Quotes about humor
page 2

“A life that partakes even a little of friendship, love, irony, humor, parenthood, literature, and music, and the chance to take part in battles for the liberation of others cannot be called 'meaningless'…”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Love, Life, Friendship, Music

“It's hard not to immediately fall in love witha dog who has a good sense of humor.”

Kate DiCamillo book Because of Winn-Dixie

Source: Because of Winn-Dixie

Love, Dogs, Sense

“Women don't have a sense of humor. They don't need one. The Almighty made them as a permanent joke on men. From which one may logically deduce tha the Almighty is a female.”

Loretta Chase book Lord of Scoundrels

Source: Lord of Scoundrels

Women, Men, Sense

“I find the humor in life, and laugh easily”

Doreen Virtue (1958) American writer

Life

“People love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can't do math. And they will readily admit to being awkward: 'I'm such a klutz!' But they will never admit to having a poor sense of humor or being a bad driver.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Love, People, Sense

“and he would probably not agree with my conviction that a sense of humor is the main measure of sanity. But who can say for sure? Humor is a very private thing.”

Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Source: Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Sense

“If you look at it from any other side, it looks like a pile of enormous deer droppings, but Chiron wouldn't let us call the place the Poop Pile, especially after it had been named for Zeus, who doesn't have much of a sense of humor.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

Sense

“For me hotness was a complicated matter involving brains, humor, and some other things, but all that aside, I was willing to admit Sean Evans was nice to look at.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Clean Sweep

“There is hope for the future because God has a sense of humor and we are funny to God.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

God, Hope, Sense, Future

“Humor is a universal lanuage.”

Joel Goodman American film composer, music business entrepreneur and educator.

Universe

“A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Sense, Dance, Funny

“A lesson taught with humor is a lesson retained.”

Ruth Westheimer (1928) American sex therapist

“He's got a great sense of humor for a guy who never says anything.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Source: City of Bones

Guy, Sense

“Rats have a sense of humor. Rats, in fact think the world is very funny. And they are right, dear reader. They are right.”

Kate DiCamillo book The Tale of Despereaux

Source: The Tale of Despereaux

World, Thinking, Sense

“It stands to reason that anyone who learns to live well will die well. The skills are the same: being present in the moment, and humble, and brave, and keeping a sense of humor. (361)”

Victoria Moran (1950) American writer

Source: Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

Sense, Learning

“You can get away with saying much more with humor than you can with a straight face”

Sherry Argov (1977) American writer

Source: Why Men Love Bitches: From Doormat to Dreamgirl—A Woman's Guide to Holding Her Own in a Relationship

“One loses everything when one loses one's sense of humor.”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Sense

“Humor is an excellent method of keeping a tight rein on unproductive displays of emotion.”

Elizabeth Peters The Hippopotamus Pool

Source: The Hippopotamus Pool

“Humor is our way of defending ourselves from life's absurdities by thinking absurdly about them.”

Lewis Mumford (1895–1990) American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic

Life, Way, Thinking

“Did the Order return your sense of humor as part of the severance package?”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

Sense, Parting

“A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) American general and politician, 34th president of the United States (in office from 1953 to 1961)

People, Art, Sense, Parting

“I fight with love, and I laugh with rage.
You've gotta live light enough to see the humor,
And long enough to see some change.”

Ani DiFranco (1970) musician and activist

Pick Yer Nose
Song lyrics

Love, Light, Rage, Change

“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Men

“The trick… is to find the balance between the bright colors of humor and the serious issues of identity, self-loathing, and the possibility for intimacy and love when it seems no longer possible or, sadder yet, no longer necessary.”

Wendy Wasserstein (1950–2006) American playwright

Love, Color

“Don't wish me happiness — I don't expect to be happy; it's gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor — I will need them all.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh book Gift from the Sea

Letter to Corliss Lamont on her engagement (1928)
Bring Me a Unicorn (1971)
Source: Gift from the Sea

Happiness, Courage, Sense

“I am not at all in a humor for writing; I must write on till I am.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

“What really holds their marriage together are mutual respect of an awesome depth, a shared sense of humor, faith that they were brought together by a force greater than themselves, and a love so unwavering and pure that it is sacred.”

Dean Koontz book Forever Odd

Source: Forever Odd

Love, Marriage, Faith, Sense

“I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life’s essential absurdity.”

Stephen King book 11/22/63

Source: 11/22/63

Life, Beauty, Sense

“Humor was the enemy of desire.”

Arthur C. Clarke book 2010: Odyssey Two

Source: 2010: Odyssey Two

“Nor would anybody suspect. If was one thing all people took for granted, was conviction that if you feed honest figures into a computer, honest figures come out. Never doubted it myself till I met a computer with a sense of humor.”

Robert A. Heinlein book The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

People, Sense

“Few people know how to take a walk. The qualifications are endurance, plain clothes, old shoes, an eye for nature, good humor, vast curiosity, good speech, good silence and nothing too much.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

People, Shoe, Nature, Silence

“But he won’t let the pain blot out the humor no more’n he’ll let the humor blot out the pain.”

Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Pain

“Laughing stock: cattle with a sense of humor.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Sense

“Your humor is your compass and your shield. You can hone it into a weapon or you can pull its strands out to make your very own cotton-candy blanket. You can’t exist on a diet of humor alone, but you can’t exist on a diet without it, either.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

“Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humor, giving you the thing you always wanted at the worst time possible.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Life, Sense, Time, Heartbreaking

“It's like geographical humor. You just don't get it unless you were there.”

Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer

Source: Saving Francesca

“If you appeal to the crowd, either by being humorous or brutal or eccentric, you gain favor.”

Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games

Source: The Hunger Games

“I forgot," Isabelle muttered as the rest of them caught up to her. "Faeries have no sense of humor."
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Jace. "There's a pixie nightclub downtown called Hot Wings. Not," he added, "that I have ever been there.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Ashes

Source: City of Ashes

Sense

“Humor and paradox are often the only ways to respond to life's sorrow with grace.”

Matthew Fox (1966) American actor

Life, Way

“You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Pain, Laughter

“You know, Ham," Breeze noted. "The only funny thing about your jokes is how often they lack any humor whatsoever.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Well of Ascension

“Reality - Dreams = Animal Being
Reality + Dreams = A Heart-Ache (usually called Idealism)
Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism)
Dreams - Humor = Fanaticism
Dreams + Humor = Fantasy
Reality + Dreams + Humor = Wisdom”

Lin Yutang book The Importance of Living

Source: The Importance of Living

Wisdom, Dreams, Reality, Heart

“Everyone says that I have no sense of humor, then I construct a perfectly sound pun around a well-known psychological condition, and it is ignored.”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Lost Colony

Sense

“There are two insults which no human being will endure: The assertion that he hasn't a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.”

Sinclair Lewis book Main Street

Main Street (1920)

Sense

“If I sit for a while, then my impatience, crossness, frustration, are indeed annihilated, and my sense of humor returns.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Sense

“I have a black sense of humor. You try living my life, see what color yours turns.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Dreamfever

Life, Color, Sense

“When humor goes, there goes civilization.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

“There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Pain, Laughter, Hurt, Heartbreaking

“Humor is also a way of saying something serious.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Way

“It was hidden inside another book. One Valentine was unlikely to ever open." Magnus smiled crookedly. "Simple Recipes for Housewives. No one can say your mother didn't have a sense of humor.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Glass

Source: City of Glass

Books, Smile, Sense

“Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

"A Note on Humor", from The Book of Negro Humor https://books.google.com/books?id=60FkAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22Humor+is+laughing+at+what+you+haven%27t+got+when+you+ought+to+have+it.%22, p. vii (1966)

“Humor was an antiseptic that cleaned the deepest of personal wounds.”

Sherman Alexie book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Source: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven

Personality

“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

People, Truth, Feeling

“A word says more than a thousand images. Exercises for the visually inclined: illustrate "appreciation", "humor", "software", "education", "inalienable rights", "elegance", "fact."”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: Emacs inferior to XEmacs? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.programmer/msg/716a6bf5d03226a1 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Education, Exercises

“Philosophy and theology have no effect on him, much less plain common sense. Impossible to convince this man by arguments. But humor he always listens to, even though it be ill humor. A typical Icelander, perhaps.”

Halldór Laxness book Kristnihald undir Jökli (bók)

EmBi describing Pastor Jón
Kristnihald undir Jökli (Under the Glacier/Christianity at Glacier) (1968)

Sense

““Still feeling guilty, are we? I’d have thought you’d be over that by now.”
“I have a nettlesome little thing called a conscience,” Emily hissed. “Ever hear of it?”
“They’re out of fashion in New York,” Stanton said, and though she guessed she was joking, he didn’t sound humorous.”

M. K. Hobson book The Native Star

Source: The Native Star (2010), Chapter 5, “The Aberrancy” (p. 74)

Feeling, Fashion

“It is impossible to understand the American public without taking into account the tremendous psychological effect of bringing up a generation of people in a daily environment of advertising. It is impossible to escape the advertising man; his sales talk assaults us in the morning newspaper, in the street car, with billboards along the highways, and in his shameless use of the radio. This means that from morning till night, in the midst of our work as in our recreation, we live constantly in an atmosphere of intellectual shoddiness. Every popular prejudice and vulgar conceit is played upon and pandered to in the interests of salesmanship. Everywhere material interests and herd opinion are strengthened to the loss of personal independence. The tendency is to think and speak for effect rather than out of one's inner life. There is a marked decline the ability to play with ideas, or to live the spiritual life for its own sake. Hence a decline in civilization of interest, humor and urbanity. Advertising tends to make mechanized barbarians of us all.”

Everett Dean Martin (1880–1941)

Source: The Conflict of the Individual and the Mass in the Modern World (1932), pp. 29-30

Life, People, Cars, Idea

“I missed the enormously popular movie that introduced these characters, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and felt myself blessed at the time. But now I'm not so sure. Their Bogus Journey is a riot of visual invention and weird humor that works on its chosen sub-moronic level, and on several others as well, including some fairly sophisticated ones. It's the kind of movie where you start out snickering in spite of yourself, and end up actually admiring the originality that went into creating this hallucinatory slapstick.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/bill-and-teds-bogus-journey of Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (19 July 1991) Reviews, Three star reviews

Time

“Until the age of twelve, then, I only lived on bread, milk-food, vegetables, and fruit. My health was not less robust on this account, nor my growth less rapid, and it was to this diet, perhaps, that I was indebted for that purity of feature, that exquisite sensibility of feeling, and that serene gentleness of humor and character which I had preserved up to that period.”

Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French writer, poet, and politician

Book IV, Note VIII, p. 61
Les confidences (1849)

Health, Age, Food, Feeling

“Sanya, Knight of the Cross: There is, I think, humor here which does not translate well from English into sanity.”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 33

Thinking

“Humor could not flourish in a wholly serious and rational atmosphere.”

Raymond Smullyan (1919–2017) American mathematician

Planet Without Laughter (1980)

“I had used my sense of humor; I had called it proportion, perspective. But perspective is distance.”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part X, ch. 51 (Sylvia Barrett)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Sense

“How many talks have you sat through where the researcher qua [as] person just didn't show up: no anecdotes, no personal details, no emotion or enthusiasm, no humor (intentional, that is), no real contact with the audience – in other words, no performance. […] They may satisfy the second two requirements mentioned above – accuracy and nonadvocacy – but they fail in the first and, in some ways, the most important.”

Scott L. Montgomery (1951) American geologist and writer

The Chicago Guide to Communicating Science, second edition, University of Chicago press, 2017, page 302 ISBN 978-0-226-14450-4.

Way, Personality

“Humor — it helps to make the vibe better — it loosens up the vibrations.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

OffBeat interview (2005)

Help

“If you think about it, being digital is Italian. It's underground, provocative, interactive. It has humor, discourse, and debate. It has a kind of liveliness to it.”

Nicholas Negroponte (1943) American computer scientist

Being Nicholas, The Wired Interview by Thomas A. Bass http://archives.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/nn/bd1101bn.htm

Thinking

“And there is another feeling, one which he shares with most of humankind. He knows he's screwed up his life, or something has twisted it. Every thinking man and woman knows this. Even the smug and dimwitted realize this unconsciously. But a baby, that beautiful being, that unsmirched blank tablet, unformed angel], represents a new [[hope. Perhaps it won't screw up. Perhaps it'll grow up to be a healthy confident reasonable good-humored unselfish loving man or woman. 'It won't be like me or my next-door neighbor,' the proud, but apprehensive, parent swears.”

Philip José Farmer book Riders of the Purple Wage

Of Chib
Riders of the Purple Wage (1967)

Love, Life, Beauty, Hope

“Humor is a conformity enforcer clothed in the garb of congeniality. It focuses on others' weaknesses, disasters, stupiidities, and abnormalities.”

Howard Bloom (1943) American publicist and author

Source: Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century (2000), Ch.9 The Conformity Police

Clothes

“The lone wolf who knows no peace, these victims of unceasing pain to whom the urge for tragedy has been denied and who can never break through the starry space, who feel themselves summoned thither and yet cannot survive in its atmosphere-for them is reserved, provided suffering has made their spirits rough and elastic enough, a way of reconcilement and an escape into humor. Humor has always something bourgeois in it, although the true bourgeois in capable of understanding it.”

Hermann Hesse book Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf (1927)

Pain, Peace, Way, Feeling

“For people like us it is necessary to be a bit stronger, more self-critical, more observant than the usual run. Whether we happen to come already enhanced with these qualities, as some have claimed, or whether our situation invests them in us, we have traditionally - and we do have a long and proud tradition - been a little finer, a little firmer, more sensitive and flexible than others… There will be times when only your own spine can support you, moments when only your own wit can inspire you, days when nothing but exacting self-control can raise you from bed, nights when nothing but your word can impel you into society. But of all these disciplines, there is nothing you must hold to more sternly than to be kind and sympathetic. The easiest armor to put on is always cruelty. That armor will, indeed, see you through everything. Vicious condescension toward those without your strength can make you feel momentarily superior. But that easy armor must be forgone. Don't ever curdle that creamy brow with lines of easy disdain, or curl those lips with a popular sneer. Of all the models available, the one of gentleman in our late war is most succinct: Face what you have to face with humor, dignity, and style; protect yourself with knightly grace; have contempt for your own weakness and never encourage it in others; but never, Ralph, never for an instant permit yourself to feel anything other than pity and deepest sympathy for unfortunate comrades who have, after all, fallen in the same battle.”

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

One of Those People
Untold Decades: Seven Comedies of Gay Romance (1988)

War, People, Feeling, Support

“I hope humor is a part of your life, too. It takes a positive attitude and a strong desire to enjoy life to see the humor around us, but having a little laughter sprinkled throughout your day is a great way to live.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 44. On Keeping a Sense of Humor

Life, Hope, Way, Laughter

“A dissertation on the rights of man in a state of nature. He asserted that every man, merely natural, was an independent sovereign, subject to no law, but the law written on his heart, and revealed to him by his Maker in the constitution of his nature and the inspiration of his understanding and his conscience. His right to his life, his liberty, no created being could rightfully contest. Nor was his right to his property less incontestable. The club that he had snapped from a tree, for a staff or for defence, was his own. His bow and arrow were his own; if by a pebble he had killed a partridge or a squirrel, it was his own. No creature, man or beast, had a right to take it from him. If he had taken an eel, or a smelt, or a sculpion, it was his property. In short, he sported upon this topic with so much wit and humor, and at the same time so much indisputable truth and reason, that he was not less entertaining than instructive. He asserted that these rights were inherent and inalienable. That they never could be surrendered or alienated but by idiots or madmen, and all the acts of idiots and lunatics were void, and not obligatory by all the laws of God and man.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1810s, Letter to William Tudor (1818)

Life, God, Truth, Law

“Raised an Army brat in a constantly changing scene, Kitsy has always been at ease in any company. While she enjoys formal affairs, she has such an air of informality that in her corner of the room ritual is soon dispensed with. Kitsy was much impressed with the wives of Vietnamese officials. If the Vietnamese men, she liked to say, were half as strong as their women, the country would have no problem. She enjoyed their sense of humor, their propensity for earthly jokes. When she had difficulty deciphering the mixture of languages and getting to the point, one or another of the ladies would take her aside and explain. Kitsy shares some of my lack of affinity for foreign languages; her attempts at French drew the same wry smiles as my attempts at Vietnamese. Kitsy's sense of humor has brightened many an occasion. At a ceremony unveiling my official superintendent's portrait at West Point, the master of ceremonies asked her to say a few words. "This is the second time I have seen Westy unveiled," said Kitsy. "The first time was on our wedding night."”

William Westmoreland book A Soldier Reports

Source: A Soldier Reports (1976), p. 263.

Women, Men, Smile, Problem

“I liked Charentz straight off, but more important than this was the feeling that I had that he was a truly great man. Human greatness is a rather difficult thing to account for, and more often than not one is mistaken in one's hunches about somebody one has met. Charentz seemed great to me, I think, because he was made of a mixture of proud virtues and amusing flaws. On the one hand, his independence of spirit was balanced by a humorous worldliness, his acute intelligence by a curiosity that frequently made him seem naive, his profoundly gentle manners by a kind of mocking mischievousness which might easily be mistaken for rudeness. But he was never rude, he was witty, and the purpose of his wit was to keep himself from the terrible condition of pomposity.”

William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer

On Armenian poet Yegishe Charentz, whom Saroyan met in Moscow in June, 1935.
I Used to Believe I Had Forever — Now I'm Not So Sure (1968)

Feeling, Intelligence, Thinking

“Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 115 (12 July 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Secret, Exercises, Soul, Nature

“Be strong, believe in freedom and in God, love yourself, understand your sexuality, have a sense of humor, masturbate, don't judge people by their religion, color or sexual habits, love life and your family.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

From The Great Rock 'N' Roll Quote Book http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/madonna_2.htm.

Love, Life, God, People

“The Pink Panther is supposed to use humor to uplift. Instead, I departed this movie feeling depressed. Lifeless comedies can suck the energy out of a viewer, especially when they sully the image of an cinematic icon.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=810 of The Pink Panther (2006). One-star reviews

Feeling

“The Class of 1858, to which Henry Adams belonged, was a typical collection of young New Englanders, quietly penetrating and aggressively commonplace; free from meannesses, jealousies, intrigues, enthusiasms, and passions; not exceptionally quick; not consciously skeptical; singularly indifferent to display, artifice, florid expression, but not hostile to it when it amused them; distrustful of themselves, but little disposed to trust any one else; with not much humor of their own, but full of readiness to enjoy the humor of others; negative to a degree that in the long run became positive and triumphant. Not harsh in manners or judgment, rather liberal and open-minded, they were still as a body the most formidable critics one would care to meet, in a long life exposed to criticism.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

Life, Hostility, Jealousy, Passion

“Cynics and physics students put it like this:
:1. You can't win.
:2. You can't break even.
:3. You can't get out of the game.
:* Presenting a standard humorous summary of the three principal laws of thermodynamics in Lonely Hearts of the Cosmos : The Scientific Quest for the Secret of the Universe (1991), p. 106”

Dennis Overbye (1944) American writer

Secret, Law, Game, Universe

“So the Free Man is Free. Absolutely Free. Not just a little bit free. Not cut off from all of this. That's not the nature of His Freedom—humorlessness relative to the world still, non-pleasure still. No, in His Freedom He becomes capable of humor in life, capable of pleasure, or enjoyment, in the forms that are arising. That is the fullness of God-Realization. All of the humorless, pleasureless forms of experience that are often associated with God-Realization in the traditions are not God-Realization in Truth.”

Adi Da Samraj (1939–2008) American writer

Sex, Laughter, and Real-God-Realization 1975

http://www.fearnomorezoo.org/literature/slg.php

Life, God, Pleasure, Truth

“I haven't tried to picture this war in a big, broad-minded way. I'm not old enough to understand what it's all about, and I'm not experienced enough to judge its failures and successes. My reactions are those of a young guy who has been exposed to some of it, and I try to put those reactions in my drawings. Since I'm a cartoonist maybe I can be funny after the war, but nobody who has seen this war can be cute about it while it's going on. The only way I can try to be a little funny is to make something out of the humorous situations which come up even when you don't think life could be any more miserable.”

Bill Mauldin (1921–2003) American editorial cartoonist

Up Front (1945)

Life, War, Way, Guy

“Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

"Some Remarks on Humor," preface to A Subtreasury of American Humor (1941)
A very similar remark is often attributed to White, but may actually be a paraphrased version of the above statement: "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it."

“Probably it is only in free countries, however, that a humorous regard for corruption is possible. In the totalitarian countries, corrupt from top to bottom, nobody is laughing because nothing is laughable. There is no difference between what things are and what things ought to be, since what things ought to be no longer exists even as a standard.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'The Weld This Week'
Essays and reviews, The Crystal Bucket (1982)

Country

“In this business one becomes a connoisseur. I can now see that [Jim] Carrey is a virtuoso, [Chris] Farley is at least hard-working, [Adam] Sandler is hopeless and Pauly Shore bypasses all categories to achieve a kind of transcendent fingernails-on-the-blackboard effect. His appeal must be limited to people whose self-esteem and social skills are so damaged that they find humor, or at least relief, in at last encountering a movie character less successful than themselves.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/jury-duty-1995 of Jury Duty (12 April 1995) Reviews, One-star reviews

People, Business, Success

“Mr. Soame Jenyns, a writer of verse and member of the Board of Trade… In twenty three very small pages he had disposed of the "Objections to the Taxation of Our American Colonies" in a manner highly satisfactory to himself and doubtless also to the average reading Briton, who understood constitutional questions best when they were "briefly considered," and when they were humorously expounded in pamphlets that could be had for sixpence…. The heart of the question was the proposition that there should be no taxation without representation; upon which principle it was necessary to observe only that many individuals in England, such as copyholders and leaseholders, and many communities, such as Manchester and Birmingham, were taxed in Parliament without being represented there. "… are they only Englishmen when they solicit protection, but not Englishmen when taxes are required to enable this country to protect them?" As for "liberty," the word had so many meanings, "having within a few years been used as a synonymous term for Blasphemy, Bawdy, Treason, Libels, Strong Beer, and Cyder," that Mr. Jenyns could not presume to say what it meant.”

Carl L. Becker (1873–1945) American historian

The Eve of the Revolution (1918)

Communication, Beer, Question, Strong

“USA Today doesn't like my "tone," humor, sarcasm, etc. etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them in the first place. Perhaps they thought they were getting Catherine Coulter.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

As quoted in "Banned In Boston: Too Hot for USA Today" in Human Events (26 July 2004) http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=4646. 2004

Question

“Humor is a marvelous communications tool, as Reagan has demonstrated so well. He has weathered many a storm that others might not have. With Reagan, people just say, 'There he goes again.' A sense of humor allows a president to back off a little from the tensions of the moment and take a calmer view of things.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Phil Gailey (June 12, 1988) "Presidential politics should be more of a laughing matter", St. Petersburg Times, p. 5D.

People, Communication, Sense, Weather

“My sense of humor is the raunchier, inappropriate kind. It's so much funnier than the quirky stuff.”

Katherine Heigl (1978) American actress and film producer

InStyle magazine (2009)

Sense

“Look, if you like the freedom to play violent video games, watch internet porn, and grow weed in your house without police using thermal energy to bust you, you owe a debt to Antonin Scalia. You also probably work on my staff. Whether you loved or hated his narrow literalism about a document written before machine guns and gay people were invented, Scalia was by all accounts a nice guy with a wicked sense of humor. People liked him. … Good people do have bad ideas.”

Samantha Bee (1969) Canadian comedic actress and author

Full Frontal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bvl6spBVEc, February 15, 2016

Love, Hate, People, Guy

“England is the paradise of individuality, eccentricity, heresy, anomalies, hobbies, and humors.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

"The British Character"
Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies (1922)

“Were I to prescribe a rule for drinking, it should be formed upon a saying quoted by Sir William Temple: the first glass for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the fourth for mine enemies.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

No. 195 (13 October 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)

Quotes, Drink

“According as the man is, so must you humor him.”

Terence Adelphoe

Act III, scene 3, line 77 (431).
Adelphoe (The Brothers)

“Accept that you're a pimple and try to keep a lively sense of humor about it. That way lies grace — and maybe even glory.”

Tom Robbins Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000)

Way, Sense

“There's a crisis of ideas in art, which is felt by many, many people. Not only in art: in social thinking, in politics. That's one of the other things about this poll, one of the attempts to get out of this, by some maybe funny means — humor helps — because we really don't know where to go. and what our next step has to be.
Artists now.”

Alexander Melamid (1945) Russian artist

Vitaly Komar, ‎Aleksandr Melamid, ‎JoAnn Wypijewski (1997). Painting by Numbers: Komar and Melamid's Scientific Guide to Art p. 16

People, Art, Idea, Thinking

“Abstract reason, formerly the servant of practical human reasons, has everywhere become its master, and denies poetry any excuse for existence.
Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves. Of never acquiescing in a fraud; of never accepting the secondary-rate in poetry, painting, music, love, friends. Of safeguarding our poetic institutions against the encroachments of mechanized, insensate, inhumane, abstract rationality.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"The Case for Xanthippe" in The Crane Bag (1969).
General sources

Love, Music, Way, Fraud

“Humor bridges the weight of serious reflection.”

Lorin Morgan-Richards (1975) American poet, cartoonist, and children's writer

interview with Lorin Morgan-Richards by Rose Traul of Columbia College Chicago (22 January 2013).

“Lorn stared at Tool. “Was that an attempt at humor?” she asked.
The T’lan Imass adjusted his helmet. “That depends on your mood, Adjunct.””

Steven Erikson book Gardens of the Moon

Source: Gardens of the Moon (1999), Chapter 10 (p. 325)

Mood, Dependency

“Arrive at the net with the puck and in ill humor.”

Fred Shero (1925–1990) Former ice hockey player and coach

Liebman, Glenn, Hockey Shorts: 1,001 of the games funniest one liners

“Is it the being tied to One that offends us? Why this ought rather to recommend it to us, and would really do so, were we guided by reason, and not by humor and brutish passion. He who does not make friendship the chief inducement of his choice, and prefer it before any other consideration does not deserve a good wife, and therefore should not complain if he goes without one…
The Christian institution of marriage provides the best that may be for domestic quiet and content, and for the education of children.”

Mary Astell (1666–1731) English feminist writer

As quoted in Women's Political & Social Thought: An Anthology, p. 112. Editors Hilda L. Smith, Berenice A. Carroll. Editorial Indiana University Press, 2000. ISBN 0253337585.

Friendship, Marriage, Children, Education

“Honest change? Honest? Has someone altered the definition of the word while my back was turned, or have you recently developed a sense of humor?”

Ellen Kushner book The Privilege of the Sword

Part II, Chapter II (p. 130)
The Privilege of the Sword (2006)

Sense, Change

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Widely attributed to Goethe, but also claimed to be a distortion of a passage by Haim Ginott.
Disputed

Life, People, Mood, Decision

Quotes about humor page 2

Quotes about humor
page 2