Quotes & Sayings About Humour And Laughter

Come on. I know you're not a stupid man.'
'I'm quite stupid. Ask anyone.'
'Finbar, are there superheroes living among us?'
Finbar snorted with laughter and Kenny started to feel a little thick. 'Superheroes? In tights and capes, flying around? If there were superheroes, Mr. Journalist, don't you think they'd be in New York or somewhere like that? There's not that many tall buildings for Spiderman to swing from in Dublin, you know? He'd have maybe two good swings and then hang there looking disappointed.'
'These people don't wear tights and capes, Finbar.'
'So they're naked superheroes? That's grand for now, but when the good weather is over they're going to regret it.'
'They look like us. They dress like us. But they're not like us. They're different.'
'You,' Finbar said. 'Are sounding very racist right now. — Derek Landy

The ability to laugh at life is right at the top, with love and communication, in the hierarchy of our needs. Humour has much to do with pain; it exaggerates the anxieties and absurdities we feel, so that we gain distance and through laughter, relief. — Sara Davidson

The British have turned their sense of humour into a national virtue. It is odd, because through much of history, humour has been considered cheap, and laughter something for the lower orders. But British aristocrats didn't care a damn about what people thought of them, so they made humour acceptable. — Theodore Zeldin

The Parisian is of all men the most sophisticated. Paris is a city of realists, unaffected by sentimentality; a city of industry and thrift; a city of irony, but rarely of laughter, of wit but never or humour, of superficial intolerance and yet of people who regard the rest of the world with more or less amiable contempt. — Sidney Dark

Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humour is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter. — George Gissing

Sister Evangelina shared this robust humour. Before an enema: "Now then, Dad, we're going to put a squib up your arse, shake your insides about a bit. Got the jerry ready, Mother, and the clothes pegs to clip on our noses." Laughter would continue about how he hadn't "been" for a fortnight, and there must be a turd inside as big as an elephant's. And no one was the slightest bit embarrassed, least of all the patient. No, — Jennifer Worth

Wanna trade?" (Puck)
... "Can't you take anything seriously?" (Ash)
"I am serious! Duck."
I ducked as a dagger flew overhead, barely missing my ear. A false Goodfellow whooped with laughter, and my anger fled. "All right," I snapped. — Julie Kagawa

I get very confused about being called a comedian, because when you say 'I'm a comedian,' people expect you to crack a joke. Maybe I use laughter and humour to make people think. I don't know what you call that - a humourist? A satirist? A pessimistic comedian? I don't know. Satirists can be very dark. — Bassem Youssef

Danger is a good teacher, and makes apt scholars. So are disgrace, defeat, exposure to immediate scorn and laughter. There is no opportunity in such cases for self-delusion, no idling time away, no being off your guard (or you must take the consequences) - neither is there any room for humour or caprice or prejudice. — William Hazlitt

Life is difficult and those who make us laugh are angels. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

The laugh of Doctor Prunesquallor was part of his conversation and quite alarming when heard for the first time. It appeared to be out of control as though it were a part of his voice, a top-storey of his vocal range that only came into its own when the doctor laughed. There was something about it of wind whistling through high rafters and there was a good deal of the horse's whinny, with a touch of the curlew. When giving vent to it, the doctor's mouth would be practically immobile like the door of a cabinet left ajar. Between the laughs he would speak very rapidly, which made the sudden stillness of his beautifully shaven jaws at the time of laughter all the more extraordinary. The laugh was not necessarily connected with humour at all. It was simply a part of his conversation. — Mervyn Peake

The great writers like Chekhov know that tragedy and laughter are just a few steps from each other ... but it took me a long time as an actress to learn that. Actually Arthur Miller taught me in the Seventies. We were making a CBS TV drama of his play Playing for Time about Auschwitz but the characters were laughing. It was a big insight for me to realise that that was what's called gallows humour, in this case worse than the gallows, that humans need to laugh and make jokes in order to survive. — Vanessa Redgrave

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour. — Charles Dickens

I figured if I was tired enough, I wouldn't miss Travis.
Which kind of worked, until after the three o'clock fussing-wombat feed and I got back into bed and his side of the bed was cold.
Or until I tripped over his laundry that he'd left on the bathroom floor. That he always left on the bathroom floor.
Or until I sat at the table at breakfast time and his chair was too damn empty. There was no smartarse comments, no bursts of laughter. His blue eyes didn't spark with humour and his sandy-blond hair didn't spike out just so.
There was no foot-holding under the table. — N.R. Walker

My condolences, you're still alive. — Fakeer Ishavardas

Not only will you sleep with me, but you will say 'please.'"
I stared at him, shocked.
The smile widened. "You will say 'please' before and 'thank you' after."
Nervous laughter bubbled up. "You've gone insane. All that peroxide in your hair finally did your brain in, Goldilocks. — Ilona Andrews

Humour is, in fact, a prelude to faith; and laughter is the beginning of prayer ... Laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humour is fulfilled by faith. — Reinhold Niebuhr

A good sense of humour is the sign of a healthy perspective, which is why people who are uncomfortable around humour are either pompous (inflated) or neurotic (oversensitive). Pompous people mistrust humour because at some level they know their self-importance cannot survive very long in such an atmosphere, so they criticise it as "negative" or "subversive." Neurotics, sensing that humour is always ultimately critical, view it as therefore unkind and destructive, a reductio ad absurdum which leads to political correctness. Not that laughter can't be unkind and destructive. Like most manifestations of human behaviour it ranges from the loving to the hateful. The latter produces nasty racial jokes and savage teasing; the former, warm and affectionate banter, and the kind of inclusive humour that says, "Isn't the human condition absurd, but we're all in the same boat. — John Cleese

She stopped and looked at him when she heard a low growl.
"You've kissed someone?"
Sally tried to hold back the snort of laughter that bubble out. "Of course. I'm eighteen, Costin. Only having kissed one guy by eighteen is pretty darn conservative."
"I don't want to know about this guy," Costin frowned. "He won't hold a candle to my kisses anyway. — Quinn Loftis

We left the nursery in silence, Ma smoking a roll-up, looking like she hadn't slept in a week or maybe like she had slept for a whole week. When the nursery was just a grubby finger smudge behind us Ma looked down at me and said in her poshed-up telephone voice: "Will you speak to Janie about swearing? Fuckin' busybody!"

I laughed and swung our linked hands.

"Aye, fuckin' busybody."

Pleas of laughter escaped us and spiraled up into the hot, blue Scottish sky. We laughed all the way home — Kerry Hudson

The Reverend William Trent, whose mind was of a serious order, had several times warned his elder sister that too lively a sense of humour frequently led to laxity of principle. She now perceived how right he was; and wondered, in dismay, whether it was because he invariably made her laugh that instead of regarding the Nonesuch with revulsion she was obliged to struggle against the impulse to cast every scruple to the winds, and to give her life into his keeping. — Georgette Heyer

Great deal of stress is placed on the importance of humour in the modern relationship. Everything will be all right, we are led to believe, as long as you can make each other laugh, rendering a successful marriage as, in effect, fifty years of improv. To someone who felt in need of fresh new material, as I did during that long, dehydrated night of the soul, this was a cause for concern. I had always enjoyed making Connie laugh, it was satisfying and reassuring because laughter, I suppose, — David Nicholls

Decker smiled and shrugged off their laughter. The humour was only barbed if you sat on the outside, and now he was one of them. — R.D. Ronald

That's what yer little sister said,' said Hagrid, nodding at Ron. Met her jus' yesterday.' Hagrid looked sideways at Harry, his beard twitching. 'Said she was jus' lookin' round the grounds, but I reckon she was hopin' she might run inter someone else at my house.' He winked at Harry. 'If yeh ask me, she wouldn' say no ter a signed-'
'Oh, shut up,' said Harry. Ron snorted with laughter and the ground was sprayed with slugs. — J.K. Rowling

The torturer was wheeling around the room, shrieking, holding his impaled hand, which had a pen sticking out of it. The guard by the door was in paroxysms of laughter. Frey had crumpled the confession into a ball and was trying to get it into his mouth to eat it, but couldn't quote reach. — Chris Wooding

A sense of humor is a serious business; and it isn't funny, not having one. Watch the humorless closely: the cocked and furtive way they monitor all conversation, their flashes of panic as irony or exaggeration eludes them, the relief with which they submit to the meaningless babble of unanimous laughter. The humorless can programme themselves to relish situations of human farce or slapstick - and that's about it. They are handicapped in the head, or mentally 'challenged', as Americans say (euphemism itself being a denial of humour). The trouble is that the challenge wins, every time, hands down. The humorless have no idea what is going on and can't make sense of anything at all. — Martin Amis

My final word, before I'm done, Is "Cancer can be rather fun"- Provided one confronts the tumour with a sufficient sense of humour. I know that cancer often kills, But so do cars and sleeping pills; And it can hurt till one sweats, So can bad teeth and unpaid debts. A spot of laughter, I am sure, Often accelerates one's cure; So let us patients do our bit To help the surgeons make us fit. — John B. S. Haldane

Ah, if only we were born roaring with laughter and took that emotional template through life with us! Whoever's in charge seriously messed up somewhere. I can only hope that right now, that selfsame Whoever is wryly relating their cock-up to some celestial colleague, who responds: 'Hey, you should put that in a book. LOL! — Steve Cole

Host: For those of you just tuning in, our guests tonight are the amazing Murder Magician, and his lovely minion, The Assistant ...
Assistant: Charmed, I'm sure
Host: Who recently killed The Rumor. And you were awarded the Oppenheimer prize for villainy at last week's annual summit for dastardly deeds
what are you going to do with all that money?
Murder Magician: Well, I'm so glad you asked that
because I spent all the money on this giant MURDERBOT, and I've been dying to show it off!
Assistant: It's true ... every penny.
Host: Wow! That's impressive! So what does it do?
Murder Magician: Well, Mr. Clark ... it murders people.
Laughter.
Murder Magician: I'm serious.
Assistant: He is. — Gerard Way

People always say humour helps to avoid the dark things in life. I think it's the opposite. Humour helps us understand and partner with the sadness and beauty of life. And sometimes, because we're bathed in laughter, we are protected. Or at least, humour can help us see the world differently. — Bruce McCulloch

I'll understand if you don't want me. But I will be heartbroken. You are all I ever dreamed of and hoped for. You are much, much more. Please know that I didn't think I was mean-minded. But I realize I am. I don't want you to put your arms around me and say it's all right, that you forgive me. I want you to be sure that you do, and my love for you will last as long as I live. I can see no lightness, no humour, no joke to make. I just hope that we will be able to go back to when we had laughter, and the world was coloured, not black and white and grey. I am so sorry for hurting you. I could inflict all kinds of pain on myself, but it would not take back any I gave to you. - David Power — Maeve Binchy

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

Reframing your past painful experiences and seeing them in a humorous light takes away the power and emotional charge attached to the memory of the hurtful event. — Miya Yamanouchi

Laughter crosses boundaries of class and age ... Humour is universal. — Jeremy Lloyd

At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted. — Eric Idle

Seated on a paving-stone near Enjolras, Courfeyrac continued to jeer at the cannon, and every passage of that sinister cloud of projectiles that is called grapeshot, accompanied by its monstrous din, drew from him an ironical comment.
'You're wearing yourself out, you poor old brute. You're getting hoarse. You're not thundering, only spluttering. It's breaking my heart.'
His remarks were greeted with laughter. — Victor Hugo

She had a smooth, low voice and a naughty, shocking sense of humour. Laughter followed in her wake; she collected admirers, both male and female, simply walking across the lobby. She had a certain knack for including everyone in her own private jokes, bending in conspiratorially to say something wickedly off-colour to one of the old stone-faced dowagers waiting for a cab. The next moment, they'd both be giggling uncontrollably — Kathleen Tessaro

Humour is but the faint terrestrial echo of the hideous laughter of the blind mad gods that squat leeringly and sardonically in caverns beyond the Milky Way. It is a hollow thing, sweet on the outside, but filled with the pathos of fruitless aspiration. — H.P. Lovecraft

Few, as I have said, are the humorists who can induce this state. To master and dissolve us, to give us the joy of being worn down and tired out with laughter, is a success to be won by no man save in virtue of a rare staying-power. Laughter becomes extreme only if it be consecutive. There must be no pauses for recovery. Touch-and-go humour, however happy, is not enough. The jester must be able to grapple his theme and hang on to it, twisting it this way and that, and making it yield magically all manner of strange and precious things. — Max Beerbohm