Quotes about laugh page 4
“What a shame, for I dearly love to laugh.”
Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice
Source: Pride and Prejudice
“Women should be tough, tender, laugh as much as possible, and live long lives.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
“Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.”
Joss Whedon (1964) American director, writer, and producer for television and film
“No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.”
Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher
Source: Theological-Political Treatise
“He who laughs most, learns best.”
John Cleese (1939) actor from England
As quoted in Creating Emotionally Safe Schools: A Guide for Educators and Parents (2001) by Jane Bluestein, p. 215
“Life is short. Kiss slowly, laugh insanely, love truly and forgive quickly”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
https://www.facebook.com/11777366210/posts/10159064721041211/?
“If you're going to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise they'll kill you.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright
Credited to Shaw in the lead in to the mockumentary C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America (2004) and other recent works, but this or slight variants of it are also sometimes attributed to W. C. Fields, Charlie Chaplin, and Oscar Wilde. It might possibly be derived from Shaw's statement in John Bull's Other Island (1907): "My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world."
Another possibility is that it is derived from Shaw's characteristic of Mark Twain: "He has to put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang him believe he is joking."
Variants:
If you are going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
If you're going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise, they'll kill you.
Disputed
“Blood spurted from his nose. Okay, I couldn't help myself. I burst out laughing.”
Gena Showalter (1975) American writer
Source: Alice in Zombieland
“Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you're probably watching the wrong channel.”
Groucho Marx (1890–1977) American comedian
“The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Alex Flinn book Beastly
Variant: I love you, I thought. But I didn’t say it. It was not that I feared she would laugh in my face. She was far too kind for that. My fear was a greater one— that she won’t say it back.
Source: Beastly
“Live a good long life. Grow old and die after I do. And if you can, die laughing.”
Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist
“She laughed, and drank more beer. “Take a long trace off a short bridge, vampire.”
Kresley Cole American writer
Source: Lothaire
Enid Blyton (1897–1968) author
Source: Mr Galliano's Circus
“To be able to laugh and to be merciful are the only things that make man better than the beast”
Ruskin Bond (1934) British Indian writer
“I know why we laugh. We laugh because it hurts, and it's the only thing to make it stop hurting.”
Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land
Variant: I've found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much... because it's the only thing that'll make it stop hurting.
Source: Stranger in a Strange Land
“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.”
Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale
Timothy Leary (1920–1996) American psychologist
As quoted in Shout! (1981) by Philip Norman, p. 365; and in An Encyclopedia of Quotations about Music (1981) by Nat Shapiro, p. 303
Melina Marchetta (1965) Australian teen writer
Source: Quintana of Charyn
“The clown may be the source of mirth, but - who shall make the clown laugh?”
Angela Carter book Nights at the Circus
Source: Nights at the Circus
Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights
Catherine Earnshaw (Ch. XII).
Variant: I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words?
Source: Wuthering Heights (1847)
“He who laughs last laughs the laughiest.”
Louise Rennison (1951–2016) British writer
Source: Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants
Jennifer Ashley (1974) American author
Source: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie
“I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, the sinners are much more fun.”
Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist
Variant: I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
Kristin Hannah (1960) American writer
Source: Firefly Lane
Gavin de Becker (1954) American engineer
Source: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
“You gotta laugh because if you didn't you'd cry”
Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…
“Oh, womanly sympathy, love AND food?" I said, laughing. "Don't want a lot, do you?”
Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber
Source: Dragonfly in Amber
“She laughed so easily when she was happy. But also when she was sad.”
Janet Fitch book White Oleander
Source: White Oleander
Stephen Colbert (1964) American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor
Parade interview http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_09-23-2007/AStephen_Colbert (23 September 2007) <br class="br">Variant: You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time—of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid. <br class="br">Context: Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time—of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid.
J. Sheridan Le Fanu book Carmilla
Variant: Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.
Source: Carmilla
“You had to know a person well to make them laugh like that.”
Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Prince
Source: Clockwork Prince
“One could laugh at the world better if it didn't mix tender kindliness with its brutality.”
D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930) English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter
Ken Kesey book One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Variant: Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.
Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), Ch. 25
Context: While McMurphy laughs. Rocking farther and farther backward against the cabin top, spreading his laugh out across the water — laughing at the girl, at the guys, at George, at me sucking my bleeding thumb, at the captain back at the pier... and the Big Nurse and all of it. Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.
“If you're in love it ought to make you happy. You ought to laugh.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night
Source: Tender Is the Night
“You can laugh or you can cry. It is up to you which one you do.”
Rachael Ray (1968) American businessman
Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo
Source: Magic Mourns
Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon
Source: Flowers for Algernon
Václav Havel book Disturbing the Peace
Source: Disturbing the Peace (1986), Ch. 2 : Writing for the Stage
“To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it.”
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker
