Quotes about Humor

“I love Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart because they're bringing irony back into American humor, which is a delicious treat. The entire Colbert persona of being extreme right-wing when he's not at all is highly amusing. He does it so well, but sometimes a little too well. My wife is convinced he's completely that way.”

“Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. It's a way of enticing a reader into a poem so that less funny things can take place later. It really is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.”

“I try to give all my characters a sense of humor, so I guess I feel like I have done comedy, but maybe I'm better known for drama.”

“Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.”

“Both conservatives and liberals watch 'Parks and Recreation,' and they each think the show is for them, which is really cool. 'SNL' was totally different. It was exciting because everyone was paying attention. Political humor works when people know what you're talking about.”

“Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.”

“Humor is imperative, more important than food. You have a choice when someone dies. You can lie down or get back into life. Do something for someone else.”

“If this humor be the safety of our race, then it is due largely to the infusion into the American people of the Irish brain.”

“Rowling is a luminous storyteller. I love her sense of humor and the intricate wizarding world she built around Hogwarts. I think all writers aspire to be like her, to capture readers like she does. But I didn't think about 'Harry Potter' when I wrote 'The Bone Season.'”

“I think humor is a very serious thing. I use it as a way of weakening the reader's defenses so that I can more easily take him to something more.”

“Writing humor for me is more like a watchful-ness. You have to watch. When you say something funny, or someone else does, it's more like you wait for the piece.”

“If I ever have sex with someone I might be able to develop a sense of humor.”

“I'm interested not just in projects that I'll be starring in, but producing film and TV that's really quality and great for adults; and when I say 'great for adults,' it doesn't mean without humor, because I'm also interested in doing comedy.”

“I think in life, the sense of humor and comedy always exists.”

“Hateful words stand no chance against self-worth and a little of humor.”

“Lesbian humor isn't trying to sell anything, it doesn't have to sell out. Coming out as a lesbian onstage is still a very political act; if it weren't, more women would do it.”

“I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.”

“There is something really horrific for any human being who feels he is being consumed by other people. I'm talking about a writer's critics, who don't address what you've written, but want to probe into your existence and magnify the trivia of your life without any sense of humor, without any sense of context.”

“Humor was not important only for me, humor was important for this nation for centuries, to survive, you know.”

“I'm sure there are people who survive tragedy without humor, but I've never met any of them. Nor would I be particularly interested in writing about them if I did meet them.”

“Whatever I did, I always gravitated toward trying to be funny. If I was with friends, we were joking around. If I wrote for the newspaper, it would be a humor column. If I acted, I wanted to do comedy.”