Quotes & Sayings About A Joke

America has got to learn to take a joke. — Herman Cain

From the beginning, when something was wrong I've been saying: 'Dilly-ding, dilly-dong, wake up, wake up!' So on Christmas Day I bought for all the players and all the staff a little bell. It was just a joke. — Claudio Ranieri

Everything about life is a joke. Don't you know that? — Kurt Vonnegut

Once you start thinking about it in a mercenary frame of mind, then you're finished. You're a joke, because there are too many mercenaries out there already. — Tommy Shaw

The joke is that one Bengali is a poet, two Bengalis is an argument, three Bengalis is a political party, — Shashi Tharoor

It makes me feel tired about how guarded we are the whole time. Without even trying we're ready to make a joke of everything, serving up the day with big dollops of irony and derision and cynicism. As if. Sucked in. Kidding. — Fiona Wood

Have you ever heard a good joke? If you've ever heard someone just right, with the right pacing, then you're already on the way to poetry. It's about using words in very precise ways and using gesture. — Rita Dove

One question about a joke is, how well is the strangeness of the situation resolved? At 'The New Yorker', we retain a lot of incongruity, tapping the playful part of the mind - Monty Python-type stuff. We also try to use humor as a vehicle for communicating ideas. Not editorial comment, but observation. — Robert Mankoff

I'm called an oral historian, which is something of a joke. Oral history was here long before the pen, long before Gutenberg and the printing press. The difference is I have a tape recorder in my hand. — Studs Terkel

There's nothing the people love more than a Federal Reserve joke. — Adam McKay

I realized then how odd it must seem to them to be summoned by a woman. Roman women were at home quietly minding their business or else doing what wives were known to do in joke and song: boss, nag, forbid. As a foreign queen I was the only woman who was their equal and had the power to summon them, question them, and advise them on matters other than domestic details. I thought that a pity; there should be others. — Margaret George

There's a joke about the balloon boy who has a balloon mum and a balloon dad and he goes to a balloon school with balloon friends ad a balloon principal. And one day, the balloon boy decides to take a pin to his balloon school, which is, of course, a disaster. And he's called into the balloon principal's office, and the balloon principal tells him, 'You've let me down, you've let your school down, you've let your parents down, you've let your friends down. But most importantly you've let yourself down'. — Gabrielle Williams

I cannot tell a joke. But I can do a situation, that it becomes a joke. — Don Rickles

My Lord told me a joke. And seeing Him laugh has done more for me than any scripture I will ever read. — Meister Eckhart

I had begun to grasp, in the past few weeks, one of the great and uncovenanted delights of Greece; a pre-coming of age present in my case: a direct and immediate link, friendly and equal on either side, between human beings, something which melts barriers of hierarchy and background and money and, except for a few tribal and historic feuds, politics and nationality as well... Existence, these glances say, is a torment, an enemy, an adventure and a joke which we are in league to undergo, outwit, exploit and enjoy on equal terms as accomplices, fellow-hedonists and fellow-victims. — Patrick Leigh Fermor

Mr. Bloemker moved closer. He smelled like a wet diaper. "What is it," he asked, looking over Lenore's shoulder.
"If it's what I think it is," said Lenore, "it's a sort of joke. A what do you call it. An antinomy."
"An antinomy?"
Lenore nodded. "Gramma really likes antinomies. I think this guy here," looking down at the drawing on the back of the label, "is the barber who shaves all and only those who do not shave themselves."
Mr. Bloemker looked at her. "A barber?"
"The big killer question," Lenore said to the sheet of paper, "is supposed to be whether the barber shaves himself. I think that's why his head's exploded, here."
"Beg pardon?"
"If he does, he doesn't, and if he doesn't, he does. — David Foster Wallace

A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself. — Clifton Fadiman

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility, or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law, or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self-improvement. — J.K. Rowling

A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents. — Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Everybody I know who is funny, it's in them. You can teach timing, or some people are able to tell a joke, though I don't like to tell jokes. But I think you have to be born with a sense of humor and a sense of timing. — Carol Burnett

I think one of my favorite pieces I've ever done on the show which was about Hezbollah Israel conflict in 2006 and it was very pointed. It was a beautifully crafted piece of satire and it's a weird thing to say but it had a joke in there about 9/11 and I remember the audience sort of laughing but also kind of not knowing how to respond to that joke and it was just so - and I remember the tension after we did this joke on the air and there was this palpable gasp in the audience, but they were also laughing. And I thought oh, wow, that is something that is not being said in the Zeitgeist. — Aasif Mandvi

So what have I learned that is helpful? Well, if you are white, like I am, you can't get rid of the privilege you have, but you can use it for good. Don't say I don't even notice race! like it's a positive thing. Instead, recognize that differences between people make it harder for some to cross a finish line, and create fair paths to success for everyone that accommodate those differences. Educate yourself. If you think someone's voice is being ignored, tell others to listen. If your friend makes a racist joke, call him out on it, instead of just going along with it. If the two former skinheads I met can have such a complete change of heart, I feel confident that ordinary people can, too. — Jodi Picoult

He's the guy that the joke was wrote about: 'Is he a criminal lawyer?' 'Yes, very. — Dashiell Hammett

If I say a joke and the audience laughs it makes me feel good. — Rita Rudner

Could you imagine me and the roasters taking on the GOP field? It would be the greatest show ever. Prove that you can take a joke. Prove that you're a man or woman of the people. Prove that you're not above criticism even in the form of a backhanded compliment. — Jeff Ross

If you were a country," I said, "what would your national anthem be?"
I meant a pre-existing song
"What a Wonderful World" or "Que Sera, Sera" or something to make it a joke, like "Hey Ya!" ("I would like, more than anything else, for my nation to be shaken like a Polaroid picture.") — David Levithan

Authenticity seems like sort of a joke. Actually I believe it was the late comedian George Burns who said, "if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made." People cannot be invariant across situations and roles and, moreover, leaders need to be true not to themselves, but to what others want, need, and expect from them. — Jeffrey Pfeffer

She doesn't think that the mean people she knows are the most passionate; they just want to laugh at everything. But then she remembers that she laughed when a boy in class played a joke on an ugly girl and made her cry. — Mary Gaitskill

A joke is a good camouflage. Next best comes sentiment ... But the best camouflage of all - in my opinion - is the plain and simple truth. Because nobody ever believes it. — Max Frisch

It's been a harder book to write for personal reasons too. What gets me most are not the scary scientific studies about melting glaciers, the ones I used to avoid. It's the books I read to my two-year-old. Looking For a Moose is one of his favorites. It's about a bunch of kids that really, really, really want to see a moose. They search high and low - through a forest, a swamp, in brambly bushes and up a mountain, for "a long legged, bulgy nosed, branchy antlered moose." The joke is that there are moose hiding on each page. In the end, the animals all come out of hiding and the ecstatic kids proclaim: "We've never ever seen so many moose! — Naomi Klein

I like a woman who will laugh when you don't have to point her right at the joke, you know — Stephen King

I haven't had television since 1991, and it definitely influences me. As a child of the 1970s, I couldn't hold a narrative in my head; I was lucky if I could hold a joke in my head, because every time you turn on television or radio, it wipes the slate clean - at least in my case. — Chuck Palahniuk

Someone else is looking for him?"
"That's right, two men." Mrs. Brody softly laughed and said "They look just like those men in that alien movie. Dressed in black suits and sunglasses. They don't have much of a sense of humor though. When they came to my door, I asked them if they were seeking aliens and I assured them I wasn't one. They didn't laugh at my joke. — Linda Weaver Clarke

There was a family joke that Lucy's first words were, Nicholas is bugging me! — Alyxandra Harvey

Lady," we always call each other, partly a joke, partly in earnest, using still the old word, in its full flavor a kind of exorcism against "saleslady," "old lady," "ladylike." Relishing the anachronism, even the formality a type of aphrodisiac, a contrast to our delight in the horny, the vulgar, the vernacular which we cultivate just as ardently. — Kate Millett

If mankind is naturally good, he is sure going against his nature more and more of the time. It sounds like a bad joke: the paranoids are after us. — Herbert Gold

If Harriet Miers were not a crony of the president of the United States, her nomination to the Supreme Court would be a joke, as it would have occurred to no one else to nominate her. — Charles Krauthammer

I take care of myself, which includes dieting, exercising and minimising stress. I joke that I've been on a diet since 1974, which is basically true. — Kim Cattrall

There is a joke about a little girl who is filling in a hole in her garden when a neighbor looks over the fence. He politely asks, "Hi! What are you up to?" "My goldfish died," replies the girl tearfully, "and I've just buried him." The neighbor asks, "Isn't that an awfully big hole for a goldfish?" The little girl tamps down the soil and replies, "That's because he's inside your stupid cat. — Steven Pinker

They faced each other in silence for a long minute, both of them clearly uncomfortable. He hated all the awkwardness between them.
To hell with that. He smiled at her. "So do I get to know what's in that diary?"
She blushed crimson. "That diary got you into this mess. You could have been killed. How can you joke about it?"
"No joke. I'm sincerely interested." An understatement. He would have given his antique baseball bat collection to know what she'd written about him ten years ago.
"I was a foolish teenager."
"And now?" He stepped closer. — Dana Marton

Did you just make a joke, Tris? We should have you on painkillers more often if your going to start cracking jokes. — Veronica Roth

And the look on her face as she opened the door Was like an old joke told by a friend. It'd taken ten more years but she'd found her smile And I watched the corners start to bend. — Harry Chapin

But while I'd be their daughter, while I'd eat the roast and come home from dates and wash the dishes, I would also be myself. I would love my mother, but I'd never want to be her again. I would never be what someone else wanted me to be. I would never laugh at a joke I didn't think was funny. I would never tell another lie. I would be the truth-teller, starting today. That would be tough.
But I was tougher. — Judy Blundell

Even if the painting is green, well then! The 'subject' is the green. There is always a subject; it's a joke to suppress the subject, it's impossible. — Pablo Picasso

No way this could be seen as probable or possible, unless you think of a blow between the eyes, a sudden calamity. The stroke of fate that leaves a man a cripple, the wicked joke that turns clear eyes into blind stones. — Alice Munro

I'm a taker in terms of jokes. I love to hear a good joke, but I don't retain jokes. I'm not a good teller of jokes. — Steve Carell

Alec," Magnus said. He put a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder; Alec was standing still, staring angrily at the floor. "Are you okay?"
Alec looked at him. "Who are you again?"
Magnus gave a little gasp; he looked - for the first time Simon could remember - actually unnerved. It lasted only a moment, but it was there. "Alexander," he said.
"Too soon to joke about the happy memory thing, I take it," Alec said. — Cassandra Clare

In a flash, at a trumpet crash, I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond, Is immortal diamond. — Wesley Hill

What a grand joke the world was. You spend years fretting and plotting, only to find, in the end, that everything was going to be just fine, with or without you. — Jennifer Bernard

Every moment of life is unique-a kiss, a sunset, a dance, a joke. None will ever recur in quite the same way. Each happens only once in the history of the universe. — Stephen Nachmanovitch

In a weird way, it's not different from any other kind of joke-telling. You make those calculations about jokes about celebrities: is this a fair hit or not? The stakes were higher because the whole world was crumbling around us, but in terms of joke-telling, it's all about feel. — Michael Schur

Laughter is binary: It either happens or it doesn't. As each joke arrives in the course of a film, the cavernous space of the theater is either filled with joy and laughter or with the quiet of cringing embarrassment. Every time you step to the plate to make a joke, you're going to experience one or the other. — David Dobkin

Depending on what my job requirement is, my techniques change. If something is incredibly difficult to connect to, and painful, then I have to do a lot of work to connect to that and not joke around or lose sight of my job. — Adrien Brody

I don't like my wrestling or entertainment in general to be too clean or predictable for me as a fan. When I say clean, I'm not talking about dirty jokes, middle fingers and stuff like that. I'm actually not even a big fan of that. A lot of people talk about the attitude era being so great but a lot of it was terrible crap, sex jokes and over-the-top terrible bad comedy. It was Jerry Springer-like. They made a joke about a woman's breasts. Hilarious, but where's the wrestling? I look back on a lot of stuff now, and I'm like where's the wrestling? It's just a lot of crappy jokes. — Dean Ambrose

But what makes our marriage holy, what makes it "set apart" and sacramental, isn't the marriage certificate filed away in the basement or the degree to which we follow a list of rules and roles, it's the way God shows up in those everyday moments - loading the dishwasher, sharing a joke, hosting a meal, enduring an illness, working through a disagreement - and gives us the chance to notice, to pay attention to the divine. It's the way the God of resurrection makes all things new. — Rachel Held Evans

I make cameos in all my movies for no particular reason other than a joke. It's just a Hitchcock thing. — Peter Jackson

For Europeans a president having an affair, especially in France, is a joke. No one cares, it would never bring this kind of trouble to a country. — Julie Delpy

It was a bit of fun. But of course like anything that starts as a joke, people started to take it all seriously! — Steven Wilson

People who would never think of dealing in racial or sexual stereotypes will still throw in a fat joke because it's still OK. Really? — Al Roker

Because Buffy really has become the straight man, every once in a while it's nice to be the one that tells the joke and it's nice to be the one that is the joke and it's nice to do something that's a little bit different. — Sarah Michelle Gellar

U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next. — Christiane Amanpour

Even when there's not a joke or a hook, the first line has to be good and snapem to attention. Songs ain't novels. You don't have 30 pages to slowly wrap somebody in. They're more like short stories or poems. If the first line hasn't grabbed them, you won't get to the second line. Once you've developed an audience, you may have some luxury and trust, so you don't have to knock 'em over the head with line one. — Dan Bern

What's cool about Twitter is that you can make a joke about something very of-the-moment or random that I wouldn't be able to joke about in stand-up. — Aziz Ansari

What do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning
and a child's more imporant than a joke, I hope. You couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands. — Lewis Carroll

[There's] a joke that I've done forever: 'Nowadays they say that the largest majority of people will be Latino and you'll tell scary stories to your grandkids: "A long time ago when I was growing up, there used to be people who were white," and the kid says, "Really?" and you say, "Yeah, like the man who cuts our grass."' I've had that line forever and I love it. — George Lopez

The surprising thing is that I was not funny in high school. I was always jealous of the funny kids because they always got the girls. I couldn't tell a joke to save my life. — Seann William Scott

Mothers, take time to be a real friend to your children. Listen to your children, really listen. Talk with them, laugh and joke with them, sing with them, cry with them, hug them, honestly praise them. Yes, regularly spend unused one-on-one time with each child. Be a real friend to your children. — Ezra Taft Benson

I don't see much point in doing things for a pure joke. Every now and then you need a joke, but not so much as the people who spend all their lives constructing joke palaces think you do. — A.S. Byatt

When were you born?"
"Huh?" She scrunched up her nose at the sudden change in topic.
"Your sign?" He insisted.
She thought it must be a joke. Wasn't that a bad pickup line from the '70s? — Joannah Miley

But the problem is that you don't dare to think about anything. You're afraid; you don't know where your thoughts might lead you. Everything inside you is confused. You keep your eyes closed and stay on the old path. They brought you here, I don't know why and it doesn't concern me, but you won't accept my explanations of human guilt. You think it's a joke. Maybe it is, but maybe one could develop quite a nice philosophical idea out of it — Mesa Selimovic

That's something - you laugh about Eminem ... It's funny, man, because I didn't like him when he first came out, ya know. It seemed like a big joke. But I think the guy's for real, and I like his lyrics! — Alan Vega

Worship isn't destructive, Martin. I know that.
I don't. I only know it's the core of his life. What else has he got? He can hardly read. He knows no physics or engineering to make to world real for him. No paintings to show him how others have enjoyed it. No music except television jingles. No history except tales from a desperate mother. No friends. Not one kid to give him a joke, or make him know himself more moderately. He's a modern citizen for whom society doesn't exist. — Peter Shaffer

Oh, man," Xavier groaned. "See what you've done
now I'm stressing."
"You can't! You're the stable one!"
Xavier laughed and I realized his distress had been feigned to illustrate a point. He wasn't worried in the slightest.
"Just relax. Go and run a bath or have a shot of brandy."
"Okay."
"That second bit was a joke. We both know you can't hold your liquor. — Alexandra Adornetto

If God gives you (or makes you) a joke, what are you meant to do in response? (Receive it. Laugh.)
If God gives you an obstacle, what are you meant to do in response? (Receive it. Climb it. Then laugh.)
If God gives you more profound hardship, what are you meant to do in response? (Receive it. Climb it. Then laugh. Exhibit A: His Son.) — N.D. Wilson

When you're an older woman [in a movie], you are the brunt of the joke. — Jane Fonda

He wonders if it's some sort of twisted joke the adults are having, shoving hormonal teens into tight quarters but making it impossible to do anything but breathe.
"I wouldn't mind suffocating if it was with you," the girl says, which is flattering, but makes him even less interested in her.
"There'll be a better time," he tells her, knowing that such a time will never come - at least not for her - but hope is a powerful motivator.
Eventually they settle into a sort of symbiotic breathing rhythm. He breathes in when she breathes out, so their chests don't fight for space.
After a while, there's a jarring motion. With his arm now around the girl, he holds her a little more tightly, knowing that easing her fear somehow eases his own. — Neal Shusterman

One good thing about New York is that most people function daily while in a low-grade depression. It's not like if you're in Los Angeles, where everyone's so actively working on cheerfulness and mental and physical health that if they sense you're down, they shun you. Also, all that sunshine is a cruel joke when you're depressed. In New York, even in your misery, you feel like you belong. — Mindy Kaling

So although there is no phoenix here, there is, nonetheless, a fierce, stubborn, wildly insightful, arrogantly honest, crazily committed, and caring human, who will take the heat, the brunt of whatever silver spoon joke you may have, so I can help you have everything you want in your life. And I mean everything. — Lauren Handel Zander

I'm looking for laughs, you know? If it take me to flip over a table, if I have to go physical comedy, I will do it. But whatever the joke needs at that particular time, is where I'm dedicated to. I'm not into beating somebody down and beating myself up. I don't do insults and things like that. I don't do it - I'm a storyteller. — Bernie Mac

Luck was a joke. Even good luck was just bad luck with its hair combed. — Stephen King

If I think something's funny, I try to mold it into a joke as soon as possible. Once I have a joke, I say it a million different ways on stage until I find a rhythm and it feels like it's as good as it can be. — Michael Che

Darwin Award. That's not a real award, it's a joke. They give them to people who die doing something so stupid that it counts as a service to humanity. — Gregg Dunnett

A hooker, a truck driver, and a nun walk into a hotel," Ida Belle said. "There's the start of a bad joke. — Jana Deleon

Where are we going?" Thomas asked, still feeling the weight of seeing those walls close, thinking about the maze, the confusion, the fear. He hold himself to stop or he'd drive himself crazy. Trying to grasp a sense of normalcy, he made a weak attempt at a joke. "If you're looking for a goodnight kiss, forget it. — James Dashner

As I see it, mainstream comics now speak only to the hardcore few who stayed; conversing in a weird, garbled, visual pig latin only they can understand - rendering the term 'mainstream' a hollow joke - while the true mainstream, the other 99.9% of the populace, find enjoyment elsewhere. — Scott McCloud

No doubt he was smiling. He smiled a lot, as if the world were a secret joke that only he was clever enough to understand. — George R R Martin

She's you, without your conscience, or your feelings. She's you without your humanity."
"You're saying she's a mood swing?"
He shrugged. "Or maybe you're her mood swing."
"Don't even joke about that. — Derek Landy

Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one there is filled full with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes. — C.S. Lewis

The novel is a game or joke shared between author and reader. — Annie Dillard

When comedy is good, it's jazz. The beats of it, the looseness, the improvisational part, the music-the way you hit the inflection, the high notes of a joke. It's all melody to me. — Billy Crystal

The idea of surprise is part of what makes something funny, or what gets a reaction. At least when I'm an audience member, after you hear a joke so many times it's not as funny because it loses its surprise or its twist. So I think funny has to do with surprise. — Charlyne Yi

I'm a bit of a worrier, to an extreme. I'll crack a joke, then worry if I've offended someone - even when they're laughing. I have a guilt complex, always worrying. — Sophia Bush

The Canadian-Australian mathematician Norman Wildberger has posted an essay arguing that real numbers are a joke. — Max Tegmark

I have some bad feet. But really, my main fault would probably be my personality. A lot of times, I am not serious enough. I joke around too much sometimes. — Tim Hudson

The sun is a joke. Oranges can't titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. — Nathanael West

I just heard the latest joke about my hair: 'Do you know what that is on her head? It's a steering wheel to drive the state.' — Yulia Tymoshenko

And she'd also found Logan again. Now he was her ... what? New-old boyfriend? Lover? Skype buddy? Pen pal with benefits? Whatever his title, his e-mails filled her inbox. Sometimes he sent five a day, short and quipping. Other times he sent longer, more serious ones. She kept her tone light when she replied. That'd always been her MO - a joke, a jab. A way to deflect from what she was really feeling. A way to keep the nonstop ache of missing him from becoming too painful to survive. And honestly, what was there to say that would come close to what she felt? The moments they'd spent together before he'd shipped out on his latest naval tour had been the most peaceful she could remember - even with her anxiety about her dad. It'd been the first time she'd felt complete in a long time. And then, just like that, he was gone again. — Rob Thomas

I want people to just be paying attention even if they're not necessarily laughing at something, or if it takes them a while to get something, I don't mind that. If half the crowd gets the joke and the other half is sitting there scratching their heads, that's just as good for me if I like the joke, because I feel like it just brings people in more. — Anthony Jeselnik

You don't see yourself at all, do you? It seems to me that you're good at everything you try," said Ethan sincerely.
"I had a dream I could breathe underwater," I said flippantly, "Maybe I'll go swim with the mermaids."
Ethan turned to look at me with shock in his eyes.
"Just kidding," I said, alarmed at his reaction — Derrolyn Anderson

A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener's mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere at all or just where he didn't expect to go. — Max Eastman