Quotes about in-joke

A collection of quotes on the topic of in-joke, joke, likeness, doing.

Quotes about in-joke

George Soros photo
Xenophon photo
Daniel Radcliffe photo
George Orwell photo
Dolly Parton photo
Kent Hovind photo
Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

As quoted in "A View from the Asylum" in Philosophical Investigations from the Sanctity of the Press (2004), by Henry Dribble, p. 87
Attributed from posthumous publications

George Orwell photo

“A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Rick Riordan photo
George Orwell photo

“Every Joke is a Tiny Revolution”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

Source: An Age Like This: 1920-1940

Reinhard Heydrich photo
Hermann Göring photo

“The Russians are primitive folk. Besides, Bolshevism is something that stifles individualism and which is against my inner nature. Bolshevism is worse than National Socialism — in fact, it can't be compared to it. Bolshevism is against private property, and I am all in favor of private property. Bolshevism is barbaric and crude, and I am fully convinced that that atrocities committed by the Nazis, which incidentally I knew nothing about, were not nearly as great or as cruel as those committed by the Communists. I hate the Communists bitterly because I hate the system. The delusion that all men are equal is ridiculous. I feel that I am superior to most Russians, not only because I am a German but because my cultural and family background are superior. How ironic it is that crude Russian peasants who wear the uniforms of generals now sit in judgment on me. No matter how educated a Russian might be, he is still a barbaric Asiatic. Secondly, the Russian generals and the Russian government planned a war against Germany because we represented a threat to them ideologically. In the German state, I was the chief opponent of Communism. I admit freely and proudly that it was I who created the first concentration camps in order to put Communists in them. Did I ever tell you that funny story about how I sent to Spain a ship containing mainly bricks and stones, under which I put a single layer of ammunition which had been ordered by the Red government in Spain? The purpose of that ship was to supply the waning Red government with munitions. That was a good practical joke and I am proud of it because I wanted with all my heart to see Russian Communism in Spain defeated finally.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (28 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

George Orwell photo

“Fate seemed to be playing a series of extraordinarily unamusing jokes.”

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 7

John Henry Newman photo

“Surely, there is at this day a confederacy of evil, marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself, taking its measures, enclosing the Church of CHRIST as in a net, and preparing the way for a general apostasy from it. Whether this very apostasy is to give birth to Antichrist, or whether he is still to be delayed, we cannot know; but at any rate this apostasy, and all its tokens, and instruments, are of the Evil One and savour of death. Far be it from any of us to be of those simple ones, who are taken in that snare which is circling around us! Far be it from us to be seduced with the fair promises in which Satan is sure to hide his poison! Do you think he is so unskilful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the Truth? No; he offers you baits to tempt you. He promises you civil liberty; he promises you equality; he promises you trade and wealth; he promises you a remission of taxes; he promises you reform. This is the way in which he conceals from you the kind of work to which he is putting you; he tempts you to rail against your rulers and superiors; he does so himself, and induces you to imitate him; or he promises you illumination, he offers you knowledge, science, philosophy, enlargement of mind. He scoffs at times gone by; he scoffs at every institution which reveres them. He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you. He bids you mount aloft. He shows you how to become as gods. Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his.”

John Henry Newman (1801–1890) English cleric and cardinal

Tract 83 http://anglicanhistory.org/tracts/tract83.html (29 June 1838).

Eugene Paul Wigner photo

“A deep sense of humor and an unusual ability for telling stories and jokes endeared Johnny even to casual acquaintances.”

Eugene Paul Wigner (1902–1995) mathematician and Nobel Prize-winning physicist

Biographical memoir: "John von Neumann (1903 - 1957)" in Year book of the American Philosophical Society (1958); later in Symmetries and Reflections : Scientific Essays of Eugene P. Wigner (1967), p. 261
Context: A deep sense of humor and an unusual ability for telling stories and jokes endeared Johnny even to casual acquaintances. He could be blunt when necessary, but was never pompous. A mind of von Neumann's inexorable logic had to understand and accept much that most of us do not want to accept and do not even wish to understand. This fact colored many of von Neumann's moral judgments. "It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature." Only scientific intellectual dishonesty and misappropriation of scientific results could rouse his indignation and ire — but these did — and did almost equally whether he himself, or someone else, was wronged.

George Orwell photo

“A joke worth laughing at always has an idea behind it, and usually a subversive idea. Dickens is able to go on being funny because he is in revolt against authority, and authority is always there to be laughed at.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"Charles Dickens" (1939)
Context: The thing that drove Dickens forward into a form of art for which he was not really suited, and at the same time caused us to remember him, was simply the fact that he was a moralist, the consciousness of ‘having something to say’. He is always preaching a sermon, and that is the final secret of his inventiveness. For you can only create if you can care. Types like Squeers and Micawber could not have been produced by a hack writer looking for something to be funny about. A joke worth laughing at always has an idea behind it, and usually a subversive idea. Dickens is able to go on being funny because he is in revolt against authority, and authority is always there to be laughed at.

Ricky Gervais photo

“People confuse the subject of the joke with the target of the joke, and they’re very rarely the same.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter
Rowan Atkinson photo

“All jokes about religion cause offence, so it's pointless apologising for them.”

Rowan Atkinson (1955) English actor, comedian, and screenwriter

As quoted in a letter to The Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times (2018)

Rick Riordan photo
Will Rogers photo
Jim Morrison photo
Rick Riordan photo
Leonard Cohen photo
Mark Twain photo

“[Citing a familiar "American joke":] In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

"What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us?" http://www.mtwain.com/What_Paul_Bourget_Thinks_of_Us/0.html, in How to Tell a Story and Other Essays (1897)

Jean Webster photo
William Shakespeare photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Max Frisch photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Robert Frost photo

“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.”

"Forgive, O Lord," In the Clearing (1962)
First published in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin (12 November 1960), p. 157 http://books.google.com/books?id=9J_lAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Forgive+O+Lord+my+little+jokes+on+Thee+And+I'll+forgive+Thy+great+big+one+on+me%22&pg=PA157#v=onepage
1960s
Variant: Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.

William Shakespeare photo
George Bernard Shaw photo
Lewis Carroll photo
Bo Burnham photo

“I've always wanted a black girlfriend. Not as a joke, just so when we sixty-nine I can call it Yin-Yanging.”

Bo Burnham (1990) American comedian, musician, and actor

Words, Words, Words (2010)

Daniel Handler photo
Bill Engvall photo
Sofia Rotaru photo

“Replying to Anatolii Kirillovich and Ilya Savelievich to their jokes about Aurica Rotaru during one of the rehearsals in Krasnodar [Russia] ('93):
- One more time, one can't here Aurica!
- Well, she is echoing in Moldavian…
- She is not echoing in Moldavian. I'll show you, khokhols!! Just sing, Aurica.
- Well, I am not singing in the beginning…”

Sofia Rotaru (1947) Ukrainain soviet and Ukrainian musician, singer, songwriter, actress, author of Moldavian origin

I'm telling you: sing.
Source: Sofia Rotaru's sister, also singer, back-stage vocal in 1993
Source: a Russian term used to describe a style of man's haircut that features a lock of hair sprouting from the top or the front of an otherwise closely shaven head. The word is also commonly used mostly by Russians as a derogatory name for Ukrainians, as it was a common haircut of Ukrainian Cossacks. [Sofia Rotaru is Ukrainian national, although of Moldavian origin considering herself also Russian]

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Michael Moorcock photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Ivan Turgenev photo

“Death is an old joke, but it comes like new to everyone.”

Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883) Russian writer

Source: Father and Sons (1862), Ch. 27.

Virginia Woolf photo
R.L. Stine photo
Carlo Rovelli photo
Mark Twain photo

“Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.”

Source: The Innocents Abroad (1869), Ch. 27

Mark Twain photo
Edward Bernays photo
Shahrukh Khan photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo

“I don't think there would be many jokes, if there weren't constant frustration and fear and so forth. It's a response to bad troubles like crime.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Interview Public Radio International (October 2006)
Various interviews

Bill Hicks photo
Timothy McVeigh photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Arthur Miller photo

“A play is made by sensing how the forces in life simulate ignorance — you set free the concealed irony, the deadly joke.”

Arthur Miller (1915–2005) playwright from the United States

"The State of the Theatre" an interview by Henry Brandon in Harpers 221 (November 1960)

Niels Bohr photo

“Some subjects are so serious that one can only joke about them.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

As quoted in The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery (2000) by Abraham Pais, p. 24
Some things are so serious that one can only joke about them.
Variant without any citation as to author in Denial is not a river in Egypt (1998) by Sandi Bachom, p. 85.

Taylor Swift photo
Gabriel Iglesias photo

“Three years ago, I bought a Beetle, not even thinking. [Audience laughs some] That's not the joke, shut up. See? I can't even tell you guys a story. [mocking laugh] I wasn't thinking, I bought the car, because it was affordable, economical, brand-new freakin' Beetle for like $17,000. I was, like, "AHHH!" First new car, you know? I go to show it off at my friend Martin's house. I thought it was nice. I pull up, like, [Imitates car driving, then brakes screeching] "MARTEEEEEEEEEEEEN!" He lives in the 'hood, I don't get out of the car. Across the street, there are these gang members, the kind of gang members that, they don't get into like shooting people and stuff like that, they just sit on the porch and talk a lot of smack. So I'm there in a Beetle and across the street, I hear this. I was like, "MARTEEEEEEN!" Over here, I hear, "Oralé!" [Looks behind] "Hey, what's up guys, hows it going?" "How did you get in there, esé?" [Gives an frustrated look] "HURRY UP, MARTIN!" 2 months later, I go back to pick him up. Now, I've had some time to work on the car. I put some rims on it, some stickers on it, I put a chip in the motor that makes it go faster. I thought I was bad, right? So I pull up, [Imitates car driving, tires screeching, and the motor revving] "MARTEEEEEN!" [Gesturing to the voice behind him] "Orale!" [Gabriel shakes his head] Uh-uh, I'm not turning around. "Hey!" Mmm-mm. "Hey!" I don't see you! "Yoo-hoo!" [Growls and turns around] "EH!"”

Gabriel Iglesias (1976) American actor

WHAT?! "Check it out, eh, it's the Fat and the Furious!"
Hot & Fluffy (2007)

Virginia Woolf photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo

“The telling of jokes is an art of its own, and it always rises from some emotional threat. The best jokes are dangerous, and dangerous because they are in some way truthful.”

Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) American writer

Interviewed by J. Rentilly, "The Best Jokes Are Dangerous" http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2002/09/16vonnegut1.html, McSweeny's (September 2002)
Various interviews

Friedrich Schiller photo

“The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Die Verschwörung des Fiesco (The Conspiracy of Fiesco), Act I, sc. vii (1783)

Matthew Perry (actor) photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo

“No one thinks or feels or appreciates or lives a mental-emotional-imaginative life at all, except in terms of the artificial reference-points supply'd him by the enveloping body of race-tradition and heritage into which he is born. We form an emotionally realisable picture of the external world, and an emotionally endurable set of illusions as to values and directions in existence, solely and exclusively through the arbitrary concepts and folkways bequeathed to us through our traditional culture-stream. Without this stream around us we are absolutely adrift in a meaningless and irrelevant chaos which has not the least capacity to give us any satisfaction apart from the trifling animal ones... Without our nationality—that is, our culture-grouping—we are merely wretched nuclei of agony and bewilderment in the midst of alien and directionless emptiness... We have an Aryan heritage, a Western-European heritage, a Teutonic-Celtic heritage, an Anglo-Saxon or English heritage, an Anglo-American heritage, and so on—but we can't detach one layer from another without serious loss—loss of a sense of significance and orientation in the world. America without England is absolutely meaningless to a civilised man of any generation yet grown to maturity. The breaking of the saving tie is leaving these colonies free to build up a repulsive new culture of money, speed, quantity, novelty, and industrial slavery, but that future culture is not ours, and has no meaning for us... Possibly the youngest generation already born and mentally active—boys of ten to fifteen—will tend to belong to it, as indeed a widespread shift in their tastes and instincts and loyalties would seem to indicate. But to say all this has anything to do with us is a joke! These boys are the Bedes and Almins of a new, encroaching, and apparently inferior culture. We are the Boëthii and Symmachi and Cassiodori of an older and perhaps dying culture. It is to our interest to keep our own culture alive as long as we can—and if possible to reserve and defend certain areas against the onslaughts of the enemy.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to James F. Morton (6 November 1930), in Selected Letters III, 1929-1931 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 207
Non-Fiction, Letters, to James Ferdinand Morton, Jr.

“People always say: "You're a comedian, tell us a joke." They don't say: "You're an MP, tell us a lie."”

Bob Monkhouse (1928–2003) English entertainer

Independent on Sunday obituary http://web.archive.org/web/20100522031727/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/bob-monkhouse-jokewriter-to-the-stars-and-the-longreigning-king-of-primetime-comedy-dies-at-75-578058.html

Kurt Vonnegut photo

“Jokes can be noble. Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore.”

"Palm Sunday", a sermon delivered at St. Clement's Church, New York City (ndg), originally published in The Nation as "Hypocrites You Always Have With You" (ndg)
Palm Sunday (1981)
Context: Jokes can be noble. Laughs are exactly as honorable as tears. Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion, to the futility of thinking and striving anymore. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward — and since I can start thinking and striving again that much sooner.

Martha Gellhorn photo

“It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.”

Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998) journalist from the United States

Letter as quoted in "Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life" (2003) written by Caroline Moorehead.
Context: War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.

Paul Erdős photo

“I don't claim that this is correct, or that God exists, but it is just sort of half a joke.”

Paul Erdős (1913–1996) Hungarian mathematician and freelancer

Paul Erdős - SF means Supreme Fascist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qeWugmiGt4
Context: SF means Supreme Fascist — this would show that God is bad. I don't claim that this is correct, or that God exists, but it is just sort of half a joke. … As a joke I said, "What is the purpose of Life?" "Proof and conjecture, and keep the SF's score low."
Now, the game with the SF is defined as follows:
If you do something bad the SF gets at least two points.
If you don't do something good which you could have done, the SF gets at least one point.
And if nothing — if you are okay, then no one gets any point.
And the aim is to keep the SF's score low.

Mikhail Lermontov photo
Al Capone photo
Leonardo DiCaprio photo

“for like 8 months i thought covid was one of those joke diseases where you ask "what's covid" and the other guy tells tou to suck his nuts”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/1350738078453755909]
Tweets by year, 2021

Louis C.K. photo

“Saying that something is too terrible to joke about is like saying that a disease is too terrible to try to cure it.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

Charlie Rose interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-LCdcdShdY, 2016

Rick Riordan photo

“Leo,” Jason said, “you’re weird.”
“Yeah, you tell me that a lot.” Leo grinned. “But if you don’t remember me, that means I can reuse all my old jokes…!”

Variant: Leo. Jason said, you're wierd. Yeah, you tell me that a lot. Leo grinned. But if you don't remember me, that means I can reuse all my old jokes. Come on!
Source: The Lost Hero

Rick Riordan photo
Christopher Moore photo
Charlaine Harris photo
Brad Thor photo
Richelle Mead photo
Richelle Mead photo
Bob Dylan photo

“When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist
Haruki Murakami photo
David Foster Wallace photo
Salvador Dalí photo

“It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or whether I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 12

Cassandra Clare photo
Lorrie Moore photo
Maya Angelou photo
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Richelle Mead photo
Lev Grossman photo
Richelle Mead photo
Rick Riordan photo
Cassandra Clare photo

“If I made a joke about just dropping in, would you write me off as a cliche?”

Jace to Clary, pg. 338
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

David Rakoff photo