“A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.”
Essays and reviews, Clive James On Television (1991)
Source: The Laundry Files, The Fuller Memorandum (2010), Chapter 12, “Countermeasures” (p. 211)
“If man had more of a sense of humor, things might have turned out differently.”
Source: Solaris (1961), Ch. 12: "The Dreams", p. 184
EmBi describing Pastor Jón
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)
The Atheist's Guide to Reality (2011)
Context: There is, however, a much more convincing argument that needs to be put on the table before we really begin turning common sense upside down. It is the overwhelming reason to prefer science to ordinary beliefs, common sense, and direct experience. Science is just common sense continually improving itself, rebuilding itself, until it is no longer recognizable as common sense. It is easy to miss this fact about science without studying a lot of history of science—and not the stories about science, but the succession of actual scientific theories and how common sense was both their mother and their midwife.
“Life is nothing without a good sense of humor.”
Books, Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste (1981)
“A sense of humor—bitter or otherwise—is the hallmark of a survivor.”
Source: Fire with Fire (2013), Chapter 14 (p. 185)
