Quotes about joke
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““Is this the conduct of a ‘sly and unpredictable villain’?”
“Decidedly so, if the villain, for the purposes of his joke, thinks to simulate the altruist.”
“Then how will you know villain from altruist?”
Cugel shrugged. “It is not an important distinction.””

Jack Vance Dying Earth

Source: Dying Earth (1950-1984), Cugel's Saga (1983), Chapter 3, section 2, "Faucelme"

Thinking

“The crisis of yesterday is the joke of to-morrow.”

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English writer

You Can't be Too Careful (1941)

“You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent … I'm not joking.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Biden Say What?, National Journal/C-SPAN, July 6, 2006, 2008-08-22 http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com/archives/2006/07/biden_say_what.html, 2000s

“It's the fault of those physicists and that synchronicity theory, every particle being connected with every other; you can't fart without changing the balance in the universe. It makes living a funny joke with nobody around to laugh. I open a book and get a report on future events that even God would like to file and forget. And who am I? The wrong person; I can tell you that.”

Philip K. Dick book The Man in the High Castle

The Man in the High Castle (1962)

God, Books, Universe, Change

“Norbit operates on the principle that vulgarity is automatically funny. Crassness doesn't need a joke attached because it is (in and of itself) the height of hilarity.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=601 of Norbit (2007). One-star reviews

“My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.”

Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist

This is actually from Ali's autobiography "The Greatest". However, this was said by Don King to George Foreman.
Misattributed

Truth, World, Way

“I love to work in the comics medium -- I really do -- and I've realised that a total contempt for the intelligence of the audience is the key to success. You know that Doom Force thing I did recently for D. C.? -- the pisstake of X-Force, right? Well, eighty percent of the people who sent letters of comment in on the story actually took the thing seriously! They didn't see the joke! It's horrific. Tom Peyer phoned me up and read page after page of these insane letters. That was the turning point. That is the moment that I became a super-villain.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

1992
http://web.archive.org/web/20040920205650/www.crgn.demon.co.uk/morrison/irony3.jpg
On comics

Love, People, Intelligence, Reading

“Joke exchanges are carried on in deadly earnest, like a verbal duel-mouth-to-mouth combat. Bang, bang: you’re (linguistically) dead.”

David Crystal (1941) British linguist and writer

David Crystal, Language Play, University of Chicago Press, 1998

Dead

“Life seemed to be an educator's practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Back to the Dump" (p.414)
There's a Country in My Cellar (1990)

Life, Education, Learning

“The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. When was the last time a technology with a scale like that was so error-free? The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs.”

Alan Kay (1940) computer scientist

2012 Dr. Dobb's Interview with Alan Kay http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/interview-with-alan-kay/240003442 2010s

People, Error, Nature, Thinking

“If indigenous Amazonian tribes were subjects to acid rain, the liberals were emotionally devastated. But if a trailer park of white trash across town all got cancer because they lived atop a toxic dump, it was a joke.”

Jim Goad (1961) Author, publisher

The Redneck Manifesto: How Hillbillies, Hicks and White Trash Became America's Scapegoats (Simon & Schuster, 1997)

“I don't think there's necessarily a story, but there's definitely a theme here. One of my favorite kind of dark jokes is, "How do you make God laugh? You make a plan." Nobody ever makes a plan that they're gonna go out and get hit by a car. A plan almost always has a happy ending. Essentially, every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time. I really like the idea of a plan not being seen as having definite outcomes, but more like little wishes.”

Ben Gibbard (1976) American singer, songwriter and guitarist

On the the title of the Death Cab for Cutie album Plans, as quoted in Mix online (1 January 2006) http://mixonline.com/mag/audio_death_cab_cutie_2/index.html

God, Happiness, Cars, Idea

“A friend of mine recently joked that his mobile phone will beat Magnus Carlsen. I said, ‘What are you talking about? My microwave could beat Magnus Carlsen.</b”

Nigel Short (1965) British chess player and writer

Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/14/chess-grandmaster-caught-using-iphone-to-cheat-during-international-tournament/ (April 14, 2015)

“… they said, "Sir, we want to tell you a joke." I said, "You don't have time to tell me a joke." They said, "Oh, you gotta hear this one." So I came in, they shut the door, and they said, "Here's"— I said, "What's the joke?" I said, "What's the joke?" They said, "9/11. Saddam Hussein. If he didn't do it, too bad. He should've! Because we're gonna get him anyway." I said, "But that's not funny." I said, "That's not very funny." They said, "It sure isn't."”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

Recalling a conversation with unidentified generals at the Pentagon "about ten days after 9/11" (circa September 21, 2001).
Real Time with Bill Maher [2.22] (episode 42), October 29, 2004; panel discussion with Maher, Kevin Costner, and Richard Belzer.

Time

“The count uttered several rather risky witticisms, but so tactfully were they said that his audience could not help smiling. Loiseau in turn made some considerably broader jokes, but no one took offence; and the thought expressed with such brutal directness by his wife was uppermost in the minds of all: "Since it's the girl's trade, why should she refuse this man more than another?"”

Guy De Maupassant book Boule de Suif

Boule de Suif (1880)

Smile, Girl, Help

“No, young man. No jokes here. There's a time and place. When you say something in class they take you seriously. You're the teacher. You say you went out with a sheep and they’re going to swallow every word. They don’t know the mating habits of the Irish.”

Frank McCourt book Teacher Man

Teacher Man (2005)

Teachers, Time

“Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd.
Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew,
'T was certain he could write and cipher too.”

Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village

Variant: A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew:
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the bust whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too.
Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 199.

Love, Business, Learning

“If you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty, you would charm everybody; but remember my joke against you about the Moon and the Solar System;—"Damn the solar system! bad light — planets too distant — pestered with comets — feeble contriviance; — could make a better with great ease."”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

As quoted in "Romantic Parodies, 1797-1831" by David A. Kent, D. R. Ewen, in The Review of English Studies, New Series, Vol. 44, No. 175, (1993), pp. 430-432
Letter to Lord Jeffrey

Light, Distant

“I have staked my career—my life itself—on the things I could see, on the stories I could credit, and on the eventual vindication, when the book was closed, of the reasonable and skeptical approach. In the face of twenty-five years of bloodshed, mayhem, criminality, and the universal human pastime of ruination, I have clung fiercely to Occam’s razor, seeking always to keep my solutions unadorned and free of conjecture, and never to resort to conspiracy or any kind of prosecutorial woolgathering. My mother, whenever she was confronted by calamity or personal sorrow, invoked cosmic emanations, invisible empires, ancient prophecies, and intrigues; it has been the business of my life to reject such folderol and seek the simpler explanation. But we were fools, she and I, arrant blockheads, each of us blind to or heedless of the readiest explanation: that the world is an ungettable joke, and our human need to explain its wonders and horrors, our appalling genius for devising such explanations, is nothing more than the rim shot that accompanies the punch line.”

Michael Chabon (1963) Novelist, short story writer, essayist

The God of Dark Laughter https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/04/09/the-god-of-dark-laughter, The New Yorker (April 9, 2001)

Life, Books, World, Fools

“It's mandatory in this day and age to be considered to have a sense of humor and to demonstrate it. You're not paying me for a joke, You're paying me for the right joke.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Gail Russell Chaddock (December 9, 2005) "Backstory: Serious business of jokes in politics", Christian Science Monitor, p. 20.

Age, Sense

“Sometimes I want to joke but my English isn't perfect. Sometimes people are wondering what I'm talking about.”

Alexander Ovechkin (1985) Russian ice hockey player

Pierre Lebrun, The Canadian Press (September 6, 2006) "Caps' Ovechkin says he is not ready to wear the 'C'", The Chronicle Herald, p. D3.

People, Perfection

“Clerks spoke with the sure, clear voice of an original filmmaker. In Mallrats the voice is muffled, and we sense instead advice from the tired, the establishment, the timid and other familiar Hollywood executive types. The year that Clerks played at the Cannes Film Festival, I was the chairman of a panel discussion of independent filmmakers. Most of them talked about their battles to stay free from Hollywood's playsafe strategies. But Kevin Smith cheerfully said he'd be happy to do whatever the studios wanted, if they'd pay for his films. At the time, I thought he was joking.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mallrats-1995 of Mallrats (20 October 1995) Reviews, One-and-a-half star reviews

Happiness, Sense, Time

“joke's on you; i actually love being body slammed by one dozen perfect wrestlers. and my mouth isn't filled with bloodm, it's victory wine”

Dril Twitter user

[ Link to tweet https://twitter.com/dril/status/460673146451161088] Tweets by year, 2014

Love, Wine, Victory, Perfection

“Okay bear with me this'll be a little tough. You should know this isn't the first time I thought about leaving. I thought about it some twenty years ago when a check that would soon become a part of Cincinnati folklore, made me see life from the bottom. To be honest, a thought about ending it all crossed my mind, but a more reasonable alternative seemed to be 'hey how about just leaving town? Running away? Starting life over, some place else?' You see, in political terms as well as human, here in Cincinnati, I was dead. But then in the, probably, the luckiest decision I ever made, I decided 'No! I'm staying put!' I would withstand all the jokes, all the ridicule. I'd pretend it didn't hurt, and I would give every ounce of my being to Cincinnati. 'Why in time,' I was thinking, 'you'd have to like me. Or if not like me, at least respect me.' And I'd run for council even unendorsed. And I'd prove to you I could be the best public servant you ever had, or I'd die trying. Be it as a mayor, an anchor, or a commentator, whatever it took, I was determined to have you know that I was more than a check and a hooker on a one night stand. But something happened along the way. Maybe it's God's way of teaching us. I don't know, but you see? In trying to prove something to you, I learned something about me. I learned that I had fallen in love with you. With Cincinnati. With you who taught me more about life, and caring, and forgiving, and also most importantly, giving. Giving something back. Which is part of the reason… I have been… Excuse me. So sad this week. why… Why it's so hard to say goodbye. God bless you, and goodbye.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

his final commentary at NBC's WLWT in Ohio, January 1993 This American Life http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/04/258.html, Ep. 258, 01/30/04, Leaving the Fold; Act One.

Love, Life, God, Sadness

“When I die, my epitaph or whatever you call those signs on gravestones is going to read: "I joked about every prominent man of my time, but I never met a man I didn't like." I am so proud of that I can hardly wait to die so it can be carved. And when you come to my grave you will find me sitting there, proudly reading it.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

"One of his most famous and most quoted remarks. First printed in the Boston Globe, June 16, 1930, after he had attended Tremont Temple Baptist Church, where Dr. James W. Brougher was minister. He asked Will to say a few words after the sermon. The papers were quick to pick up the remark, and it stayed with him the rest of his life. He also said it on various other occasions" ~ Paula McSpadden Love 
Variant: I joked about every prominent man in my lifetime, but I never met one I didn't like.
John D. [Rockefeller] sure carried out my old saying, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” Nationally syndicated column number 219, Rogers Gets Six Shiny Dimes From Oil King (1927).
The earliest dated citation of such a remark thus far found in research for Wikiquote is the one from 1926 about Leon Trotsky from the Saturday Evening Post (6 November 1926).
The Will Rogers Book (1972)

Time, Waiting, Reading

“The ranchers want to keep us divided in order to keep us weak. Many of us have signed individual "work contracts" with the ranchers or contractors, contracts in which they had all power. These contracts were farces, one more cynical joke at our impotence. That is why we must get together and bargain collectively. We must use the only strength that we have, the force of our numbers. The ranchers are few; we are many. United we shall stand.”

Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist

The Plan of Delano (1965)

“While I was mayor, I learned that government is a system of checks and balances — you can't simply walk in and change things. It takes time. I used to joke that it would be nice if a magic wand came with the job, if I could just wave it and make things work the way they're supposed to. But unfortunately it's not that easy. The bureaucracy is so huge that in a lot of situations all I can do is tell people the truth and let the chips fall where they may.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

I Ain't Got Time To Bleed (1999)

People, Truth, Way, Learning

“I never lie, even to this day. Not even a little. Unless you count playing pranks on people, which I don't. That's comedy. Entertainment doesn't count. A joke is different from a lie, even if the difference is kind of subtle.”

Steve Wozniak book iWoz

Source: iWoz (2006), p. 12

People, Lie

“In Edinburgh? I quite like the City Cafe. Because you never get served in there. And I like the idea that you can go in there for three hours and still not get your order. I think that’s quite funny. And then when you say ‘Can I have some food - I’m wasting away,’ they have the audacity to tut at you. When there’s only four of you in there. Fuckers. They should all be shot in the face. Sorry. I’m only joking. And I’m really tired.”

Noel Fielding (1973) British comedian and actor

HermAphroditeZine, Autumn 1999

Food, Idea, Thinking

“(On being called cynical & skeptical): “I do have a healthy skepticism, I think we all should. But I think if you listen closely enough, you’ll find that my message, if I as a joke-blower could be pompous enough to have one, is that we’re all alright and it’s gonna work out. I don’t find that cynical at all.””

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

Relentless (1992)

Thinking

“Could you spend a week or even a day without reading your emails, using social media or going online? Someone recently joked with me that having Internet access is more important than having food or water.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, 100 Things Successful People Do: Little Exercises for Successful Living (2016) https://books.google.ae/books?idnu0lCwAAQBAJ&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIMjAE

Food, Water, Reading

“Round-heads and Wooden-shoes are standing jokes.”

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

prologue, l. 8.
The Drummer (1716)

Shoe

“I'd grown up thinking I was ugly, ugly, ugly. I was much too tall, I was much too skinny, I was flat-chested, I had my mother's Asian eyes and cheekbones so I looked foreign compared to all my girlfriends, my mouth was too big and my teeth were too big so I never smiled. And then Françoise Hardy had her breakthrough in France and everything suddenly changed. Before her you were supposed to look like Brigitte Bardot, blonde, curvy and busty. But I was about twenty when people started telling me "You know what, you look a little like Françoise Hardy, you could be a model" and then out of the blue this famous woman, the great Catherine Harlé turns up. By sheer accident she happened to see me in the street in Paris and asked me if I wanted to be a fashion model and I thought she was joking! And she said "No, no, no, you're exactly the type of girl we're looking for" and all of a sudden all of these flaws, all the things I'd been so ashamed of, became my greatest assets. By sheer accident, as most things in my career.
Confessions Orbitales (Radio broadcast). Europe 1. 8 March 2003.”

Amanda Lear (1939) singer, lyricist, composer, painter, television presenter, actress, model

People, Smile, Girl, Fashion

“If you give a jest, take one.
Let all your jokes be truly jokes. Jesting sometimes ends in sad earnest.”

James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician

The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)

Sadness

“When was the last time you looked at anything, solely, and concentratedly, and for its own sake? Ordinary life passes in a near blur. If we go to the theatre or the cinema, the images before us change constantly, and there is the distraction of language. Our loved ones are so well known to us that there is no need to look at them, and one of the gentle jokes of married life is that we do not.”

Jeanette Winterson (1959) English writer

Art Objects (1995)

Love, Life, Change, Time

“The subject matter ranges from subtle forms of intellectual sarcasm and humor to the crudest possible attacks on a person's courage, sexual prowess, or relatives. At one level, attacks may be subtle and indirect, involving allusion and figurative speech; at another, there may be explicit taunts, boasts, name calling, and jokes at the other's expense.”

David Crystal (1941) British linguist and writer

Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 1987, p. 60

Courage, Personality

“Life is dull, but it could be worse and it could be better. We accept that a corporation determines our life’s routines. It’s the trade-off so that we don’t have to be chronically unemployed creative types, and we know it. When we were younger, we’d at least make a show of not being fooled and leave copies of Adbusters on our desktops. After a few years it just doesn’t matter. You trawl for jokes or amusingly diversionary. wav files. You download music. A new project comes along, then endures a slow-motion smothering at the hands of meetings. All ideas feel stillborn. The air smells like five hundred sheets of paper.
And then it’s another day.”

Douglas Coupland book JPod

JPod (2006)

Life, Fools, Music, Feeling

“Don't you know that I'm not joking?
Aah, you think you won't, I think you will.
Don't you know that this tongue can kill?
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon.
Lady kiss that frog.”

Peter Gabriel (1950) English singer-songwriter, record producer and humanitarian

Kiss That Frog
Song lyrics, Us (1992)

Kiss, Thinking

“In one decade, women had gotten more protection against offensive jokes in the workplace than men had gotten in centuries against being killed in the workplace.”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 288.

Women, Men

“Not that I don't think irreverent humor and someone being filthy is funny, I just do what I do. Any comedian would admit throwing an f-bomb in there would help get a reaction. … I'm not on a Puritanical pursuit, but when I would curse in a joke, I believe I'm not done writing it.”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

Tim Brouk (September 6, 2007) "Jim Gaffigan returns to his old stomping grounds, Purdue", Journal and Courier, pp. 1, 2D.

Thinking, Help

“Then gave him some familiar Thumps,
A College Joke to cure the Dumps.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Cassinus and Peter: A Tragical Elegy (1734); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Despite the Internet's origin in the late 1960s as a government sponsored means of communication between the Department of Defense, private industry, and academia, it has been at its best — and generated the greatest economic, social, and technological benefits — since it was 'liberated' by the hordes of 'geeks' who were originally hired to run it by employers who were not themselves conversant with computers, and couldn't tell when their employees were exchanging official traffic or trading dirty jokes and recipes for marijuana brownies.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"Keep Your Filthy Hands Off The Internet" http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle575-20100620-02.html 20 June 2010.

Communication, Marijuana

“If you're in the mood for something that's completely visceral and mindless (really mindless — the plot is a joke, filled with contrivances and coincidences), this movie will fit the bill. Parts of it are excruciatingly bad, but there are numerous examples of well-directed action that, on balance, compensate for the worst gaffes. This is a poor man's Die Hard. It has the explosions, gunplay, and spectacular stunts, but little of the wit and intelligence. In other words, it's a typical summer action flick.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1556 of Cliffhanger (1993). Two star reviews

Intelligence, Mood, Summer, Parting

“I was called sanskaari like an abuse, just because we reduced the length of the kisses in the new James Bond film Spectre. There were jokes about a sanskaari James Bond on Twitter. If I made James Bond sanskaari I am proud of it.”

Pahlaj Nihalani

On being called sanskaari (traditionalist) and reduction of a kissing scene in the film Spectre, as quoted in " I was called 'Sankskaari' as if it was an abuse - Pahlaj Nihalani http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/celebrities/features/type/view/id/9501" Bollywood Hungama (31 December 2015)

Kiss

“North Koreans can frequent black markets and still consider themselves good citizens, as was impossible in the communist East Bloc. So the situation now is more like Japan or Germany in 1944, say, than like East Germany in the 1980s. Widespread government corruption? Check. An entire population of economic criminals? Check. Constant griping about the state, the party, even some joking about the leader? Check. Even good Nazis had their Hitler jokes. A general readiness to fight for the state? Well, there’s certainly more readiness in the North than in the South.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Joshua Stanton (August 2017)

Fight

“I love those people who do story-telling and who ramble on, but I don't do that, I tell jokes - the sort of jokes that anyone really could tell in the pub.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Nick Ahad (November 19, 2004) "Comedian who delivers some nice lines", Yorkshire Post.

Love, People

“They [social workers] were always calling police stations telling them. 'There is a riot in the Northon street settlement. Send the riot squad right away.' A couple of cops would come down and joke with the boys [Native Whites], because they were good friends.”

William Foote Whyte book Street Corner Society

Source: Street Corner Society, 1943, p. 7

Boy

“A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.”

John Edensor Littlewood (1885–1977) English Mathematician

"Introduction to A Mathematician's Miscellany", p. 24.
Littlewood's Miscellany (1986)

Mathematics

“And man's highest mission on earth is to spiritualize everything, it is his excrement in particular that needs it most. As a result, I increasingly dislike all scatological jokes and all forms of frivolity on this subject. Indeed, I am dumbfounded at how little philosophical and metaphysical importance the human mind has attached to the vital subject of excrement.”

Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) Spanish artist

Source: Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1961 - 1970, Diary of a Genius (1964), p. 65 (Dali's remark, in 1952)

“The first five years that I did Cerebus I could have made more money baby-sitting (that isn't a joke). Five years. Think about it.”

Dave Sim (1956) Canadian cartoonist, creator of Cerebus

Source: Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing (1997), p. 20

Money, Thinking, Baby

“Women now fly heavy planes successfully; they help build planes, do mechanics' work. In England they've taken over a large share of all material labor in fields and factories; they've taken over police and home defence duties. In China a corps of 300,000 women under the supreme command of Madame Chiang Kai-shek perform the dangerous function of saving lives and repairing damage after Japanese air raids. This huge female strong- arm squad is officered efficiently by 3,000 women. Here in this country we've started a Women's Auxilary Army and Navy Corps that will do everything men soldiers and sailors do except the actual fighting. Prior to the First World War nobody believed that women could perform these feats of physical strength. But they're performing them now and thinking nothing of it. In this far worse: war, women will develop still greater female power; by the end of the war that traditional description the weaker sex" will be a joke-it will cease to have any meaning.”

William Moulton Marston (1893–1947) American psychologist, lawyer, inventor and comic book writer

As interviewed by Richard, Olive, "Our Women are Our Future": Sylvia Family Circle, (Aug 14, 1944) 14-17, 19 as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", in Containing Wonder Woman: Fredric Wertham's Battle Against the Mighty Amazon by Craig This, p.32.

Women, Men, War, World

“Like all truly brave people Antonio is light-hearted and likes to joke and make fun of serious things.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

Hemingway is describing his friend, the famous bullfighter Antonio Ordóñez.
Source: The Dangerous Summer (1985), Ch. 3

People, Light, Heart

“Have you considered the option of getting the joke? If not, try it now and redeem your soul.”

Erik Naggum (1965–2009) Norwegian computer programmer

Re: Lisp Machines considered Inferior http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/e8006d8ddc903c45 (Usenet article). Usenet articles, Miscellaneous

Soul

“Malema: So these popcorn and mushrooming political parties in Zimbabwe, they will never find friendship in us. They can insult us here from air-conditioned offices of Sandton, we are unshaken. They must stop shouting at us, they must go and fight with their battle in Zimbabwe and win. Even if they've got ground and they are formed on the basis of solid ground in Zim, why are they speaking in Sandton and not Mashonaland or Matabeleland? … Let them go back and go and fight there. Even when the ANC was underground in exile, we had our internal underground forces fighting for freedom.
Fisher: You live in Sandton.
Malema: And we have never spoken from … exile. Let me tell you before you are tjatjarag [i. e. chatty]. This is a building of a revolutionary party, and you know nothing about the revolution.
Fisher: So, so they are not welcome in Sandton but you are?
Malema: So here you behave or else you jump. [Fisher and others laugh. ] Don't laugh.
Fisher: You're joking.
Malema: Chief, can you get security to remove this thing here. If you are not going to behave … call security to take you out. This is not a news room this. This is a revolutionary house. And you don't come here with that tendency. Don't come here with that white tendency, not here. … If you've got a tendency of undermining blacks even while you work, you are in a wrong place …
Fisher: That's rubbish.
Malema: … and you can go out!
Fisher: Absolutely rubbish.
Malema: Rubbish is what you have covered in that trouser. … You are a small boy, you can't do anything. … Bastard! Go out! You bloody agent! … So we think that we need to ensure that we encourage Zanu PF comrades to engage in peaceful means.”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

Outburst against reporter Jonah Fisher at Luthuli House on 8 April 2010, while president of the ANC youth league and after his return from Zimbabwe, ANC's Julius Malema lashes out at 'misbehaving' BBC journalist https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/08/anc-julius-malema-bbc-journalist (8 April 2010)

Friendship, Peace, Boy, Thinking

“…American society, literary or lay, tends to be humorless. What other culture could have produced someone like Hemingway and not seen the joke?”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"Edmund Wilson: This Critic and This Gin and These Shoes"
1990s, United States - Essays 1952-1992 (1992)

“Chess is a form of intellectual productiveness, therein lies, its peculiar charm. Intellectual productiveness is one of the greatest joys -if not the greatest one- of human existence. It is not everyone who can write a play, or build a bridge, or even make a good joke. But in chess everyone can, everyone must, be intellectually productive and so can share in this select delight. I have always a slight feeling of pity for the man who has no knowledge of chess, just as I would pity for the man who has no knowledge of love. Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy.”

Siegbert Tarrasch book The Game of Chess

The Game of Chess (As quoted by Fred Reinfeld in Tarrasch's Best Games of Chess)

Love, Men, Happiness, Music

“My dad knew I was going to be a comedian. When I was a baby, he said, 'Is this a joke?”

Ken Dodd (1927–2018) English comedian, singer-songwriter and actor

Source: Ken Dodd: 17 of his funniest one-liners, BBC News, 12 March 2018, 12 March 2018 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43370741,

Baby

“The purpose of the Collège was the demolition of culture, even of surrealism, which they considered too organized. But make no mistake, these people were graduates of the Ecole Normale Supérieure and highly cultured. Their method was based on puns and practical jokes—le canular. There is a great tradition of puns in Anglo-Saxon literature — Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland — but not in French. So they adopted it. They believed that the science of sciences is the pataphysique and its dogma, le canular.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

le canular refers to hoaxes, humorous deceptions. -->
The Paris Review interview (1984)

People, Literature, Science

“The repeat run of Fawlty Towers (BBC2) drew bigger audiences than ever and deservedly so. Statistical surveys reveal that only the television critic of the Spectator is incapable of seeing the joke, which is that Basil Fawlty has the wrong temperament to be a hotel proprietor, just as some other people have the wrong temperament to be television critics.”

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

'Bovis and Basil'
Essays and reviews, Glued to the Box (1983)

People

“You're not bloody Aristophanes, and the people who are paying for tickets are not educated Athenians. We're acting for turnips who only come to talk to their cousins and fart. We have to give them a lot of action and low-level jokes, but you can leave all that to us on stage. We know what's required. Your job is to hone the basic framework and remember the simple motto: short speeches, short lines, short words.”

Lindsey Davis book Last Act in Palmyra

Last Act in Palmyra

People, Education

“I can read minds but, it's pointless cause I'm illiterate. I'd know what you were thinking, if I could read. (laugh) I tried to add on to that joke. I got busted. Thought I could squeeze a couple more laughs out of it but, it was not to be.”

Mitch Hedberg (1968–2005) American stand-up comedian

Do You Believe in Gosh?

Thinking, Reading

“It is — or seems to be — a wise sort of thing, to realise that all that happens to a man in this life is only by way of joke, especially his misfortunes, if he have them. And it is also worth bearing in mind, that the joke is passed round pretty liberally & impartially, so that not very many are entitled to fancy that they in particular are getting the worst of it.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Letter to Samuel Savage (24 August 1851), as published in The Writings of Herman Melville : The Northwestern-Newberry Edition (1993), edited by Lynn Horth, Vol. 14, p. 203

Life, Way

“Besides, what difference did if make if there had been two genuine coincidences? The universe was full of them. Every molecular collision was a coincidence. You could pile a thousand coincidences on top of another, he averred, and not get Tom Digby one step nearer to believing in the supernatural. Oh, he knew intelligent people enough, all right, who coddled such beliefs. Some of his best friends liked to relate “yarns” and toy with eerie possibilities for the sake of a thrill. But the only emotion Tom ever got out of such stuff was a nauseating disgust. It cut too deep for joking. It was a reversion to that primitive, fear-bound ignorance from which science had slowly lifted man, inch by inch, against the most bitter opposition.”

Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction

“The Hill and the Hole” (p. 165); originally published in Unknown Worlds, August 1942
Short Fiction, Night's Black Agents (1947)

People, Fear, Intelligence, Universe

“There is a literature that does not reach the voracious mass. It is the work of creators... Every page must explode, either by profound heavy seriousness, the whirlwind, poetic frenzy, the new, the eternal, the crushing joke, enthusiasm for principles, or by the way in which it is printed. On the one hand a tottering world in flight, betrothed to the glockenspiel of hell, on the other hand: new men. Rough, bouncing, riding on hiccups. Behind them a crippled world and literary quacks with a mania for improvement.”

Tristan Tzara (1896–1963) Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist

1910s, Dada Manifesto', 1918

Men, World, Way, Literature

“Jeff, you bloated hack! Your jokes are so old, they know who George Hamilton is.”

Greg Giraldo (1965–2010) American comedian

David Hasslehoff Comedy Central Roast (2010)

“(The story behind the name Celldweller) is hard to trace back completely but I guess in 1992 sometime, I wrote a song called 'Helldweller' and my studios and even places I have lived have traditionally been in basements. In cellars, so to speak. I am also a fairly introverted guy and I hardly ever come out. It was almost a joke initially from family and friends calling me a cell dweller or a cellar dweller. It evolved into Celldweller although that name holds more significance than that. Celldweller is more symbolic of an internal bondage, being restricted and retained internally so the name has many meanings. At the end of the day, it rolls off the tongue very easily so there it is.”

Klayton (1970) American musician

"Klayton Scott - Celldweller," (2003)

Family, Guy

“I don’t know if I’m the right person to be doing jokes about religion; in the past few months, I’ve become religious, I’ve started to believe in god, creationism and intelligent design, and the reason that I now believe in god and creationism and intelligent design is because of Professor Richard Dawkins. Because when I look at something as complex and intricate and beautiful as Professor Richard Dawkins, I don’t think that just could’ve evolved by chance! Professor Richard Dawkins was put there by god to test us, like fossils. And facts.”

Stewart Lee (1968) English stand-up comedian, writer, director and musician

Series 1 Episode 6: "Religion"

God, Religion, Beauty, Intelligence

“There are very few jokes about sociologists.”

Peter L. Berger (1929–2017) Austrian-born American sociologist

Source: Invitation to Sociology (1963), p. 11

“Donald Trump I really truly believe is a very dangerous man. If you listen to the things he said this weekend… '. He has joked about killing reporters — and 'not' killing reporters like Putin does… We don't change with the mood of the country. That is the problem with our country right now. The Constitution is to anchor us in principles that help temper the mood of the country… The mood of the country is very angry, but you never make a good decision when you are angry… The worst thing we can do is to now start looking at, who is going to get revenge? One of the things that Donald Trump does, when you have a guy who is angry and then has an enemies list and starts to just take people down over and over and over again — if you disagree with him, he destroys you. If that is the mood of the country, we are in more trouble than I thought.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

interview on New Day http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/25/politics/glenn-beck-donald-trump-dangerous/index.html (January 2016), CNN. 2010s, 2016

People, Guy, Mood, Revenge

“This long preamble just to tell you not to judge your own work as you are the last person to see it (with true eyes) – What you see neither redeems nor condemns it – All words used to explain or praise it are false translations of what is going on beyond sensations.
You are, as we all are, obsessed by the accumulation of principles or anti-principles which generally cloud your mind with their terminology and, without knowing it, you are a prisoner of what you think is a liberated education –
In your particular case, you are certainly the victim of the 'Ecole de Paris' [French abstract art movement which developed after world War 2. ], a joke that’s lasted for 60 years.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Quote in a letter to Jean Crotti (Duchamp's brother-in-law) and his sister Suzanne Duchamp, New York 17 Augustus 1952; as cited in The Duchamp Book, ed. Gavin Parkinson, Tate Publishing, London 2008 p. 167
1951 - 1968

War, World, Education, Art

“Thank you. God told me to wear it.
That's a joke.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Responding to a compliment on his suit from European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso (November 2005) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4421818.stm 2000s, 2005

God

“It was his elbow. He landed on his elbow. I've just had a little joke with Andy. He went on and pulled off the best two headers of the game with an injured shoulder, arm, whatever it was.”

Phil Brown (footballer) (1959) English association football player and manager

26-Dec-2005, Radio Derby
Phil gives a definitive answer to which part of Andrew Davies' anatomy was injured - then talks himself out of it.

Game

“at the Engvalls' home, Travis is about to play on the piano.
Engvall's son, Travis: I'm going to play you a song from Harry Potter.
Engvall: Oh, the movie?
Travis: No, the book. Here's your sign.
When telling the joke on Here's Your Sign: Live! (2004), he stops his son before he says "sign."”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Here's Your Sign, "Here's MY Sign..."

Books, Home

“The finest achievement of the new woman has been personal liberty. This is the foundation of civilization; and as long as any one class is watched suspiciously, even fondly guarded, and protected, so long will that class not only be weak, and treacherous, individually, but parasitic, and a collective danger to the community. Who has not heard wives commended for wheedling their husbands out of money, or joked [about] because they are hopelessly extravagant? As long as caprice and scheming are considered feminine virtues, as long as man is the only wage-earner, doling out sums of money, or scattering lavishly, so long will women be degraded, even if they are perfectly contented, and men are willing to labor to keep them in idleness!

Although individual women from pre-historic times have accomplished much, as a class they have been set aside to minister to men's comfort. But when once the higher has been tried, civilization repudiates the lower. Men have come to see that no advance can be made with one half-humanity set apart merely for the functions of sex; that children are quite liable to inherit from the mother, and should have opportunities to inherit the accumulated ability and culture and character that is produced only by intellectual and civil activity. The world has tried to move with men for dynamos, and "clinging" women impeding every step of progress, in arts, science, industry, professions, they have been a thousand years behind men because forced into seclusion. They have been over-sexed. They have naturally not been impressed with their duties to society, in its myriad needs, or with their own value as individuals.

The new woman, in the sense of the best woman, the flower of all the womanhood of past ages, has come to stay — if civilization is to endure. The sufferings of the past have but strengthened her, maternity has deepened her, education is broadening her — and she now knows that she must perfect herself if she would perfect the race, and leave her imprint upon immortality, through her offspring or her works.”

Winnifred Harper Cooley (1874–1967) American author and lecturer

The New Womanhood (New York, 1904) 31f.

Women, Men, Money, Children

“There was a lot more joking going on when I was a kid. My dad, for instance, specialised in puns and I remember once we were on vacation in California and we were driving along the San Andreas Fault and he threw a quarter out of the window into the Fault because he said "he had always wanted to be generous to a fault."”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Interview with Stanford's Newsletter (June 2001)

“My parents -- we lived in Brooklyn, NY, we owned a house -- my parents were difficult people, they didn't get along with anyone. Actually, they didn't even get along with each other. So, on the one side were the Golds and on the other side were the Kasslers and they did not get along with the Golds and they did not get along with the Kasslers, so they built a fence. And it was within their right to build a fence. But, as everybody knows, when you build at fence, at any rate in New York, you first have to hire a surveyor. That's a fact, I'm not joking. You have to hire a surveyor and you have to make sure that fence is right down the line on your property because if that fence is literally one quarter of an inch on the Golds' side or on the Kasslers' side, they have the right to tear it down. Under law, that's it. Now, let's take Israel's wall. What happens if my parents decide to build a fence that's not only on the Kasslers' side but goes right around their swimming pool? Well, some people will begin to wonder "are Mary and Harry Finkelstein trying to protect their property? Or are they trying to steal the Kasslers' swimming pool?"”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

Other sourced statements Source: Talk at Santa Cruz, CA http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=600, October 23, 2006

People, Law, Parent, Tear

“Saving Silverman is so bad in so many different ways that perhaps you should see it, as an example of the lowest slopes of the bell-shaped curve. This is the kind of movie that gives even its defenders fits of desperation. Consider my friend James Berardinelli, the best of the Web-based critics. No doubt 10 days of oxygen deprivation at the Sundance Film Festival helped inspire his three-star review, in which he reports optimistically, "Saving Silverman" has its share of pratfalls and slapstick moments, but there's almost no flatulence." Here's a critical rule of thumb: You know you're in trouble when you're reduced to praising a movie for its absence of fart jokes, and have to add "almost"… as for Neil Diamond, Saving Silverman is his first appearance in a fiction film since The Jazz Singer, and one can only marvel that he waited 20 years to appear in a second film, and found one even worse than his first one.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/saving-silverman-2001 of Saving Silverman (9 February 2001) Reviews, Half-star reviews

Way, Star, Appearance, Waiting

“[T]here are really seven different [kinds of] sexual interactions occurring in the workplace… Sexual blackmail. A boss threatens to fire an employee unless she or he is sexual… Sexual bribery. An executive promises a promotion in exchange for sex. This can be explicit or implicit… Workplace prostitution. An employee is sexual in exchange for a promotion; a salesperson is sexual to win a sale. The sex can be given or just promised… Workplace incest. Consensual sex among employees. The workplace, like the family, has lines of authority which sexual bonding tends to blur… Sexual harassment. Repeated sexual advances at work after an employee has said ‘no’… Workplace flirtation. Suggestive dress, flirtations eye contact, a combination of touching and eye signals… Workplace porn. Pinups, lewd jokes, and sexual innuendos made in groups…”

Warren Farrell book The Myth of Male Power

Source: The Myth of Male Power (1993), Part III: Government as substitute husband, p. 297-9.

Family, Sex

“Race jokes are kind of like orcas: powerful and entertaining, but you put them on display in the wrong environment and people are going to get hurt, and the joke might die. Like this one just did. (12 April 2016”

Trevor Noah (1984) South African comedian

The Daily Show Source: Visibile in Bill de Blasio's Questionable Joke http://www.cc.com/video-clips/g0ng5b/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-bill-de-blasio-s-questionable-joke, CC.com, 12 aprile 2016.

People, Hurt

“Jim Dilley, the father of the Laguna Greenbelt, used to take roses to the secretaries of the county Board of Supervisors when he'd go to do battle over open space with the secretaries' bosses. Jim Dilley was a nice man, kind and gentle. He smoked a pipe. His eyes twinkled as though he knew a joke the rest of us didn't. But he's dead, and the Board is still alive, and that is a joke on us of monstrous proportions. I'm not nice, kind or gentle. The Board keeps rubber-stamping building permits, and this is my goodbye to these shores. After 36 years, my wife and I will soon leave Orange County for Costa Rica, to join the Peace Corps, and that, too, is a joke. We traipse off to bring peace to Costa Rica, which hasn't had an army since 1948.”

Arnold Hano (1922) American writer

From "OC Forum: O.C. Can You Say?" https://books.google.com/books?id=FhEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA8 in Orange Coast Magazine (July 1991), p. 8 Other Topics

Peace, Dead

“I've jibe and joke,
And quip and crank,
For lowly folk
And men of rank.”

W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) English librettist of the Gilbert & Sullivan duo

The Yeomen of the Guard (1888)

Men

“Take any country that has laws against hate crimes, inspiring hatred and genocide and so on. The first thing they would do is ban the Old Testament. There's nothing like it in the literary canon that exalts genocide, to that extent. And it's not a joke either. Like where I live, New England, the people who liberated it from the native scourge were religious fundamentalist lunatics, who came waving the holy book, declaring themselves to be the children of Israel who are killing the Amalekites, like God [http://www.bible.org/netbible/deu25.htm told] them.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Quotes 2000s, 2002, Talk at the University of Houston, 2002

God, Hate, Children, People

“I was at a photo shoot and I was wearing a cross necklace that my mom bought me, and somebody made a joke like, 'Why are you wearing a cross? Like you would be religious,' And then they took it away. I was really affected by that. The whole thing made me realize that I do want [a cross] with me, at all times.”

Kate Upton (1992) American model and actress

Kate Upton Boyfriend Rumors Slammed, Model Talks Religion: 'I Want A Cross With Me' https://www.christianpost.com/news/kate-upton-boyfriend-rumors-slammed-model-talks-religion-i-want-a-cross-with-me-101848/ (August 8, 2013)

Photo, Moms, Time

“I watched a rerun on television of a 1960s comedy programme called "Mr Ed", which was about a talking horse. Judging by the quality of the jokes, I would guess that Mr Ed wrote his own material.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989)

Horse

“Bad boys have long fascinated audiences as well as storytellers, whatever the medium. Such rebels, often without causes beyond self-gratification, have been at the center of much of contemporary popular culture. One of the paradigms for such dramatized morality tales is Mozart's magnificent "Don Giovanni," whose musical and theatrical turns evoked awe and laughter and terror from the more that 1,500 music fans who on Saturday night flocked to Lawrence's Lied Center for the Mozart Festival Opera production. The libertine is thoroughly disreputable. Nonetheless, we look on in fascination because of his devilish smile, dashing good looks, ready wit, and the audacity of his hyper-inflated ego. If you can imagine a young Jack Nicholson with mustache, cape and a flair for sword play, you've got it. Lithuanian baritone Vytautas Juozapaitis gave the Don appropriate swagger and voice. He also brought a comic twist that gave the roué a touch of the trickster. Stepping out of character for a second in the midst of a briskly paced recitative, he paused, turned, and looked up at the supertitled English translation as if to check his lines. It was a joke shared by all. The pleasure of performing, even in the opera's most dramatic moments, was evident.”

Vytautas Juozapaitis (1963) Lithuanian opera singer

Chuck Berg, "Mozart's 'Don Giovanni' triumphs", Topeka Capital Journal (February, 2007) http://www.jennykellyproductions.com/prod_mozart_review.htm

Pleasure, Smile, Music, Imagination

“People say I'm the life of the party
'Cause I tell a joke or two.
Although I might be laughing loud and hearty,
Deep inside I'm blue.

So take a
good look at my face.
You know my smile looks out of place.
If you look closer, it's easy to trace
The tracks of my tears.”

Smokey Robinson (1940) American R&B singer-songwriter and record producer

The Tracks of My Tears, written by Smokey Robinson, Marvin Tarlin, and Pete Moore (1965)
Song lyrics, With The Miracles

Life, People, Smile, Tear

“I used to joke to Bob Solow that the distance between me and Joan Robinson is less than the distance between Joan Robinson and me. His reply was, “You’ll never convince her of that.””

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

Still one lives in hope.
On April 14, 1972, quoted in Marjorie Shepherd Turner, Joan Robinson and the Americans (1989)
1950s–1970s

Hope

“They were [my] friends. Those guys were like The Monkees. They lived in this house all together… no joke, the whole band all together in the same house, and they were really fun. They were really young guys and they lived the real Rock life. Of course it all went horribly wrong later, but they were great.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

When asked about Alice in Chains - Howard Stern Show, June 2007 ** Chris Cornell on Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, Alice in Chains, Nirvana and Kurt Cobain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQzyZfhutYk, Solo career Era

Life, Guy, Housing

“To me, my approach is the most sensible. You're a comic. Therefore you want to get laughs. How do you get the most laughs in an hour? Tell short jokes. And don't say boom boom at the end. Just let the audience laugh then tell another joke. It's the shortest route to where you want to go.”

Jimmy Carr (1972) British comedian and humourist

Source: Allan Brown (August 1, 2004) "Benefits of being game for a laugh - Edinburgh Festival", The Sunday Times.

“I had to develop a sense of humor I'm sure it's a defense mechanism. It was, 'Before they make fun of me, I'll make a joke.' Being funny is just a point of view about life in general. Sometimes it's born out of difficult childhoods, where you have to develop a sense of humor. Ultimately, it's a gift.”

Nathan Lane (1956) American actor

Marshall Fine (January 24, 2000) "Nathan the 'Great'", The Journal News, p. 1E.

Life, Sense, Childhood

“At one point Trudeau mentioned to me that the National Gallery wanted to buy a masterpiece by the great Italian painter Lotto, and it needed a million dollars from the Treasury Board. "Is that Lotto-Quebec or Lotto-Canada?" I joked, but I got the message, and the National Gallery got the painting.”

Jean Chrétien (1934) 20th Prime Minister of Canada

Source: Straight From The Heart (1985), Chapter Three, The Business Of politics, p. 87

Painting

“I was at Google. And if you looked at Tumblr and Yahoo!, you know when you look at a map and you can see the way that South America and Africa used to fit together, I sort of joked that as we got to know Tumblr we were like we kind of felt like those continents, like our users were older, their users were younger.”

Marissa Mayer (1975) American business executive and engineer, former ceo of Yahoo!

Source: fortune.com http://fortune.com/2013/10/17/transcript-marissa-mayer-at-fortune-mpw/.

Way

“Ha ha! We are just poking a little friendly fun at Germany, which is famous for enjoying a good joke, or as the Germans say, "Sprechnehaltenzoltenfussenmachschnitzerkalbenrollen." Here is just one hilarious example of what we are talking about:
First German: How many Polish people does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Second German: I don't know! How many?
First German: Let's invade Poland and find out!
Millions of Other Germans: Okay!”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need (1991)

People, Light

“Snake predation was no joke. It shaped our evolutionary past. We're attuned to snakes. We are really good at detecting the camouflage pattern of snakes in the lower half of our visual field. There's evidence that the reason human beings have such acute vision, which means that our eyes were opened, is because we co-evolved with snakes and we learned how to see them. And then the price we paid for seeing was that our brain grew, because you need a lot of brainpower to see. And the consequence of our brain growing was that one day we woke up and discovered the future. And the future is where all the snakes might live, instead of where they live right now. I already made the case that there's a tight link between what you eat and information - conceptual link as well as a practical link. But it's also the case that we can see colors. The question is: why? The answer is: we evolved to see ripe fruit. In the story of Adam and Eve human beings are given vision by the snake and the fruit. That turns out to be correct.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Color, Question, Learning, Past

“Once the butt of jokes for being the site where visitors could find anything, true or not, Wikipedia in recent years has become a more trusted source of information — certainly for settling bar bets, but even for weighty topics like Ebola.”

Noam Cohen (1999) American journalist

[Noam, Cohen, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/business/media/wikipedia-is-emerging-as-trusted-internet-source-for-information-on-ebola-.html, The New York Times, October 26, 2014, Wikipedia Emerges as Trusted Internet Source for Ebola Information, October 29, 2014]

“I speculate that the genesis of the chicken-joke lies in some situation such as the one illustrated above, but over time the original context of the joke was lost, which left the chicken sadly decontextualized.”

Ryan North (1980) Canadian webcomic writer and programmer

Explaining jokes http://www.insaneabode.com/roboterotica/jokesexplained/whydidthechicken.html

Time

“The result is a horrible mess of a movie, without shape, trajectory or purpose — a one joke movie, if it had one joke. The two characters wander witlessly past the bizarre backdrops of Las Vegas (some real, some hallucinated, all interchangeable) while zonked out of their minds. Humor depends on attitude. Beyond a certain point, you don't have an attitude, you simply inhabit a state. I've heard a lot of funny jokes about drunks and druggies, but these guys are stoned beyond comprehension, to the point where most of their dialog could be paraphrased as "eh?"… As for Depp, what was he thinking he made this movie? He was once in trouble for trashing a New York hotel room, just like the heroes of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. What was that? Research? After River Phoenix died of an overdose outside Depp's club, you wouldn't think Depp would see much humor in this story — but then, of course, there *isn't* much humor in this story.”

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

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas-1998 of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (22 May 1998) Reviews, One-star reviews

Fear, Guy, Thinking, Past

“Granted, not really a joke, but how often do you get a mic in your hand? You know? So. I am sorry but don't anybody trip on my soap box on the way out. Don't anybody trip over that. And the chip on my shoulder's a little heavy. I have back problems now.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

self-titled TV comedy special, 1997
said after she suggested a "Buddy System" where pro-lifers are federally assigned orphaned babies
Standup routines

Way, Problem, Box

“You know who LOVES to get fisted? Sock puppets. That joke is adorable!”

Daniel Tosh (1975) American stand-up comedian

Completely Serious (2007)

Love

“Somebody muffed it?? Somebody wanted to joke.”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

A Sunset of the City

Quotes about joke page 5

Quotes about joke
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