House and everyone thought that I had hit the nail on the head. I thought that that was a real parliamentary triumph, but Mr. Speaker thought differently. He said, 'Off you go,' and I did not get a chance to reply.”

Dennis Skinner (1932) British politician

Speech http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199192/cmhansrd/1992-02-28/Debate-1.html in the House of Commons (28 February 1992) 1990s

Chance, Housing

“I told all four [congressional leaders] that I felt like this election happened for a reason; that it pointed out — the delay in the outcome should make it clear to all of us — that we can come together to heal whatever wounds may exist, whatever residuals there may be. And I really look forward to the opportunity. I hope they've got my sense of optimism about the possible, and enthusiasm about the job. I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don't agree with each other, but that's okay. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier… [Bush laughs out loud, audience laughs out loud] …just so long as I'm the dictator”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

more laughter Online NewsHour http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec00/trans_12-18.htm interview, Washington, D.C., (December 18, 2000)' during his first trip to Washington as President-elect. The last sentence is also included in Fahrenheit 9/11. 2000s, 2000

Hope, Optimism, Sense, Time

“I've seen most of Nathan's work, but it was seeing both 'Lisbon Traviata' and 'Laughter on the 23rd Floor' that I realized just what a superb physical comic he was.”

Nathan Lane (1956) American actor

Mike Nichols — reported in Kenneth M. Chanko, Entertainment News Wire (March 11, 1996) "Dragged Into The Limelight", Press-Telegram, p. D1.
About

“Laughter is a mental mechanism which enables us to face reality without falling into despondency or delusion. As people who have sunk in apathy seldom bother us by rushing into print, delusion (leaving aside deceit) constitutes the chief obstacle to the progress of our understanding of society, and in this context is usually assumes the form of doctrinairism couched in a mystifying jargon. A sense of humour is the most reliable external indicator of the likelihood of immunity from this folly, and of the ability to appraise social situations realistically.”

Stanislav Andreski (1919–2007) Polish-British sociologist

Social Sciences as Sorcery (1972)

People, Understanding, Reality, Sense

“O Soul go not to the West
Where level wastes of sand stretch on and on;
And demons rage, swine-headed, hairy-skinned,
With bulging eyes;
Who in wild laughter gnash projecting fangs.
O Soul go not to the West
Where many perils wait!”

Qu Yuan (-343–-278 BC) ancient Chinese poet

Source: "The Great Summons" (trans. Arthur Waley), Lines 27–33

Soul, Swine, Rage, Waiting

“MODERATOR 1: Okay. Which designers do you prefer?
SECRETARY CLINTON: What designers of clothes?
MODERATOR 1: Yes.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Would you ever ask a man that question? [Laughter, applause]
MODERATOR 1: Probably not. Probably not. [Applause]”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Townterview Hosted by KTR http://web.archive.org/web/20101204161545/http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/12/152294.htm, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State. KTR Studio, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (December 2, 2010) Secretary of State (2009–2013)

Question, Clothes

“I'd like for them to say he took a few cups of love, he took one tablespoon of patience, teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness. He took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern, and then, he mix willlingness with happiness, he added lots of faith, and he stired it up well, then he spreads it over his span of a lifetime, and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

Response to George Plimpton, question at the end of an interview: "What would you like people to think about you when you've gone?" - Interview (video) http://youtube.com/watch?v=ebu0OBa1pus

Love, Happiness, Faith, Personality