Laughter famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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After the first few readings in comedy venues I did begin to write for laughs. There's something so gratifying about stimulating laughter.
-- Aaron Belz -
Do you recall the laughter of the Philistines at the helpless Sampson? You can hear the echo of that laughter to-day, as the church, shorn of her strength by her own sin, is an object of ridicule to the world, who cry in derision, "Where is your boasted triumph and your Millennial glory?
-- Abbott Eliot Kittredge -
Someone once defined humor as a way to keep from killing yourself. I keep my sense of humor and I stay alive.
-- Abe Burrows -
Do you know what it is to be a man violently in love? To live for a woman's smiles and laughter, to hunger for her touch until life itself seems impossible without it, to desire her as you desire to breathe?
-- Abigail Reynolds -
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.
-- Abraham Lincoln -
During 'Saturday Night Fever' at the end of the first act dance number I tried to perform a split-jump, only I can't do them so I ended up on my ***** followed by the most unsightly backward roll out of it, followed by the cast falling over in laughter and a good portion of the audience too.
-- Adam Garcia -
Christianity is the worst of the regressions that mankind can ever have undergone, and it's the Jew who, thanks to this diabolic invention, has thrown him back fifteen centuries. The only thing that would be still worse would be victory for the Jew through Bolshevism. If Bolshevism triumphed, mankind would lose the gift of laughter and joy. It would become merely a shapeless mass, doomed to grayness and despair.
-- Adolf Hitler -
But a child's joy is doubled for the mother, and the sound of her son's laughter began to her heart, a feat she had never believed possible
-- Adriana Trigiani -
Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature, and is purifying only in so far as there is a natural and unschooled goodness in the human heart.
-- Agnes Repplier -
Just as we are often moved to merriment for no other reason than that the occasion calls for seriousness, so we are correspondingly serious when invited too freely to be amused.
-- Agnes Repplier -
Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature.
-- Agnes Repplier -
What monstrous absurdities and paradoxes have resisted whole batteries of serious arguments, and then crumbled swiftly into dust before the ringing death-knell of a laugh!
-- Agnes Repplier -
Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
-- Alan Alda -
Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself.
-- Alan Alda -
In the midst of the sense of tragedy or loss, sometimes laughter is not only healing, it's a way of experiencing the person that you've lost again.
-- Alan Alda -
When people are laughing, they're generally not killing one another.
-- Alan Alda -
What I find interesting is how close you can run the laughter along the seam of seriousness, and occasionally cross it, so that half the house genuinely doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Custard pie humour is fairly universal, but at the other end, which I'm more interested in, there's the humour that hovers on the darkness, that walks in the shadow of something else, not always that obvious.
-- Alan Ayckbourn -
I asked these Indians: "Do men ever make Chicha?" My question was met with gales of laughter. The women howled. Bent over in hilarity, one replied, "Men can't brew. Chicha made by men would only make gas in the belly. You are a funny man! Beer is women's work."
-- Alan D. Eames -
Most creativity is a transition from one context into another where things are more surprising. There’s an element of surprise, and especially in science, there is often laughter that goes along with the “Aha.†Art also has this element. Our job is to remind us that there are more contexts than the one that we’re in — the one that we think is reality.
-- Alan Kay -
I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.
-- Alan Rickman -
A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.
-- Alan Watts -
Just as true humor is laughter at oneself, true humanity is knowledge of oneself.
-- Alan Watts -
I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it.
-- Albert Brooks -
The world really changed after 9/11, not just in the tragic way, but in every way. So it took me a couple of years to even understand how my art form I could process any of this. When the world changed, eliciting laughter with subjects that were funny to me before 9/11 just didnt seem good enough.
-- Albert Brooks -
To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.
-- Albert Camus -
We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.
-- Albert Einstein -
Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter -- to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water.
-- Albert Schweitzer -
I'd been so set on an escape that was now impossible, and the only form of freedom left to me was death. It was a terrible kind of freedom—one from misery and pain, yes, but also one from lightness and laughter and life. It was an absence of everything.
-- Alexander Gordon Smith -
I have heard articulate speech produced by sunlight I have heard a ray of the sun laugh and cough and sing! … I have been able to hear a shadow, and I have even perceived by ear the passage of a cloud across the sun's disk.
-- Alexander Graham Bell -
The man that loves and laughs must sure do well.
-- Alexander Pope -
Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise. By mountains pil'd on mountains to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
-- Alexander Pope -
Laughter is born out of the discovery of the contradictory.
-- Alfred Jarry -
One would have to say "in the end everything is a gag, etc" because everything is infinitely more than just a gag. The same applies to other "is"-statements such as "Laughter is an instant vacation"
-- Alfred Korzybski -
I am tired of tears and laughter, And men that laugh and weep Of what may come hereafter For men that sow to reap: I am weary of days and hours, Blown buds of barren flowers, Desires and dreams and powers And everything but sleep.
-- Algernon Charles Swinburne -
I've always been an optimist and I believe laughter is a wonderful thing
-- Alice Herz-Sommer -
We turned onto the last landing. Going out with this guy, I thought, would involve a lot of silly laughter, some wit--the buzz of his whispered wisecracks in my ear. But there would be as well his willingness to reveal, or more his inability to conceal, that he had been silently rehearsing my name as he climbed the stairs behind me. There would be his willingness to bestow upon me the power to reassure him. He would trust me with his happiness.
-- Alice McDermott -
Assuredly it would be a pity if laughter should ever become, like rhetoric and the arts, a habit.
-- Alice Meynell -
The sense of humor has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter.
-- Alice Meynell -
Laughter isn't even the other side of tears. It is tears turned inside out. Truly the suffering is great, here on earth. We blunder along, shredded by our mistakes, bludgeoned by our faults. Not having a clue where the dark path leads us. But on the whole, we stumble along bravely, don't you think?
-- Alice Walker -
Laughter can help relieve tension in even the heaviest of matters.
-- Allen Klein -
Laughter, and the broader category of humor, are key elements in helping us go on with our life after a loss.
-- Allen Klein -
Now, a recent study from cardiologists at the University of Maryland, has shown that laughter may have a beneficial effect on the heart.
-- Allen Klein -
Working mothers' laughter comes hardest when our double life is revealed for what it is: a juggling act in which the balls can drop at any time, invariably on our own head.
-- Allison Pearson -
There is no point to samba if it doesn't make you smile.
-- Alma Guillermoprieto -
I still get laughed at but it doesn't bother me, I'm just so glad to hear laughter around me.
-- Amanda Palmer -
Laughter--an interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features, and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious, and though intermittent, incurable.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
Happiness, laughter and joy abound, when friends, family, and lovers are around.
-- Amy Davis -
People hit the sauce in a big way all winter. Amidst blizzards they wrestle unsuccessfully with the dark comedy of their lives, laughter trapped in their frigid gizzards. Meanwhile, the mercury just plummets, like a migrating duck blasted out of the sky by some hunter in a cap with fur earflaps.
-- Amy Gerstler -
The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation. Sex does not thrive on monotony. Without feeling, inventions, moods, no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all of the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.
-- Anais Nin -
In New York the acoustics are good for laughter, for life is all external, all action, no thought, no meditation, no dreaming, no reflection, only the exuberance of action.
-- Anais Nin -
Acting is a sense of wonder and magic and mystery for me and when life takes me on a new journey, I simply remember the smile my first ballet recital put on my face and I move forward.
-- Andrea Thompson -
If there is not laughter in intimacy, it becomes heavy, burdensome, and dull. At my best moments, the love dialogue I try to carry on with You each day is comic-what could be more comic than a human addressing the Ground of Being as an intimate? It's a kind of blasphemy that I dare because you have called for it, and that is pretty humorous, too.
-- Andrew Greeley -
Hard news really is hard. It sticks not in the craw but in the mind. It has an almost physical effect, causing fear, interest, laughter or shock.
-- Andrew Marr -
I know its corny, but laughter is a two-way gift, and hearing people laugh just warms me through and through.
-- Andy Dick -
The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown.
-- Angela Carter -
Spirituality does not have to be serious. You are spirituality. Fun laughter heal you faster than anything. Introduce fun back into your life.
-- Anita Moorjani -
I like a quiet evening with family or friends over, great food and great discussion and a lot of laughter. That's really what I think fills my tank.
-- Anna Eshoo -
It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer. Everything fades: the shimmer of gold over White Cove; the laughter in the night air; the lavender early morning light on the faces of skyscrapers, which had suddenly become so heroically tall. Every dawn seemed to promise fresh miracles, among other joys that are in short supply these days. And so I will try to tell you, while I still remember, how it was then, before everything changed-that final season of the era that roared.
-- Anna Godbersen -
We neither laugh alone, nor weep alone, why then should we pray alone?
-- Anna Letitia Barbauld -
She laughed out loud, a warm, knowing laughter that made me once again wonder about the secret ingredient in these women’s lives. Whatever it was, I was clearly missing it. It was so much more than just self-confidence; it seemed to be the ability to love oneself, enthusiastically and unsparingly, body and soul, naturally followed by the assumption that every man on the planet is dying to get in on the act.
-- Anne Fortier -
Laughter is a bubbly, effervescent form of holiness
-- Anne Lamott -
You know how I always say that laughter is carbonated holiness? Well, Robin was the ultimate proof of that, and bubbles are spirit made visible.
-- Anne Lamott -
Rest and laughter are the most spiritual and subversive acts of all. Laugh, rest, slow down.
-- Anne Lamott -
The solution is always spiritual, and it almost never has anything to do with the problem ... laughter is carbonated holiness.
-- Anne Lamott -
I do not wish to grow old, to outlive my illusions. Only a short respite from cares and sorrow, a brief time of flowers, and music, and love, and laughter, and ecstatic tears.
-- Anne Reeve Aldrich -
The truth is, laughter always sounds more perfect than weeping. Laughter flows in a violent riff and is effortlessly melodic. Weeping is often fought, choked, half strangled, or surrendered to with humiliation.
-- Anne Rice -
Laughter nibbled at my lips like tiny fish in warm water.
-- Anne Rivers Siddons -
Whoever said laughter is the best medicine had clearly never tasted scotch.
-- Anne Taintor -
Remember, men need laughter sometimes more than food.
-- Annie Fellows Johnston -
I have two lovely parents who support everything I do, two siblings, and three beautiful nieces. My house is always filled with laughter and fun!
-- Ariel Winter -
Shall I crack any of those old jokes, master, At which the audience never fail to laugh?
-- Aristophanes -
Laughter is a bodily exercise, precious to Health
-- Aristotle -
Humor is... despair refusing to take itself seriously.
-- Arland Ussher -
I learned quickly that when I made others laugh, they liked me.
-- Art Buchwald -
And keep a sense of humor. It doesn't mean you have to tell jokes. If you can't think of anything else, when you're my age, take off your clothes and walk in front of a mirror. I guarantee you'll get a laugh.
-- Art Linkletter -
Laughter and weeping, the Greek masks of comedy and tragedy, mark the extremes of a continuous spectrum; both provide channels for the overflow of emotion; both are
-- Arthur Koestler -
Down deep in His heart God is a comedian who loves to make us laugh.
-- Arthur Miller -
The cause of laughter is simply the sudden perception of the incongruity between a concept and the real project.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer -
Ninety-eight per cent of laughter is nothing to do with jokes, which do not deserve to bear the weight of all the funny stuff in the world.
-- Arthur Smith -
All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.
-- August Wilson -
He who laughs at everything is as big a fool as he who weeps at everything.
-- Baltasar Gracian -
Whatever it is probably won't go away, so we might as well live and laugh through it. When we double over laughing, we're bending so we won't break. If you think your particular troubles are too heavy and too traumatic to laugh about, remember that laughing is like changing a baby's diaper. It doesn't solve any problems permanently, but it makes things more acceptable for awhile.
-- Barbara Johnson -
Laughter is to life what shock absorbers are to automobiles. It won't take the potholes out of the road, but it sure makes the ride smoother
-- Barbara Johnson -
We can never untangle all the woes in other people's lives. We can't produce miracles overnight. But we can bring a cup of cool water to a thirsty soul, or a scoop of laughter to a lonely heart.
-- Barbara Johnson -
Laughter dulls the sharpest pain and flattens out the greatest stress. To share it is to give a gift of health.
-- Barbara Johnson -
False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.
-- Baron de Montesquieu -
In the theater, I've found that, in general, reaction and laughter come easier at an evening performance, when the audience is more inclined to forget its troubles. Matinee customers must enter the theatre in a more matter-of-fact frame of mind, hanging on tightly before they let themselves go.
-- Beatrice Lillie -
Here it comes," she said with an expression of pure bliss. "Drug rush ... any moment now ... the surge of warmth ... bye-bye, Mr. Pain..." "Vee-" "Knock, knock." "This is really important-" "Knock, knock." "It's about Elliot-" "Knock, knoooock," she said in a singsong voice. I sighed. "Who's there?" "Boo." "Boo who?" "Boo-hoo, somebody's crying, and it's not me!" She broke into hysterical laughter.
-- Becca Fitzpatrick -
Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy. You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.
-- Bel Kaufman -
Often in my lectures when I use the phrase “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy†to describe our nation’s political system, audiences laugh. No one has ever explained why accurately naming this system is funny. The laughter is itself a weapon of patriarchal terrorism.
-- Bell Hooks -
Ryan Stout, a straight-arrow-looking kind of guy, shocks the crowd into laughter with his inventive interplay between innocence and a jarringly twisted point of view. He goes from loony to weirdly logical. With him, it’s more than clever writing; his comedy is based on clear and clever thinking.
-- Ben Fong-Torres -
Progress is nothing but the victory of laughter over dogma.
-- Benjamin De Casseres -
She laughs at everything you say. Why? Because she has fine teeth.
-- Benjamin Franklin -
Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away
-- Benjamin Franklin -
The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed.
-- Bennett Cerf
