“One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
The Silver Pigs
“One should never use exclamation points in writing. It is like laughing at your own joke.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
John Brunner book Stand on Zanzibar
context (16) "Mr. & Mrs. Everywhere: Calypso (stanzas 2, 5, and 7) <!-- [Italics in source] -->
Stand on Zanzibar (1968)
Context: Watching their sets in a kind of trance
were people in Mexico, people in France.
They don't chase Jones but the dreams are the same —
Mr. and Mrs. Everywhere, that's the right name!
Herr und Frau Uberall or les Partout,
A gadget on the set makes them look like you. When the Everywhere couple crack a joke
It's laughed at by all right-thinking folk.
When the Everywhere couple adopt a pose
It's the with-it view as everyone knows.
It may be a rumor or it may be true
But a gadget on the set has it said by you! "What do you think about Yatakang?"
"I think the same as the Everywhere gang."
"What do you think of Beninia then?"
"The Everywheres will tell me but I don't know when."
Whatever my country and whatever my name
A gadget on the set makes me think the same.
“He who laughs last may be the joke.”
Ron English (1959) American artist
Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)
“A monster, which the Blatant beast men call,
A dreadfull feend of gods and men ydrad.”
Edmund Spenser The Faerie Queene
Canto 12, stanza 37
The Faerie Queene (1589–1596), Book V
“A joke can only get laughs for one reason because it resonates.”
Yang Li (1992) Chinese stand-up comedian
Source: "She Mocked Men’s Bluster. Then Came the Complaints." in The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/asia/male-confidence-comedian-china.html (30 December 2020)
“He who jokes in the executioners face can be destroyed, but never defeated.”
Tom Robbins book Wild Ducks Flying Backward
Source: Wild Ducks Flying Backward
“Cut out all these exclamation points. An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter
“A man who has no consideration for the needs of his men ought never to be given command.”
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)