As Long As You Can Laugh At Yourself Quotes & Sayings

She was talking to a tree. Just talking to a tree. Totally normal. People probably did it every day here. They're only trees. She fought an insane urge to laugh. — Ruth Frances Long

Sometimes there are more tears than laughter, and sometimes there is more laughter than tears, and sometimes you feel so choked you can neither weep nor laugh. For tears and laughter there will always be so long as there is human life. When our tear wells have run dry and the voice of laughter is silenced, the world will be truly dead. — Lin Yutang

Sincere and unspiteful laughter is mirth, but where is there any mirth in our time, and do people know how to be mirthful? ... A man's mirth is a feature that gives away the whole man, from head to foot. Someone's character won't be cracked for a long time then the man bursts out laughing somehow quite sincerely, and his whole character suddenly opens up as if on the flat of your hand. Only a man of the loftiest and happiest development knows how to be mirthful infectiously, that is, irresistibly and goodheartedly. I'm not speaking of his mental development, but of his character, of the whole man. And so, if you want to discern a man and know his soul, you must look, not at how he keeps silent, or how he speaks, or how we weeps, or even how he is stirred by the noblest ideas, but you had better look at him when he laughs. If a man has a good laugh, it means he's a good man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Armadillo A big fiesta was announced on Lake Titicaca, and the armadillo, who was a very superior creature, wanted to dazzle everybody. Long beforehand, he set to weaving a cloak of such elegance that it would knock all eyes out. The fox noticed him at work. "Are you in a bad mood?" "Don't distract me. I'm busy." "What's that for?" The armadillo explained. "Ah," said the fox, savoring the words, "for the fiesta tonight?" "What do you mean, tonight?" The armadillo's heart sank. He had never been more sure of his time calculations. "And me with my cloak only half finished!" While the fox took off with a smothered laugh, the armadillo finished the cloak in a hurry. As time was flying, he had to use coarser threads, and the weave ended up too big. For this reason the armadillo's shell is tight-warped around the neck and very open at the back. (174) — Eduardo Galeano

Okay. But ... go easy. We don't want another Albania." "No," Reyna agreed. Their first shadow-travel experience together, two days ago, had been a total fiasco, possibly the most humiliating episode in Reyna's long career. Perhaps someday, if they survived, they would look back on it and laugh, but not now. The three of them had agreed never to speak of it. What happened in Albania would stay in Albania. — Rick Riordan

Heaven knows insanity was disreputable enough, long ago; but now that the lawyers have got to cutting every gallows rope and picking every prison lock with it, it is become a sneaking villainy that ought to hang and keep on hanging its sudden possessors until evil-doers should conclude that the safest plan was to never claim to have it until they came by it legitimately. The very calibre of the people the lawyers most frequently try to save by the insanity subterfuge ought to laugh the plea out of the courts, one would think. — Mark Twain

We danced forever, and not nearly long enough. Now that I faced him, I could touch him, too, rather than self-consciously drip through his fingers. I explored his back, fingertips discovering ridges of his spine, muscles, a place below his left shoulder blade that made him writhe, as if struggling not to laugh. I tickled him again, devouring the sensation of his chest against my cheek. — Jodi Meadows

Topical-sketch writing were incredibly rational and well reasoned: don't do a joke if the subject doesn't deserve it. An ad hominem attack on someone might get you a cheap laugh, but it doesn't earn you any long-term trust. The biggest rule was: you attack whoever's in power. Don't bring your personal bias to the table. — Michael Schur

Oh my God, you're huge. She struggled to get her hands to the ends of the long sleeves. The garment hung to her knees. She glanced up to see his lips pressed together, like he was choking on a laugh. The corners of his eyes wee crinkled and amusement flickered in his heated gaze. — Krystal Shannan

Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live — Andrea Levy

was thinking - um, maybe you should let me do the talking." He glanced over at her. "What are you saying? That I'm scary?" "You're the scariest person I've ever met." "Thank you," he said with a wicked smile. "That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time." "No, really. You're scarier than Frankenstein." He chuckled. "You're so scary that a great white shark would put on tennis shoes and run up the beach to get away from you." His chuckle turned into a laugh. "I mean it," she said, getting into the spirit of it. "If the boogey man was in your closet, he'd stay there until you left for work." "Okay, okay," he said, holding up one hand while trying to stop laughing. "I got it. When we find the girl, you can do the talking." She nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea. — Arthur Bradley

That reminds me of a song," said Emilia. The women laughed; the men groaned. But the fire was blazing and the night was long, and folk will want entertainment after the tedium of a day's work. Emilia's song detailed the amorous adventures of a water horse who fell in love - if love was the right word - with a series of young women who passed beside the lake in which the creature dwelled and from which he emerged in the form of a good-looking young man of exactly the right sort to catch a young woman's fancy. She had a clear voice and a pleasing timbre, and every local knew the chorus, whose euphemisms about mounting and galloping embarrassed me. We did not sing these sorts of songs in the Barahal house. Rory caught right on and sang the chorus as if born to it. In the laughter and pounding of tables that followed, I said, to no one in particular, "I thought kelpies drowned and then devoured their victims!" The words, innocently spoken, only caused the gathered folk to laugh even — Kate Elliott

It was a long time ago, we were in the office, and we had finished work exhausted. A friend of a friend said 'Hey, take this it will give you energy,' so I thought I'd try it. I didn't know what it was. It made me laugh and laugh, like crazy ... to the point that my back hurt' *he holds his hips* 'like I'd just had a baby. — Giorgio Armani

But she died; and with my own hands I bore her to the tomb; and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh as I found no traces of the first in the channel where I laid the second. — Edgar Allan Poe

You could fill a catalog with all you long for - for him to come back, for a do-over, for a different ending in which not only were you strong and said good-bye but he lived and made a success of his life and decades later you could look back together on your twenties and laugh at all your follies, for his voice on the other end of the phone call, for one more of those Albuquerque nights when it was easy to fall asleep knowing he was just in the next room. — Leigh Stein

If you aren't ready to say the word, that's fine," he says. "I'll wait as long as you need me to. I just hope you don't mind this interruption tonight." He pushes the microphone away, then looks down to his guitar. Brennan leans into the microphone and looks at me.

"He can't hear what I'm saying right now, so I'll take this opportunity to tell you Ridge is full of shit. He doesn't want to wait anymore. He wants you to say the word more than he wants air. So please, for the sake of all that is holy, say the word tonight."

I laugh as I wipe a tear from my eye. — Colleen Hoover

He had in those days imagined himself capable of extraordinary heroisms and endurances which would make the girl he loved forget the awkward hands and the spotty chin of adolescence. Everything had seemed possible. One could laugh at daydreams, but so long as you had the capacity to daydream there was a chance that you might develop some of the qualities of which you dreamed. It was like the religious discipline: words however emptily repeated can in time form a habit, a kind of unnoticed sediment at the bottom of the mind, until one day to your own surprise you find yourself acting on the belief you thought you didn't believe in. — Graham Greene

The Blue Fly"

Five summer days, five summer nights,
The ignorant, loutish, giddy blue-fly
Hung without motion on the cling peach
Humming occasionally 'O my love, my fair one!'
As in the canticles.

Magnified one thousand times, the insect
Looks farcically human; laugh if you will!
Bald head, stage fairy wings, blear eyes,
A caved-in chest, hairy black mandibles,
Long spindly thighs.

The crime was detected on the sixth day.
What then could be said or done? By anyone?
It would have been vindictive, mean, and what-not,
To swat that fly for being a blue-fly,
For debauch of a peach.

Is it fair either, to bring a microscope
To bear on the case, even in search of truth?
Nature, doubtless, has some compelling cause
To glut the carriers of her epidemics -
Nor did the peach complain. — Robert Graves

Love is a kind of dementia with very precise and oft-repeated clinical symptoms. You blush in each other's presence, you both hover in places where you expect the other to pass, you are both a little tongue-tied, you both laugh inexplicably and too long, you become quite nauseatingly girlish, and he becomes quite ridiculously gallant. You have also grown a little stupid. — Louis De Bernieres

When you laugh at yourself, you gain perspective. Then you realize that the mistakes you made, as long as they didn't hurt anyone but yourself - well, you can forgive yourself for those. — Dean Koontz

When you were little, what inspired you to feel this way?' Then he paused and asked, 'Looking in the mirror and having it crack in two?'
Instead of clobbering him, I laughed-the kind of laugh that escapes into the air before you can catch it. The kind of chuckle that shows a tiny form of acceptance.
Trevor obviously didn't expect me to find his remark entertaining. He was primed for a fight. We both cracked up and locked eyes. His gaze lingered a little too long, not in a creepy way, but in a way that says I'm not ready to let this moment go. — Ellen Schreiber

And so long as I can laugh never will I be poor. — Og Mandino

As you get older as a comedian and keep doing it, what you actually start to cherish on stage is not the build-up to the jokes, but how comfortable you can be in the silence and the non-laughing parts, and how long you can take the audience without a laugh to then get a huge reaction. — Patton Oswalt

I LOVE WAL-MART. I CONSIDER MY JOKES TO BE VERY JEUVINILLE. STUFF A 14 YEAR OLD WOULD LAUGH AT BECAUSE THATS THE SENCE OF HUMOR I HAVE. ALL THE STUFF I TALK ABOUT MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR CHURCH GROUPS HOWEVER WAL-MART AINT SUNDAY SCHOOL. AS LONG AS I DIDNT USE OFFENSIVE FOUL LANGUAGE I KNEW ID BE FINE. WAL-MART GETS IT, THATS WHY THEY BLOW AWAY THE COMPETITION. BESIDES ITS THERE STORE THEY CAN DO WHAT THEY WANT. THATS AMERICA BABY! — Larry The Cable Guy

The guardians," Joshua begins. "We want you to join us."
I laugh quietly, not understanding. "I, um, didn't think that was possible as long as I was living."
"Not as a Guardian Guardian. As a Helper of Guardians. It's a new position. Just for you. I've been sent to talk to you since Seth refused." Joshua throws Seth a nasty look. — Katie Klein

She pushed him onto the couch and straddled him ...
Min swallowed "the thing is, im going to spread. Hips, thighs-"
"Not till nine-thirty," Cal said trying not to picture her.
"-waist," Min said then stopped. "What? nine-thirty? Not till my forties, probably, i think i can fight it off that long, but then-"
"What?" Cal said.
"Im going to get fat," Min said, and he blinked. "Er. Im going to get fatter." she frowned at him. "what did you think i meant?"
"for future reference," he said starting to laugh. "if you're sitting half naked on my lap and you tell me you're going to spread-"
"No! I would never say that!" she said. — Jennifer Crusie

Everybody really needs to laugh ... If you don't laugh, you're not going to live long. — Paul Rodriguez

Oh my gosh," Somer whispers, one hand flying up to her mouth. "She's beautiful."
Krishnan fumbles with the papers and reads, "Asha. That's her name. Ten months old."
"What does it mean?" she asks.
"Asha? Hope." He looks up at her, smiling. "It means hope."
"Really?" She gives a little laugh, crying as well. "Well, she must be ours then."
She grasps his hand, intertwining their fingers, and kisses him.
"That's perfect, really perfect."
She rests her head on his shoulder as they stare at the photo together.
For the first time in a very long time, Somer feels a lightness in her chest. How can it be I'm already in love with this child, half a world away? The next morning, they send a telegram to the orphanage, stating they are coming to get their daughter. — Shilpi Somaya Gowda

I dare say you are planning on a late repentance. You do not know what you are doing. You are planning without God. Repentance and faith are the gifts of God, and they are gifts that He often withholds, when they have been long offered in vain. I grant you true repentance is never too late, but I warn you at the same time, late repentance is seldom true. I grant you, one penitent thief was converted in his last hours, that no man might despair; But I warn you, only one was converted, that no man might presume. I grant you it is written, Jesus is 'Able to save completely those who come to God through him' (Hebrews 7:25). But I warn you, it is also written by the same Spirit, 'Since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand, I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you' (Proverbs 1:24-26).

Believe me, you will find it no easy matter to turn to God whenever you please. — J.C. Ryle

Death was temporary, lasting only long enough to provoke a laugh from kids in pajamas sitting cross-legged in front of the TV set, gorging themselves on handfuls of Froot Loops. — Agatha Christie

I throw my head back and laugh long and hard. Then I lean in and whisper in her ear, You don't know who you're fucking with, princess. Ain't no one do bad like I do. — Victoria Scott

Jay Wexler is my kind of writer
a weird one, and a wry one, and one who isnt afraid to act silly in a sort of bait-and-switch that, to the readers surprise, moves him as much as it makes him laugh. Like all the best comedians, Wexler is clearly nursing a heart that the world broke a long time ago. Ed Tuttle is a book that cant decide what it wants to be when it grows up, but as with most cases of arrested development, theres something very serious going on behind all the antics. Plus, there are pictures. — Ron Currie Jr.

Adam stares at me so long I begin to blush. He tips my chin up so I meet his eyes. Blue blue blue boring into me. His voice is deep, steady. "I don't think I've ever heard you laugh."
He's so excruciatingly correct I don't know how to respond except with the truth. My smile is tucked into a straight line. "Laughter comes from living." I shrug, try to sound indifferent. "I've never really been alive before. — Tahereh Mafi

If we live long enough, we may even get over war. I imagine a time when somebody will mention the word war and everyone in the room will start to laugh. And what do you mean war? — Maya Angelou