Quotes about joke
page 7

Penn Jillette photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Marilyn Monroe photo
Steven Crowder photo
Steven Wright photo

“About five years ago, somebody showed me some web sites that had my material all over them, and I thought that was fascinating. One reason was, I'd never seen my jokes written one right after another like that. I write on drawing paper—I don't even like lines on the paper—so I have notebooks all over the place with handwritten pieces of my act in them. So to see it go by, all typed out neatly, was like, "Wow."”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

And then two or three years ago, someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them, because some are really bad.
[The Tenacity of the Cockroach: Conversations with Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders, Thompson, Steven, 2002, Three Rivers Press, 0609809911, September 9, 2012, http://www.avclub.com/articles/steven-wright,13796/]
Interviews

Michael Stevens (educator) photo

“What I'm trying to say is... I'm not going to say, "I hate" anything I ever made — but I will say this: My mother is much more proud of what I do now, than all of the fart-joke videos I did in the past.”

Michael Stevens (educator) (1986) Internet personality

Responding to the question "What is your least favorite video?", in "IAMA: Michael Stevens of Vsauce" Reddit (29 April 2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hClQ-OER3Y

Victor Hugo photo
Ounsi el-Hajj photo
Noam Chomsky photo

“Even if my place of work or the nature of my titles change, what I show won’t change and I don’t want it to. I’m a game fan at heart; I tell dirty jokes and make irresponsible comments (laughs), but I’ll work my hardest to make games.”

Kenichiro Takaki (1976) Japanese video game producer

"Kenichiro Takaki opens up about why he left Marvelous and more" https://nintendoeverything.com/kenichiro-takaki-opens-up-about-why-he-left-marvelous-and-more/, NintendoEverything.com (27 March 2019).

Sara Ahmed photo
Isabel Durant photo
Phoebe Robinson photo

“…We carry ourselves different — maybe we tell our jokes in a different way or a different style — and we were beating ourselves up in allowing that patriarchal energy to affect our self-esteem. And then I was like, "Yeah, I'm good at this job."”

Phoebe Robinson (1984) American comedian

On how female comedians might initially doubt themselves in “Phoebe Robinson: There's No Excuse For The Lack Of Diversity In Comedy” https://www.npr.org/2018/10/15/657459180/comic-phoebe-robinson-theres-no-excuse-for-hollywoods-lack-of-diversity in NPR (2018 Oct 15)

Ron English photo

“He who laughs last may be the joke.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

John Mulaney photo
Ayuel Monykuch photo
Mwanandeke Kindembo photo
William H. Rehnquist photo

“I've often started off with a lawyer joke, a complete caricature of a lawyer who's been nasty, greedy, and unethical. But I've stopped that practice. I gradually realized that the lawyers in the audience didn't think the jokes were funny and the non-lawyers didn't know they were jokes.”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

1997 speech at University of Virginia Law School, as quoted in Marc Galanter, Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and Legal Culture (2006), p. 3.
Books, articles, and speeches

Jerry Seinfeld photo

“A joke is a miracle.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

"What a Joke" Radio Show (2019)

“A joke can only get laughs for one reason because it resonates.”

Yang Li (1992) Chinese stand-up comedian

Source: "She Mocked Men’s Bluster. Then Came the Complaints." in The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/30/world/asia/male-confidence-comedian-china.html (30 December 2020)

“This year I learned the most important lesson in my life, which is to never make fun of men; and if you have to make fun of them, just joke about their success.”

Yang Li (1992) Chinese stand-up comedian

Source: "‘Sexist’ female stand-up comedian Yang Li’s return sweeps Chinese social media again by gender issues" https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1231854.shtml?id=11 in Global Times (18 August 2021)

G. K. Chesterton photo
Trevor Noah photo
Ron English photo

“It’s better to get the last laugh than the joke.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

Gary Locke photo

“I joke that it took our family 100 years to travel one mile. But what a journey it has been. Our family story is the story of millions of families whose ancestors came to these shores from all around the world in search of freedom, opportunity, and equality.”

Gary Locke (1950) American politician

"Gary Locke keynotes anti-hate summit" in Northwest Asian Weekly https://nwasianweekly.com/2021/10/gary-locke-keynotes-anti-hate-summit/ (29 October 2021)

Vitali Klitschko photo

“In my childhood years, I dreamt of being a footballer. But as my friends often joke, they tried to take the ball in an unsportsmanlike way... which is how I became a boxer.”

Vitali Klitschko (1971) Ukrainian boxer and politician

2008
Source: [Виталий Кличко ответил на вопросы читателей Корреспондент.net, https://korrespondent.net/ukraine/politics/386098-vitalij-klichko-otvetil-na-voprosy-chitatelej-korrespondent-net, 2022-06-13, korrespondent.net, ru]

John Crist (comedian) photo

“I think Christian comedy has gotten a bad rap in the past because it's very passive, and it's not honest. It's like knock-knock jokes type humor. What we're bringing to the table is another level of honesty, and maybe transparency that I think does make some people uncomfortable.”

John Crist (comedian) (1984) American comedian

[Paulson, Dave, John Crist: A Christian comedian who's gently poking fun at faith, https://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/2019/04/11/john-crist-christian-comedian-nashville-comedy-festival-ryman-auditorium/3215394002/, 6 September 2019, The Tennessean, April 11, 2019, en]

Kim Stanley Robinson photo

“Anytime you have to threaten people to get them to laugh at your joke you have to consider it less than successful, okay?”

Kim Stanley Robinson (1952) American science fiction writer

Source: Blue Mars (1996), Chapter 14, “Phoenix Lake” (p. 748)