Quotes about laugh
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“Our folks understood that there was a war upon us and that school was a weapon that outdid any Glock. Yet the whole process—with its equally spaced desks, precisely timed periods and lectures, with its standardized pencils and tests—felt unnatural to me. But much as I hated their terms, having been impressed into them, I hated more the failing. So I was left with a great unconscious sadness, an emptiness which, even when I was alone, I was not fully aware. But it worked on me like an invisible weight, altered my laughter, posture, my approach to girls. Fuck what you have heard or what you have seen in your son. He may lie about homework and laugh when the teacher calls home. He may curse his teacher, propose arson for the whole public system. But inside is the same sense that was in me. None of us ever want to fail. None of us want to be unworthy, to not measure up.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975) writer, journalist, and educator

Source: The Beautiful Struggle: A Memoir (2008), p. 169-170.

Hate, War, Lie, Sadness

“Alas! I always loved sorrow and tribulation, but only for myself, for myself; but I wept over them, pitying them. I stretched out my hands to them in despair, blaming, cursing and despising myself. I told them that all this was my doing, mine alone; that it was I had brought them corruption, contamination and falsity. I besought them to crucify me, I taught them how to make a cross. I could not kill myself, I had not the strength, but I wanted to suffer at their hands. I yearned for suffering, I longed that my blood should be drained to the last drop in these agonies. But they only laughed at me, and began at last to look upon me as crazy. They justified me, they declared that they had only got what they wanted themselves, and that all that now was could not have been otherwise. At last they declared to me that I was becoming dangerous and that they should lock me up in a madhouse if I did not hold my tongue. Then such grief took possession of my soul that my heart was wrung, and I felt as though I were dying; and then... then I awoke.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), V

Love, Making love, Soul, Suffering

“An honest fellow stripped of all his illusions is the ideal man. Though he may have little wit, his society is always pleasant. As nothing matters to him, he cannot be pedantic; yet is he tolerant, remembering that he too has had the illusions which still beguile his neighbor. He is trustworthy in his dealings, because of his indifference; he avoids all quarreling and scandal in his own person, and either forgets or passes over such gossip or bickering as may be directed against himself. He is more entertaining than other people because he is in a constant state of epigram against his neighbor. He dwells in truth, and smiles at the stumbling of others who grope in falsehood. He watches from a lighted place the ludicrous antics of those who walk in a dim room at random. Laughing, he breaks the false weight and measure of men and things.”

Nicolas Chamfort (1741–1794) French writer

L'honnête homme, détrompé de toutes les illusions, est l'homme par excellence. Pour peu qu'il ait d'esprit, sa société est très aimable. Il ne saurait être pédant, ne mettant d'importance à rien. Il est indulgent, parce qu'il se souvient qu'il a eu des illusions, comme ceux qui en sont encore occupés. C'est un effet de son insouciance d'être sûr dans le commerce, de ne se permettre ni redites, ni tracasseries. Si on se les permet à son égard, il les oublie ou les dédaigne. Il doit être plus gai qu'un autre, parce qu'il est constamment en état d'épigramme contre son prochain. Il est dans le vrai et rit des faux pas de ceux qui marchent à tâtons dans le faux. C'est un homme qui, d'un endroit éclairé, voit dans une chambre obscure les gestes ridicules de ceux qui s'y promènent au hasard. Il brise, en riant, les faux poids et les fausses mesures qu'on applique aux hommes et aux choses.
Maximes et Pensées, #339
Maxims and Considerations, #339

Men, People, Truth, Smile

“Jim giggled when he laughed. His sense of humor could be sly and wicked.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

About, "Jim Henson's Muppets legacy lives on 25 years after his death" by Bill Prady

Sense

“His faith in humanity began from an acknowledgement of limitation, not an illusion about perfectibility. He knew that joy flowed from honesty, rather than around it—sound familiar? In a similar way, Christians, whose identity is found apart from our ever-changing and often hopeless abilities and attributes, are free to laugh at ourselves. This is part and parcel of Christian joy.”

Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer

About, "The Gospel According to Jim Henson" by David Zahl

Faith, Way, Change, Joy

“As you can well imagine, any nuclear bombing study that neglected to target Moscow would be laughed out of the room. (That is, no study at that time; 10 or 15 years later senior policy officials were debating how good an idea this might be. If you wiped out the political leadership of the Soviet Union in the process, who would you deal with in arranging for a truce and who would be left to run the country after the war?) Consequently, two of RAND’s brightest mathematicians were assigned the task of determining, with the help of computers, in great detail, precisely what would happen to the city were a bomb of so many megatons dropped on it. It was truly a daunting task and called for devising a mathematical model unimaginably complex; one that would deal with the exact population distribution, the precise location of various industries and government agencies, the vulnerability of all the important structures to the bomb’s effects, etc., etc. However, these two guys were up to the task and toiled in the vineyards for some months, finally coming up with the results. Naturally, they were horrendous.”

Samuel T. Cohen (1921–2010) American physicist

Harold Mitchell, a medical doctor, an expert on human vulnerability to the H-bomb’s effects, told me when the study first began: “Why are they wasting their time going through all this shit? You know goddamned well that a bomb this big is going to blow the fucking city into the next county. What more do you have to know?” I had to agree with him.
F*** You! Mr. President: Confessions of the Father of the Neutron Bomb (2006)

War, Guy, Imagination, Mathematics

“He was shy, with a slightly nervous laugh, but to those who knew him he fully justified his public image of honesty, being open to discussion of any aspect of his career and willing to accept criticism.”

V. P. Singh (1931–2008) Indian politician

VP Singh: Former prime minister of India who tried to improve the lot of his country's lower castes

“Rajeev used to play with Gandhiji in the same way in which his mother, Indira used to play with Gandhiji in Sabaramati ashram when she was four years old. One day, Rajeev plucked some flowers and kept them at Gandhiji’s feet. Gandhiji laughed and said – Rajeev! Don’t you know that flowers are not kept at the feet of a person who is alive?”

Rajiv Gandhi (1944–1991) sixth Prime Minister of India

Meena Agrawal, in p. 14. This incident happened on 29 January 1948 and on 30 January 1948, Gandhiji was assassinated.

Way, Flowers, Personality

“We had to fight the Okies because we were Mexicans! It didn’t matter to them that my brother and I were outcasts on our own turf. They’d have laughed if we’d told them that we were easterners. To them we were greasers, spics and niggers. If you lived on the West Side, across from the tracks, and had brown skin, you were a Mexican. Riverbank is divided into three parts, and in my corner of the world there were only three kinds of people: Mexicans, Okies and Americans. Catholics, Holy Rollers and Protestants. Peach pickers, cannery workers and clerks.”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 78.

People, World, Fight, Parting

“Everyone in the bus service liked him, back in those days. He used to move easily with everyone. But he was also a very short-tempered man. He would not get violent or anything like that when he lost his cool, but he never hesitated to shout at people if he felt they were in the wrong. Basically, he was a serious-minded type of chap, but he could also be the life and soul of a party, keeping everyone laughing with his jokes.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Raja Bahadur, his friend
You can see God in him at times (22 December 1999)

Life, People, Soul

“The war between the two fan clubs stopped only about 15 years ago. We both told them to stop after there were stray incidents of violence on both sides. Considering fans have killed each other for our distinguished predecessors, MGR and Shivaji Ganesan, our fans can be considered pacifists (laughs). I went ahead and set a new precedent. I turned my fan club into a social service organisation.”

Rajinikanth (1950) Indian actor

Kamal Haasan, on the role of their fiercely possessive fans, in "I'd do anything Rajni asks me to: Kamal Haasan (14 December 2011)."

War

“Man is the animal who weeps and laughs — and writes.”

John Cowper Powys (1872–1963) British writer, lecturer and philosopher

If the first Prometheus brought fire from heaven in a fennel-stalk, the last will take it back — in a book.
The Pleasures of Literature (1938), p. 17

Animals

“I always had the feeling that Ohlendorf was spiritually depressed. I mentioned several times to my wife, when we had Ohlendorf to dinner, that he seemed like a man who just could not be happy. Ohlendorf must have been very depressed on account of that experience. He could not laugh heartily - and a man who cannot is either depressed, or sick, or bad. I thought he had something in his soul which bothered him.”

Otto Ohlendorf (1907–1951) German general

Walther Funk to Leon Goldensohn, April 7, 1946.

Bad luck, Happiness, Feeling, Soul

“Hey, this is Europe. We took it from nobody; we won it from the bare soil that the ice left. The bones of our ancestors, and the stones of their works, are everywhere. Our liberties were won in wars and revolutions so terrible that we do not fear our governors: they fear us. Our children giggle and eat ice-cream in the palaces of past rulers. We snap our fingers at kings. We laugh at popes. When we have built up tyrants, we have brought them down. And we have nuclear *fucking* weapons.”

Ken MacLeod (1954) Scottish science fiction writer

USENET posting to rec.sf.arts.fandom http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.sf.fandom/browse_frm/thread/303b0da0ab25aee/b12adceacd343279 28 September 2000, in the discussion of Robert A. Heinlein's quote "The cowards never started and the weaklings died on the way." (Expanded Universe, How to be a Survivor in the Atomic Age) Other sources

War, Children, Fear, Past

“Steven Gerrard was awesome today. We were just laughing in the dressing room that at one stage we thought he was heading his own crosses in.”

Steven Gerrard (1980) English footballer

Gareth Southgate on Gerrard after a Premiership game between Middlesbrough and Liverpool in 2005. Peter Gill. "Lordy, It's The Quotes Of The Week", Football365.com, August 16, 2005 (article offline; cache http://web.archive.org/web/20051028201926/http://www.football365.com/features/interviews/story_159958.shtml).

“Is that what he said? Is that what he said? He can talk! No, it’s true. I’m terrible. Do you know what? I’ve got quite an easy job. I’ve just got to look at people, say lines and not laugh. And two of those I do okay-ish. But basically I’m just shit at quite an ordinary job, namely not laughing. It’s not that hard not to laugh. The guy who sold me my travel card, he didn’t wet himself laughing. You just don’t do it.”

Tamsin Greig (1966) English actress

When told that Julian Rhind-Tutt claimed that she was quite bad about corpsing.
From an interview on the Green Wing "microsite"

People, Travel, Guy

“She started crying when she saw the busted colon I gave her pussy husband, so she took one of her shoes off and threw it at me. I caught the shoe between my pecs and I started to laugh like a pirate. Then she started walking towards me to take her shoe back, and there was no way I was going to let this bitch get near my chest so I body slammed her into a cactus that happened to be there. She got up and was uglier than before, so I did what I always do when women start to cry: I went back inside to play video games.”

Maddox (1978) American internet writer

Why change your car's oil when your girlfriend can do it? http://maddox.xmission.com/oil.html The Best Page in the Universe

Women, Shoe, Way, Game

“The news I feared the most, pales in comparison to the lump in my throat and the hollow in my stomach. Two kids have a chance meeting and 47 years later we fight and love the same way – losing either one is incomprehensible. No replacement value, no digital or virtual fill... broken now, for all time. Unlike so many with similar stories – we have the best of our fury laid out on vinyl, for the world to catch a glimpse. The laughs we shared just a few weeks ago, will forever remind me of all that was good between us.”

Lou Reed (1942–2013) American musician

John Cale about Reed's death http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/john-cale-mourns-lou-reed-20131028

Love, World, Fear, Making love

“Charlotte Brontë, with all her splendid gift for prose, stumbled and fell with that clumsy weapon in her hands. George Eliot committed atrocities with it that beggar description. Jane Austen looked at it and laughed at it and devised a perfectly natural, shapely sentence proper for her own use and never departed from it. Thus, with less genius for writing than Charlotte Brontë, she got infinitely more said.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (1929), Chapter 4

Nature

“Feeling judged? I couldn’t care less. You know why? Because my wife and I were judged all throughout our relationship. People laughed, scoffed and poked fun at the young, celibate, naive Christian couple.”

Steven Crowder (1987) American actor

People, Feeling

“If the man laughs, change the Order.”

Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (1840–1899) British orientalist

Writings of Dr. Leitner, Chapter: On the Science of Language and Ethnography, p. 173

Change

“If I was a junkman selling you cars,
Washing your windows and shining your stars,
Thinking your mind was my own in a dream
What would you wonder and how would it seem?
Living in castles a bit at a time
The King started laughing and talking in rhyme.
Singing words, words between the lines of age.
Words, words between the lines of age.”

Neil Young (1945) Canadian singer-songwriter

Words (between the lines of age)
Song lyrics, Harvest (1972)

Age, Dreams, Cars, Star

“Journalism is the most Americanized of all professions, and nothing is more American than the belief that economic matters trump ideological ones. There is very little talk of ideology in coverage of any country. Western journalists here see a poor North facing off against a rich South and laugh at the notion that the former might have serious designs on the latter. They don’t seem aware of what I call the South’s state-loyalty deficit.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

2010s, Interview with Isaac Chotiner (January 2018)

Loyalty, Country

“Sometimes my old heart is like a washing machine
It bounces around 'til my Soul comes clean
And when I'm clean and hung out to dry
I'm gonna make you laugh until you cry”

John Prine (1946–2020) American country singer/songwriter

Boundless Love (co-written with Dan Auerbach and Pat McLaughlin)
Song lyrics, The Tree of Forgiveness (2018)

Making love, Soul, Heart, Cry

“That was the universe: you could beat it once, you could float a message in a bottle across half of eternity, but the universe would always find a way to have the last laugh.”

Alastair Reynolds book Pushing Ice

Source: Pushing Ice (2005), Chapter 36 (p. 492)

Way, Universe

“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).

Making love, Game, Nature, Change

“I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.”

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

"I, Too", in the magazine Survey Graphic (March 1925); reprinted in Selected Poems (1959); it is also often referred to as "I, Too, Sing America"

Strong, Singing

“I mean no disrespect to any of our current climate at all, but I have been an actor for almost two decades now, and this is a dream come true to be able to create a network comedy that just makes people laugh…What I love about comedy is that, like music, sports and food, it brings us all together.”

Kal Penn (1977) American actor and civil servant

On his show Sunnyside in “Kal Penn Talks Putting A Twist On Immigration Narrative With ‘Sunnyside’ & Chances For Another ‘Harold And Kumar’ Movie” https://deadline.com/2019/09/kal-penn-sunnyside-nbc-immigration-comedy-harold-and-kumar-1202743466/ in Deadline (2019 Sep 26)

Love, People, Making love, Food

“I try not to stand on a soapbox and scream. That's boring. You've got to be funny sometimes. All my humor comes from anger. Satire is terrific therapy. Making people laugh is a joy, but making them think about something serious is the ultimate reward.”

Carl Hiaasen (1953) journalist, columnist and novelist from the United States

"Ready to Give a Hoot", by Margaret Wappler; Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2006
Interviews

People, Making love, Thinking, Joy

“if a Swedish news editor was ever gang raped by Muslim immigrants it would be hard not to laugh.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

twitter.com (15 March 2015) https://twitter.com/patcondell/status/577049819363061760 2015

“My intellect has been shaped under the sign of Spinoza's words, and it has tried not to be astounded, not to laugh, not to cry, but to understand.”

Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) Soviet psychologist

Vygotsky, in his dissertation thesis Psychology of Art [original in Russian]

Understanding, Cry

“Poet, never chase the dream.
Laugh yourself and turn away.
Mask your hunger, let it seem
Small matter if he come or stay;
But when he nestles in your hand at last,
Close up your fingers tight and hold him fast.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"A Pinch of Salt"
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

Hunger, Dreams

“I am the dreamer and the doer
I the hearer and the knower
I the giver and the taker
I the sword and the wound of sword.
If this be true, then let sword fall free from hand.
I embrace myself.
I laugh until I weep
And weep until I smile…”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Christ, Old Student in a New School (1972)

Smile

“No one in the world has (ever) laughed,
the least bit without weeping at the same time.”

Khwaja Mir Dard (1721–1785) Urdu writer

A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody: Couplet no. 297, p. 299
Poetry

World, Time

“The phoney [sic] electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2012

“It's boring and immature, like when someone says he wants to watch the world burn. You only get to watch when you have the privilege of not being on fire. It's edgy but it's not the darkness. The darkness is finding a way to laugh about being on fire.”

Natalie Wynn ContraPoints

Source: The Darkness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtj7LDYaufM, published 2019-03-02 ContraPoints

World, Way

“The real motivation of bein' a comedian is if you really love the sound of a laugh. And if you love that, you will never want to stop.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012 — Present), Season 3 (2014)

Love, Making love, Motivation

“When Dawn strides out to wake a dewy farm
Across green fields and yellow hills of hay
The little twittering birds laugh in his way
And poise triumphant on his shining arm.
He bears a sword of flame but not to harm
The wakened life that feels his quickening sway
And barnyard voices shrilling "It is day!"”

Joyce Kilmer Trees and Other Poems

Take by his grace a new and alien charm. But in the city, like a wounded thing
That limps to cover from the angry chase,
He steals down streets where sickly arc-lights sing,
And wanly mock his young and shameful face;
And tiny gongs with cruel fervor ring
In many a high and dreary sleeping place.
"Alarm Clocks"
Trees and Other Poems (1914)

Life, Way, Feeling, Bird

“A man who laughs will never be dangerous.”

Laurence Sterne book A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy

The Passport, Versailles.
Original: (fr) Un homme qui rit, said the duke, ne sera jamais dangereux.
Source: A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768)

“Opinion has been right to fasten upon sovereignty as the central issue. Either British entry is a declaration of intent to surrender this country's sovereignty, stage by stage, in all that matters as a nation, and makes a nation, or else it is an empty gesture, disgraceful in its hollowness alike to those who proffer and to whose who accept it. The superior people laugh at those who talk about losing our Queen and our Monarchy. ... The Queen is the Queen in Parliament, as truly today as when her predecessor, Tudor Henry, observed that ‘we are nowhere so high in our estate royal as in this Our High Court of Parliament’. The question which the people of this country will have proposed to them is: will you, or will you not, continue to be governed by the Queen in Parliament? It is no less than that, and they have understood it.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Source: Speech in Doncaster (19 June 1971), quoted in The Common Market: Renegotiate or Come Out (1973), p. 119

People, Making love, Question, Country

“It was a great chance to show viewers who I really am. I’m a really bubbly, talkative person who loves to make fun of others and keep everyone laughing. I want the audiences to keep looking out for “that attractive girl” who takes on all the tasks and keeps entertaining them.”

Nikki Tamboli (1996) Indian Actress

Bigg Boss 14: Nikki Tamboli wants to work with Vijay Sethupathi after reality show

Love, Making love, Girl, Chance

“There's so many inside jokes because you spend so much time together. You spend fourteen hours a day together and you're together all the time and you're doing all these strange activities and there's strange scenes and lines so you just kind of end up with these really weird in-jokes that keep you going and give you belly laughs.”

Isabel Durant (1991) Australian actor and dancer

Source: Exclusive | Mako Mermaids | CAST Reunion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDGRc7z7zeA (July 2, 2020)

Time

“I think it's something that I had to teach myself because growing up wasn't always a barrel of laughs. I was insecure and I had a lot of self-doubts, which is why I tell myself I can do it and that I earned it. I think you kind of become your own best cheerleader. I mean, obviously, my mom and my grandmother were big cheerleaders of mine, but at the end of the day, you have to be your own cheerleader—every day. Otherwise, it's not going to work out if you don't believe in yourself. I think a lot of it, too, is looking around and saying 'Why not me?' You know, 'Why not me?'”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

I mean, if they can do it I can do it. There's nothing that special about anyone, really.
Interview to L'Officiel (2018)

Moms, Thinking, Self-confidence

“He who laughs last may be the joke.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

“So many of the very funny things are very natural, we do them all every day. They’re just that little bit heightened, which is what makes you fall on the floor when you’re doing it. Sometimes we can’t finish a take because we’re laughing too much, and sometimes you see the cameraman chuckling and we have to do it again. Not having done many comedies, that must be the sign of a very funny script!”

Nathaniel Parker (1962) British actor

Interview with Nathaniel Parker https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/mrsjones/nathaniel

Making love, Nature

“Why do you think we've had sex segregation over the last hundred years? For a laugh? It is the height of male privilege to intrude into women's spaces and expect women to just love it.”

Graham Linehan (1968) Irish screenwriter

Eddie Izzard is not a woman, 20 December 2020

Love, Women, Making love, Sex

“As the outsider, you can retreat into a shell, be anonymous, be invisible. Or you can go the other way. You protect yourself by opening up. You don't ask to be accepted for everything you are, just the one part of yourself that you're willing to share. For me it was humor. I learned that even though I didn't belong to one group, I could be a part of of any group that was laughing.”

Trevor Noah book Born a Crime

page 140/141
Born a Crime

Way, Learning, Parting

“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Wisdom, Selfishness

“When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Perfection, Deep, Peaceful, Powerful

“Pretend to be friendly. Eat with them. Laugh with them. When they are sated and trust you, attack them, kill all their men and kidnap their women and children!”

Cornstalk (1720–1777) Native American in the American Revolution

Plan of attack at the Muddy Creek Massacre.

Women, Men, Children

“No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door
And they say "We've got some bad news, sir."”

Regina Spektor (1980) American singer-songwriter and pianist

Far (2009)

God

“Women actually have a fantastic sense of humour, better than men. Men tend to have crass and predictable humour. Women see human foibles and minute details, and they can laugh at eccentricities and peculiarities. They are also more understanding. Go ahead and quote me and let me make some enemies.”

Sai Paranjpye (1938) Indian film director

Scroll.in article by Nandini Ramnath - Sai Paranjpye interview: ‘I guess I was born with a grin’ https://scroll.in/reel/979306/sai-paranjpye-interview-i-guess-i-was-born-with-a-grin - 28 November 2020 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210901094227/https://scroll.in/reel/979306/sai-paranjpye-interview-i-guess-i-was-born-with-a-grin Quotes from Sai Paranjpye

Women, Men, Quotes, Understanding

“I am optimistic and sentimental to the point of being annoying, especially to people who think that being cynical and cold is cool. Everyday, I thank Allah for everyday things like the ability to breathe, the ability to love, the ability to laugh, and the ability to eat and drink.”

Yasmin Ahmad (1958–2009) Malaysian film director

Yasmin Ahmad Personal Blog Introduction - Archived Account Page https://web.archive.org/web/20181126063521/https://www.blogger.com/profile/08042254853021235053 MTAS Production Article - Yasmin Ahmad https://mtasproduction.com/yasmin-ahmad/ - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210821091902/https://mtasproduction.com/yasmin-ahmad/ In Social Science and Knowledge in a Globalising World by Gareth Richards and Zawawi Ibrahim - Chapter 19, Pg. 439 - Remembering Yasmin Ahmad: Social Criticism and Forgiveness - A Tribute to Yasmin Ahmad https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287216758_Remembering_Yasmin_Ahmad_Social_Criticism_and_Forgiveness - January 2012 - Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210821092949/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287216758_Remembering_Yasmin_Ahmad_Social_Criticism_and_Forgiveness From Yasmin Ahmad

Love, People, Drink, Thinking

“Comedy is a lot harder to do if you don’t go to the mean place. The cheapest laugh you can get is an insult or snarky comment, so if you take that off the table you have to write smarter.”

Dan Povenmire (1963) American television director, writer, producer, storyboard artist, and actor

LIFE IN 2D: DAN POVENMIRE ON THE GREATEST CARTOONS EVER, SALSA MUSIC, AND NOT BEING A JERK https://www.houseofspeakeasy.org/dan-povenmire-interview/ (November 7, 2014)

“Be careful of laughing at others for perhaps Allah might forgive their ignorance and not forgive you arrogance.”

Yasir Qadhi (1975) Pakistani-American preacher and imam

Yasir Qadhi https://quotesdownload.com/yasir-qadhi-quotes/

Forgiveness

“Poetry is bad standup. It's carefully chosen words that have no laugh at the end.”

Jerry Seinfeld (1954) American comedian and actor

Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012 — Present), Season 9 (2017)

“When a devil, but also a saint, laughs about your poetry, you laugh about his ignorance!”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Donna Giovanna, Act IV, scene iii.

“I don't know whether to laugh or smile. I guess I am going to do both at the same time.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Smile, Time

“In life we will smile, laugh, cry, bleed, die and finally laugh again.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life, Smile, Cry

“There have been moments where I laughed at my own family's culture, though it's hard to separate out whether something funny is cultural, or just my grandma specifically.”

Lulu Wang (1983) Asian-American filmmaker

As quoted in "The Farewell writer-director Lulu Wang on the joys of laughing at human nature" in The Verge (17 July 2019) https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/17/20696611/the-farewell-writer-director-lulu-wang-interview-awkwafina

Family, Grandma

“Heart of my heart, we cannot die!
Love triumphant in flower and tree,
Every life that laughs at the sky
Tells us nothing can cease to be:
One, we are one with the song to-day,
One with the clover that scents the world,
One with the Unknown, far away,
One with the stars, when earth grows old.”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

Unity, § II
The Golden Hynde and Other Poems (1914)

Love, Life, World, Star

“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)

“I am dragged in spite of myself in this damn Africa business; a toy which, it is true, will hurt no one; which excites geographers, but which will make people laugh here.”

Jules Devaux (1828–1886) (1828-1886)

Source: All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), 4. Viceroys without colonial aspirations? Jules Devaux (1828-1886) http://www.ethesis.net/leopold_II/leopold_II.htm#2.%20 STENGERS, J. “Leopold II between the Far East and Africa 1875-1876.” In: La Conférence de Géographie de Bruxelles, 1876. Koninklijke Academie voor Overzeese wetenschappen, ed. Brussels, 1976, 349.

People, Business, Hurt

“A warrior chooses a path with heart, any path with heart, and follows it; and then he rejoices and laughs. He knows because he "sees" that his life will be over altogether too soon. He "sees" that nothing is more important that anything else.”

Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from A Separate Reality (Chapter 6)

Life, Heart

“We have damaged our reputation in the world and thus reduced our power. We were once seen as the paragon of law; we are now in many corners of the globe the laughing stock of the law.”

Lawrence Wilkerson (1945) Chief of Staff to Colin Powell

Source: Quoted in Lawrence Wilkerson’s Lessons of War and Truth https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lawrence-wilkersons-lesso_b_146443, HuffPost, Nick Turse (26 Dec 2008)

World, Law

“Never laugh when you're being sarcastic. It will ruin the effect. If you feel the uncontrollable need to giggle, wait until your boss says something hilarious, such as, "Is this only Wednesday? It feels like Friday already!"”

Scott Adams book The Joy of Work

Source: Then you can throw back your head, open your mouth like you're about to swallow a live porpoise, and laugh like a naked teenager in a field full of pussy willows. Sincerity like that will make your sarcasm all the more convincing.
Source: Books, The Joy of Work (1998)

Feeling, Waiting

“The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth.”

George Jean Nathan (1882–1958) American drama critic and magazine editor

Source: "Test of a Comedian", The American Mercury (September 1929)

“Comedy is a weird but very beautiful thing. Even though it seems foolish and silly and crazy, comedy has the most to say about the human condition. Because if you can laugh, you can get by. You can survive when things are bad when you have a sense of humor.”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

Source: All About Me (New York: Ballantine Books, 2021), p. 451

Beauty, Sense

“I often think my life has been a failure. But whenever I drop into a theater and hear women laugh at one of my films, I think, well, if I brightened their day before they went home and did the dishes, maybe my life wasn't wasted, after all.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

Source: As quoted in "They Changed Their Careers and Became Famous; Cary a Failure?" https://www.newspapers.com/clip/87358421/the-boston-globe/ by Jack Harrison Pollack, Parade (November 16, 1969), p. 7; and The Filmgoer's Book of Quotes (1978) by Leslie Halliwell, p.229

Life, Women, Home, Failure

“When I’m told to laugh, I begin laughing. Even during filming, when I’m told to crack up, I end up being the only one who cracks up.”

Noa Tsurushima (2001) Japanese actress

“When someone just writes 'f**k, f**k, f**k', we just fix it, laugh and move on. But the difficult social issues are the borderline cases — people who do some good work, but who are also a pain in the neck.”

Jimmy Wales (1966) Wikipedia co-founder and American Internet entrepreneur

Source: As quoted in "Who knows?", The Guardian (26 October 2004)

Pain, People

“I have lived my whole life on the stage and screen before you. I found purpose and meaning in your response. For an actor that is no greater loss than the loss of his audience. I can part the Red Sea, but I can't part with you, which is why I won't exclude you from this stage in my life.
For now, I'm not changing anything. I will insist on work when I can; the doctors will insist on rest when I must. If you see a little less spring in my step, if your name fails to leap to my lips, you will know why. And if I tell you a funny story for the second time, please laugh anyway.”

Charlton Heston (1923–2008) American actor

Winning the Cultural War (1999), Video farewell (2002)

Life, Spring, Change, Loss

“If you can laugh every day, you can get healthy. You get those endorphins going in the body, God’s been looking out for me. I enjoy every day.”

Gavin MacLeod (1931–2021) American actor

Source: Gavin MacLeod on the Show That ‘Inspired a Lot of People to Get Into the News Business’ https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/gavin-macleod-show-news-business/286169/ (March 7, 2016)

God

“Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law,
Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Savonarola (1881), Lorenzo de' Medici in Act I, sc. i; p. 14.

Law, Nature

“I arrived in France, and found myself up against the legend which was current in left-wing Parisian salons: the Jews had always lived in perfect harmony with the Arabs. I was almost congratulated for having been born in such a land where racial discrimination and xenophobia were unknown. It made me laugh.”

Albert Memmi (1920) French writer

Source: "Who is an Arab Jew?" (1975)

Perfection

“Beings that can laugh at themselves, particularly their own foibles, stand the greatest chance of attaining wisdom.”

Charles E. Gannon (1960) American novelist

Source: Trial by Fire (2014), Chapter 56 (p. 814)

Wisdom, Chance

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

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

“You lie so well
I could never even tell
what were facts in your artful rearranging But I came back for more
and you laughed in my face and you rubbed it in
cause I’m a Labrador
and I run
when the gun
drops the dove again”

Aimee Mann (1960) American indie rock singer-songwriter (born 1960)

"Labrador" · Video (a shot for shot recreation of scenarios from her first hit video with 'Til Tuesday, "Voices Carry") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA1cX-wgMdM Song lyrics, Charmer (2012)

Lie, Art

“I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter. With the laugh comes the tears and in developing motion pictures or television shows, you must combine all the facts of life — drama, pathos and humor.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

Source: Year unknown, published in 2004, How to Be Like Walt : Capturing the Magic Every Day of Your Life (2004), Ch. 1 : It All Started with a Boy, p. 16

Life, Tear

“Childishness? I think it's the equivalent of never losing your sense of humor. I mean, yes there's a certain something that you retain. It's the equivalent of not getting so stuffy that you can't laugh at others.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

Year unknown, published in 2001, The Quotable Walt Disney (2001)

Thinking, Sense

“Life is: beautiful, funny, fragile, amazing, tragic, challenging, rewarding and above all, short. Hug longer, love harder, laugh more. And know we are all in this together, even when it seems unbearable.”

Unknown author

Love, Life, Beauty