“Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke.”

—  Steve Martin

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke." by Steve Martin?
Steve Martin photo
Steve Martin 81
American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and… 1945

Related quotes

Roger Ebert photo

“We can laugh at comedies like this for two reasons: Because we feel superior to the characters, or because we pity or like them. I do not much like laughing down at people, which is why the comedies of Adam Sandler make me squirmy (most people, I know, laugh because they like him). In the case of Napoleon Dynamite, I certainly don't like him, but then the movie makes no attempt to make him likable. Truth is, it doesn't even try to be a comedy. It tells his story and we are supposed to laugh because we find humor the movie pretends it doesn't know about.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/napoleon-dynamite-2004 of Napoleon Dynamite (18 June 2004)
Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Laurie Halse Anderson photo

“The stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking/stuffing/puking didn't make her skinny, it made her cry.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Wintergirls

Source: Wintergirls

“Make them laugh, make them cry, or make them angry.”

Paul Dacre (1948) English journalist

Dacre's description of the best way to write for readers My Life in [the] Media: Des Kelly, The Independent, 12 December 2005 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/des-kelly-my-life-in-media-519169.html,

Will Rogers photo

“An onion can make people cry, but there has never been a vegetable invented to make them laugh.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

As quoted in You Must Remember This (1975) by Walter Wagner, p. 175
As quoted in ...

Mary Pickford photo

“Make them laugh, make them cry, and back to laughter. What do people go to the theater for? An emotional exercise. And no preachment.”

Mary Pickford (1892–1979) Canadian-American actress

Kevin Brownlow, The Parade's Gone By ... (1968), p. 134

Tina Fey photo

“If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.”

Tina Fey (1970) American comedian, writer, producer and actress

On Comedy
Source: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2003/11/03/anchor-woman

Samuel Goldwyn photo

“Our comedies are not to be laughed at.”

Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) American film producer (1879-1974).

Reported in Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It (1990), p. 38-39.
Misattributed

Matt Haig photo

“Everyone is a comedy. If people are laughing at you, they just don't quite understand the joke that is themselves.”

Matt Haig (1975) British writer

Source: The Humans

George Bernard Shaw photo

“If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Credited to Shaw in the lead in to the mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) and other recent works, but this or slight variants of it are also sometimes attributed to W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, and Oscar Wilde. It might possibly be derived from Shaw's statement in John Bull's Other Island (1907): "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."
Another possibility is that it is derived from Shaw's characteristic of Mark Twain: "He has to put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang him believe he is joking."
Variants:
If you are going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
Disputed

Related topics