Nothing But Laughter Quotes & Sayings

Let's just put the business aside and talk about family. Family's just amazing. My wife Jenny-Lynn is an incredible mother. Our son Geddy is just unbelievable. Nothing but love and laughter and that's what life should be. It's so hard when you're in the industry we're in. It can be very negative. I've tried my whole life to stay positive with this gig, and I do. I just love what I do - but more importantly - I love life. — J. Robert Spencer

Be sure to forsake, to turn away from, any teaching in the world that will demand of you a "proof of goodness" by the renouncing of earthly joys, pleasures, happiness, possessions! Forget about the creed that tells you, that what you make in this life accounts for nothing in the next one. Life on this Earth is a gift and we do not accept good gifts only to throw them away later on! Make in this life laughter, joy, pleasure, attain good things and give to others good things, too. But never let your aim be to selflessness, for at the end of the day, our responsibilities are to our own selves and to those few whom we love and who truly love us. And holiness? Holiness is happiness, holiness is joy. — C. JoyBell C.

You talk of beauty, love, laughter and life like a precious memory. As if the sunshine of love and laughter shall never flow into your life again. You make it sound like your present and future shall promise you nothing but safety and comfort in a sort of dead, dull way. What killed the spirit of madness, the spark of adventure and the sense of delicious fun ? Your aliveness ? Is this what it is to get old ? — Srividya Srinivasan

It was a momentary laughter, in which our souls united. But I think there comes a point in love, a unique moment which later on the soul seeks in vain to surpass, and that the effort to revive such happiness depletes it; that nothing thwarts happiness so much as the memory of happiness. — Andre Gide

What I heard was but the melody of children at play, nothing but that, and so limpid was the air that within this vapor of blended voices, majestic and minute, remote and magically near, frank and divinely enigmatic - one could hear now and then, as if released, an almost articulate spurt of vivid laughter, or the crack of a bat, or the clatter of a toy wagon, but it was all really too far for the eye to distinguish any movement in the lightly etched streets. I stood listening to that musical vibration from my lofty slope, to those flashes of separate cries with a kind of demure murmur for background, and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord. — Vladimir Nabokov

The event that will light the way for immigration in North America is the talking picture. The silent film brings nothing but entertainment - a pie in the face, a fop being dragged by a bear out of a department store - all events governed by fate and timing, not language and argument. The tramp never changes the opinion of the policeman. The truncheon swings, the tramp scuttles through a corner window and disturbs the fat lady's ablutions. These comedies are nightmares. The audience emits horrified laughter as Chaplin, blindfolded, rollerskates near the edge of the unbalconied mezzanine. No one shouts to warn him. He cannot talk or listen. North America is still without language, gestures and work and bloodlines are the only currency. — Michael Ondaatje

Charles's conversation was commonplace as a street pavement, and everyone's ideas trooped through it in their everyday garb, without exciting emotion, laughter, or thought. He had never had the curiosity, he said, while he lived at Rouen, to go to the theatre to see the actors from Paris. He could neither swim, nor fence, nor shoot, and one day he could not explain some term of horsemanship to her that she had come across in a novel.
A man, on the contrary, should he not know everything, excel in manifold activities, initiate you into the energies of passion, the refinements of life, all mysteries? But this one taught nothing, knew nothing, wished nothing. He thought her happy; and she resented this easy calm, this serene heaviness, the very happiness she gave him. — Gustave Flaubert

We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing? (136-137) — Swami Satchidananda

To me there is nothing more sacred than love and laughter, and there is nothing more prayerful than playfulness. When you are in love, all fears disappear, and when you become love yourself, even death becomes irrelevant. Jesus is not very far away from the truth when he says, "God is love." Certainly God is power, the greatest power. I want to improve upon Jesus: I don't say God is love, I say love is God. To me God is only a symbol and love is a reality. God is only a myth - love is the experience of millions of people. God is only a word, but love can become a dance in your heart. — Rajneesh

There's something amazing about this life. The very same worldly attribute that causes us pain is also what gives us relief: Nothing here lasts. What does that mean? It means that the breathtakingly beautiful rose in my vase will wither tomorrow. It means that my youth will neglect me. But it also means that the sadness I feel today will change tomorrow. My pain will die. My laughter won't last forever but neither will my tears. We say this life isn't perfect. And it isn't. It isn't perfectly good. But, it also isn't perfectly bad, either. — Yasmin Mogahed

The conversations we had about, say, when Grandpa Myrt fell off his porch roof while cleaning the gutters, were not just debriefings about the hazards of home renovation but celebrations - full of laughter, tears, and sometimes laughter and tears at the same time - of how much we loved each other. So you could say that nothing was about what it superficially seemed to be about. Which in another context might make it sound all just a bit sinister. But obviously it was nothing of the kind. We all got it. You'd have gotten it too. — Neal Stephenson

For a significant man
woman, the one thought he values greatly, to the laughter and scorn of insignificant men, is a key to hidden treasure chambers; for those others, it is nothing but a piece of old iron. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There is nothing incompatible about laughter and demons, nor about athletic achievement and depression. Mike Flanagan made me laugh, too. But mostly, he made me brave. — Jane Leavy

Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet and what are unsavory ... . And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us ... .All these things we endure from the brain when it is not healthy ... .In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man. — Hippocrates

So what's it like to live without emotions? (Geary)
It's hard. Imagine a world without taste. A world where you can see the colors and all, but you can't feel it. A beautiful clear day can never choke you up. A child's laughter doesn't make you smile. You don't look at a bunny and think 'how cute.' You feel absolutely nothing. It's like being wrapped in thick cotton all the time. (Arik) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

I warned you; I warned you I was the Senses Taker," sneered the Senses Taker. "I help people find what they're not looking for, hear what they're not listening for, run after what they're not chasing, and smell what isn't even there. And, furthermore," he cackled, hopping around gleefully on his stubby legs, "I'll steal your sense of purpose, take your sense of duty, destroy your sense of proportion - and, but for one thing, you'd be helpless yet."
"What's that?" asked Milo fearfully.
"As long as you have the sound of laughter," he groaned unhappily, "I cannot take your sense of humor - and, with it, you've nothing to fear from me. — Norton Juster

The empty, hollow sound of her laughter spoke of her despair. "I was raised that good girls get married and have kids. They do what their husbands say, make sure the meals are on the table." She wiped angrily at her uninjured eye. "I thought I was doing what I was supposed to. I thought that was what love was."

Her words hit Chris in the gut. How was what he was doing any different? He had this picture in his head of what love and a relationship were supposed to look like.

But looking at this broken and battered woman, she had the picture-perfect life. The ideal. And behind the scenes there was nothing idyllic about it. This woman would be better off alone. It was sad the things people were willing to accept trying to hold on to a dream. Hell, he didn't even know if the dream existed. — Lauren Fraser

LEONTES Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career Of laughter with a sigh? - a note infallible Of breaking honesty; - horsing foot on foot? Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift; Hours, minutes; noon, midnight? and all eyes Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only, That would unseen be wicked? - is this nothing? Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing; The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing; My is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings, If this be nothing. — William Shakespeare

Music makes me forget myself, my real position; it transports me to some other position not my own. Under the influence of music it seems to me that I feel what I do not really feel, that I understand what I do not understand, that I can do what I cannot do. I explain it by the fact that music acts like yawning, like laughter: I am not sleepy, but I yawn when I see someone yawning; there is nothing for me to laugh at, but I laugh when I hear people laughing.
Music carries me immediately and directly into the mental condition in which the man was who composed it. My soul merges with his and together with him I pass from one condition into another, but why this happens I don't know. — Leo Tolstoy

You are wearing no panties with another male in the room?Raphael ran his hand down Elena's spine and over her lower curves, searching for lines and finding nothing but firm feminine flesh.You truly aren't
Elena's shoulders shook, deep creases in her cheeks. Oh, my God, you're scandalized! Eyes tearing up in the effort to fight her laughter, she pressed her hands to his chest and stared down at the floor.Should I tell you I did find a way to wear a knife? In a thigh sheath.
Of course you did. What do panties matter so long as you have your steel. — Nalini Singh

Mistletoe." Aunt Trudy pointed at the ceiling above Kate and Zac. "Lay one on her, Zac." Beau's heart gave a hard squeeze as his brother made a big deal of sweeping Kate into his arms, dipping her backward, and laying a loud smooch on her cheek. He heard Aunt Trudy applauding and Jack giggling, but he couldn't tear his eyes off of Zac and Kate. He wanted to rip his brother's hands off of her. He reminded himself that it meant nothing. That Zac was still in love with Lucy. Kate's laughter was still ringing out when Zac brought her upright, embracing her in those gorilla arms of his. Beau gave him a shove. "All right, that's enough," he said in a tone that didn't quite reach playful. Zac cuffed him on the back of the head, his eyes twinkling. — Denise Hunter

They always act like they're having an amazing time, they're louder and high-pitched, shoving each other and screaming with laughter at nothing. But Becca knows what they're like when they're happy, and that's not it. Their faces on the way home afterwards look older and strained, smeared with the scraps of leftover expressions that were pressed on too hard and won't lift away. — Tana French

When you, existentialists, speak to me of consciousness, fear, and nothingness, I burst with laughter not because I don't agree with you, but because I must agree with you. I agreed and, loo and behold, nothing happened ... I laugh because I delight in fear, play with nothingness, and toy with responsibility. Death does not exist. — Witold Gombrowicz

We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble. — C.S. Lewis

ALYCE: 'Gracie's got brown hair, like me. She's about the same height, too. People notice her. I think it's her voice. It's always louder than you expect and covered with laughter.
I was surprised when she said she didn't want to work with me. I don't know Gracie very well, but I remember once in Year 3 she gave me an invitation to her party. She spelt my name right. Everyone always spells it with an 'i', even the teachers. Ever since then I thought she would be nice. I never thought she'd look at me like I was nothing. — Cath Crowley

I want you back, Annabelle." This time my laughter is full of nothing but genuine humor. It's that 'oh my god, I can't believe that' kind of humor. I lean forward and put my face in my palms, still laughing. "Holy crap," I say in-between laughs, "that's hilarious." I peek up at him to see his disgruntled expression and then bust up laughing again. "I'm serious," he grunts out, looking cute in his exasperation, damn him. Not done, I hold up a hand. "Oh, oh, wait. Just let me go get my gun so you can shoot me again. Of course I want to get back together with you, Gabriel." Putting on a serious face, I say earnestly, "He shoots me because he loves me. — April Brookshire

When I was young
I wanted to be just like him.
One of the charm, of a bright orange smile
and muscular laughter.
Bold brown eyes flashing fearless
when he sat not alone
on cold blue nights
in empty boxcars.

Riding a freight train's
solitary wail
away from Nebraska
Depression, accompanying dreams
withered farms.
Nothing left but the
leaves of possibilities. — Larsen Bowker

The Tuatha De do not speak of Tuatha De matter to"
he gave her an icy sneer
"mere mortals."
"Well, mister-mere-mortal-yourself," she bristled right back at him, "maybe you'd better get used to it, because whether or not you like it, you need at least one of us 'mere mortals' to help you become a pompous-asshole-fairy-thing again."
He tried to maintain his icy stare, but his lips curved despite his efforts and he shook with silent laughter. A pompous-asshole-fairy-thing. The indignity of it. Had any of his race ever been called such a thing? Nothing cowed the woman. Nothing. "Point made, ky-lyrra," he said dryly.
-Gabrielle and Adam — Karen Marie Moning

I walk out, and all I hear is laughter ... loud, carefree laughter. Shaking my head, I can't help the smile that fights to break free. It's completely ridiculous. It's probably the most absurd few minutes of my life. But the sound of her laughter, of her happiness, does to me something nothing else can.
It cuts straight through my darkness.
With her, I almost feel light. — J.M. Darhower

Ada girl, adored girl, [ ... ] I'm a radiant void. I'm convalescing after a long and dreadful illness. You cried over my unseemly scar, but now life is going to be nothing but love and laughter, and corn in cans. I cannot brood over broken hearts, mine is too recently mended. — Vladimir Nabokov

exhilaration fizzed through Clarke's body. Before she realised what she was doing, she had thrown her arms around Bellamy. He joined in her laughter as he staggered backward, and wrapped his arms around her waist, lifting her up and spinning her through the air. The colours of the clearing swirled, green and gold and blue all blurring until there was nothing in the world but Bellamy's smile, lighting up his eyes. Finally he set her down gently on the ground. Be he didn't loosen his grip. Instead he pulled her even closer, and before Clarke had time to catch her breath, his lips were on hers. A voice in her brain told her stop, but it was overpowered by the smell of his skin and the pressure of his touch. Clarke felt like she was melting into his arms, losing herself in the kiss. He tasted like joy, and joy tasted better on Earth. — Kass Morgan

I want to be taken playfully, not seriously - not with a long British face, but with beautiful laughter. Your laughter, your playfulness is the recognition that you have understood me. Your seriousness shows that you have misunderstood me, you have missed it - because seriousness is nothing but sickness. It is another name of sadness; it is a shadow of death. And I am all for life. If it is needed for your laughter, your dance, even to reject me, then reject me - but don't reject the dance and the song and the life, because that is my teaching. — Rajneesh

My dad's contentment is all that matters to me. When he's laughing, I'm laughing. When he's happy, I'm happy. I would give up my soul for him. To me, nothing else but his happiness matters. — Rebecah McManus

There was something I couldn't do and something I didn't understand. There were secrets and there was darkness, there were shady dealings and there was laughter that jeered at everything. Oh, I sensed it, but I knew nothing about it. Nothing. — Karl Ove Knausgard

We talk and tease and bargain with the main dish. Maniacal laughter echoes in the marble halls, sweet to my ears.
There's movement at the banquet hall's entrance. A child with my eyes tumbles in - all wings and blue hair and giggling innocence. Holding his hand is Morpheus, wearing a ruby crown.
The Red King. My king.
The bubble bursts and takes the vision with it, leaving nothing but the sound of my gasp and wisps of gray smoke behind.
"You see," Ivory says, "once Morpheus knew that one day you would belong to him and he to you, that you would share a child, he was no longer willing to die to save Wonderland. But he's insecure about your feelings for him. He feared you would refuse to help. So he made a new plan, however flawed it was." — A.G. Howard

What on earth is that?"
"My wedding crown."
"You're getting married?" Bran asked and he looked even more amused than Mithala, as if he had not had this much fun in a long, long time. Shea debated hitting him.
"Not if I can help it," she said, "I don't think Rook would approve the groom."
Rook turned to give her a stern look. "If he lives under the water, I most certainly will not. I'm not prejudiced, normaly, but I don't wish to have a fish as a son-in-law. It would ruin the holidays, what with him dripping water al over the floor." There was a moment of startled silence, then Bran, Mithala, and Shea burst into laughter. Galen was glaring at them al. "Fools, this is not the time for jest."
Bran choked back his laughter for a moment."Sir elf, if now is not the time, then there will never be one; running over dry land from the wrath of fishes is nothing but a jest."
"Mercenaries," Galen spat with disgust, leaping onto his mare. — Kaiya Hart

Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter. — Longchenpa

I went down on one knee in front of her. It was melodramatic, I know, but she was a teenager, and I thought she would probably buy it. "Samantha," I said. "All you have to do is just let me try. Do nothing, and I won't try to get you out of here against your will. You have my solemn word of honor." There was no crash of thunder, not even the sound of distant laughter, and in spite of my recent epidemic of unpleasant emotions, I felt no shame. And I believe I did it very convincingly. In fact, I think it was the performance of a lifetime - I didn't mean a word of it, of course, but under the circumstances I would gladly have promised her a ride on my flying saucer if it would get me out of here. And — Jeff Lindsay

Progress is nothing but the victory of laughter over dogma. — Benjamin De Casseres

Life is nothing but an occassional burst of laughter rising above the interminable wail of grief. — Henry Roth

Spiritual pride tends to speak of other persons' sins with bitterness or with laughter and levity and an air of contempt. But pure Christian humility rather tends either to be silent about these problems or to speak of them with grief and pity. Spiritual pride is very apt to suspect others, but a humble Christian is most guarded about himself. He is as suspicious of nothing in the world as he is of his own heart. The proud person is apt to find fault with other believers, that they are low in grace, and to be much in observing how cold and dead they are and to be quick to note their deficiencies. But the humble Christian has so much to do at home and sees so much evil in his own heart and is so concerned about it that he is not apt to be very busy with other hearts. He is apt to esteem others better than himself. — Jonathan Edwards

It was an eerie feeling, which is why Violet and Sunny were surprised when Klaus broke the silence by laughing suddenly.
"What are you snickering at?" Violet asked.
"I just realized something," Klaus said. "We're going to the administrative building without an appointment. We'll have to eat our meals without silverware."
"There's nothing funny about that!" Violet said. "What if they serve oatmeal for breakfast? We'll have to scoop it up with our hands."
"Oot," Sunny said, which meant "Trust me, it's not that difficult," and at that the Baudelaire sisters joined their brother in laughter. It was not funny, of course, that Nero enforced such terrible punishments, but the idea of eating oatmeal with their hands gave all three siblings the giggles.
"Or fried eggs!" Violet said. "What if they serve runny fried eggs?"
"Or pancakes, covered in syrup!" Klaus said.
"Soup!" Sunny shrieked, and they all broke out in laughter again. — Lemony Snicket

I don't know why it was, exactly, but nothing irritated my father quite like the sound of his children's happiness. Group crying, he could stand, but group laughing was asking for it, especially at the dinner table. — David Sedaris

I've considered everything you said earlier. I've made a decision. But first I'd like to explain that it has nothing to do with your personal endowments, which are quite considerable. It's just that - "
"My personal endowments?"
"Yes. Your intelligence. Your attractiveness."
"Oh."
Wondering why his voice sounded odd, Amelia darted a questioning glance at him. The amber eyes were bright with laughter. What had she said to amuse him? "Are you paying attention?"
"Believe me, when my personal endowments are being discussed, I always pay attention. Go on. — Lisa Kleypas

The ego can exist only if you take yourself and everything seriously. Nothing kills the ego like playfulness, like laughter. When you start taking life as fun, the ego has to die, it cannot exist anymore. Ego is illness; it needs an atmosphere of sadness to exist. Seriousness creates the sadness in you. Sadness is a necessary soil for the ego. Hence your saints are so serious, for the simple reason that they are the most egoistic people on the earth. They may be trying to be humble, but they are very proud of their humbleness. They take their humbleness very seriously. — Rajneesh

Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them - and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon - laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution
these can lift at a colossal humbug, - push it a little - crowd it a little - weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.
- "The Chronicle of Young Satan," Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts — Mark Twain

I would not unduly praise the virtue of restraint. It is often merely temperamental. But it is not always a sign of coldness. It may be pride. There can be nothing more humiliating than to see the shaft of one's emotion miss the mark of either laughter or tears. Nothing more humiliating! And this for the reason that should the mark be missed, should the open display of emotion fail to move, then it must perish unavoidably in disgust or contempt. — Joseph Conrad

But insensate Time is nothing if not cruel and heartless. It corrodes then destroys, so that the man you literally and figuratively looked up to with your chubby face, who scooped you up to cross the street and patted you on the head to laughter, will later look through you from a crooked hospital bed then blindly up at you while wearing makeup in a bargain casket. The people who now surround you generating warmth will disappear leaving only an empty chill; the body you own and the brain it houses will malfunction. And sometimes, especially in Boxing, a twenty four year old can become a man overnight. — Sergio De La Pava

Mitch, who was six foot four and, at two hundred and twenty pounds, quite an imposing figure, strode out wearing nothing but his fire boots. Well, and a few soapsuds. He ambled over to the big bay windows, grabbed a squeegee, and went to work scrubbing the glass, his twig and berries swinging in the wind. The entire crew doubled over, dying of laughter. Everyone, that is, except for the captain, who was looking apoplectic. "What the hell are you doing?" he bellowed. "Cleaning like you ordered. Sir," Mitch added politely, scrubbing with a whole new level of vigor. — Jill Shalvis

I grin at her enthusiasm. "Did you like the little gun-finger I flashed you after that goal? All for you, baby."
She grins back. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but you were actually pointing at the old guy a few seats over. He totally freaked out and started shouting to everyone that you scored that goal for him, and then I heard him ask his wife if maybe you knew that he was just diagnosed with diabetes, so I didn't have the heart to tell him who the goal was really for."
I break down in laughter. "Why is nothing ever simple with us?"
"Hey," she protests. "We're more interesting this way."
I can't argue with that. — Elle Kennedy

These moments of intoxication, when we defy everything, when, the anchor raised, we go merrily toward the abyss, with no more thought for the inevitable fall than for the limits given in the beginning, are the only ones when we are completely free of the ground (of laws) ...
Nothing exists that doesn't have this senseless sense - common to flames, dreams, uncontrollable laughter - in those moments when consumption accelerates, beyond the desire to endure. Even utter senselessness ultimately is always this sense made of the negation of all the others. (Isn't this sense basically that of each particular being who, as such, is the senselessness of all the others, but only if he doesn't care a damn about enduring - and thought (philosophy) is at the limit of this conflagration, like a candle blown out at the limit of a flame.) — Georges Bataille

Before he had come to the town he had known about nothing but death: here he had learnt to live, to decide things for himself; he had learnt what it felt like to wash in clean water in the sunshine until he was clean himself, and what it felt like to satisfy his hunger with food that tasted good; he had learnt the sound of laughter that was free from cruelty; he had learnt the meaning of beauty — Anne Holm

Maybe this will be the summer when there is nothing but laughter. Maybe this will be the summer. — Benjamin Alire Saenz

Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. — Charles Dickens

To see a man fearless in dangers, untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body. — Seneca The Younger

All this blackness was within him, but that was where it really mattered. It was night without moon or stars, it was a doorless pit in the earth's bowels, it was forever. He felt black ice growing, blooming in his veins. One last sharp feeling was left to him
the bitter taste of failure. Then that went too. All was nothing.
Cold and everlasting night, and an everlasting laughter that was older and colder than the stars he would never see again. His heart squirmed wildly in his chest, seeking an escape that was denied it. Laughter like a glacier came again, rolling and crushing all else before it.
A bird sang. — Susan Dexter

There is nothing more distressing ... than the hard, scoffing spirit which treats the allegation of dishonesty in a public man as a cause for laughter. Such laughter is worse than the crackling of thorns under a pot, for it denotes not merely the vacant mind, but the heart in which high emotions have been choked before they could grow to fruition. — Theodore Roosevelt

For the girl without words, there is laughter for what is light, gesture for want, and tears for all that is dark. There is not much more. Names are nothing but extravagance. — Lois-Ann Yamanaka

From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends. — Hilaire Belloc

Galen and Rayna are close."
I gasp. "How do you know that? I can't feel them." My heart turns traitor, beating like I just ran five miles uphill. It has nothing to do with sensing and everything to do with the mention of Galen's name.
"I'm a Tracker, Emma. I can sense them from almost across the world. Especially Rayna. And from the feel of things, Galen is flittering that cute little fin of his like crazy to get back to you. Rayna must be riding on his back."
"You can tell what she's doing?"
"I can tell how fast she's moving. No one can swim as fast as Galen, Rayna included. He must be pretty impatient to see you."
"Yeah. Impatient for me to change so he can have another royal subject to order around."
Toraf's laughter startles me, not because it's loud, but because his mood seems to swing around on an axis. "Is that what you think?" he says. — Anna Banks

I like women who haven't lived with too many men.
I don't expect virginity but I simply prefer women
who haven't been rubbed raw by experience.
There is a quality about women who choose
men sparingly;
it appears in their walk
in their eyes
in their laughter and in their
gentle hearts.
Women who have had too many men
seem to choose the next one
out of revenge rather than with
feeling.
When you play the field selfishly everything
works against you:
one can't insist on love or
demand affection.
You're finally left with whatever
you have been willing to give
which often is:
nothing. — Charles Bukowski

We knew each other to our fingertips. No, that's not right. We only knew each other in our fingertips, and that was nothing at all, and for a while that was okay. We could have been a love story, a fairy tale, an indie film about high school and selective insanity featuring a boy of angel parts and a girl made of dreaming. We could have been all the best things: bracelets sliding down arms while shots slid down throats, laughter and crashing music in dark and flashing rooms, kisses that started hesitant but didn't stay that way. — Amy Zhang

I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with. — John Irving

You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ... — Kevin Brooks

You turn to shit, alright. But maybe you can leave something good behind you.' She barked empty laughter at him. 'What do we leave behind but things not done, not said, not finished? Empty clothes, empty rooms, empty spaces in the ones who knew us? Mistakes never made right and hopes rotted down to nothing? — Joe Abercrombie

Streams of pedestrians dodged them on the sidewalk as they stood with her hand in his, but neither of them noticed. The blaring mixture of car horns, laughter, and music from a nearby club thrashed and echoed around them, but neither of them heard the noise. Simply lost in one another in that moment, nothing else existed. Emily tore her gaze from his ... — Gail McHugh

For no one, in our long decline,So dusty, spiteful and divided,Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,Or loved them half as much as I did. [stanza 3]The library was most inviting:The books upon the crowded shelvesWere mainly of our private writing:We kept a school and taught ourselves. [stanza 15]From quiet homes and first beginning,Out to the undiscovered ends,Theres nothing worth the wear of winning,But laughter and the love of friends. [stanza 22]You do retain the song we set,And how it rises, trips and scans?You keep the sacred memory yet,Republicans? Republicans?[stanza 36] — Hilaire Belloc

From nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations — Hippocrates

Things must be negative but not too negative. Hopelessness, despair - these drive us to do nothing. Pity, empathy - those drive us to do something, like get up from our computers to act. But anger, fear, excitement, or laughter - these drive us to spread. They drive us to do something that makes us feel as if we are doing something, when in reality we are only contributing to what is probably a superficial and utterly meaningless conversation. Online games and apps operate on the same principles and exploit the same impulses: be consuming without frustrating, manipulative without revealing the strings. — Ryan Holiday

The backs of their heads were hollowed out; their faces were nothing but thin masks at the front. Within each hollow a candle was burning. This was so plain to him now, that he wondered he had never noticed it before. He imagined what would happen if he went down into the street and blew some of the candles out. It made him laugh to think of it. He laughed so much that he could no longer stand. His laughter echoed round and round the house. Some small remaining shred of reason warned him that he ought not to let the landlord and his family know what he was doing so he went to bed and muffled the sound of his laughter in the pillows, kicking his legs from time to time with the sheer hilarity of the idea. — Susanna Clarke

Laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly. — Thomas Hobbes

Charles's conversation was as flat as a sidewalk, and everyone's ideas filed along it in their ordinary clothes, exciting no emotion, no laughter, no reverie. He had never been curious, he said, when he lived in Rouen, to go to the theater and see the actors from Paris. He did not know how to swim, or fence, or fire a pistol, and he could not explain to her, one day, a riding term she had come upon in a novel.

But shouldn't a man know everything, excel at a host of different activities, initiate you into the intensities of passion, the refinements of life, all its mysteries? Yet this man taught her nothing, knew nothing, wished for nothing. He thought she was happy; and she resented him for that settled calm, that ponderous serenity, that very happiness which she herself brought him. — Gustave Flaubert

His lips spread in a manic grin, and he filled his helmet with so much laughter that his stomach cramped. He moved his limbs one by one to test them. He'd broken his left wrist for sure, maybe a few ribs as well, but despite that, the smile never left his face. Pain could be treated and bones healed, but all the medicine in the galaxy couldn't fix dead. And he wasn't dead. He couldn't wait to tell the crew.
"I'm okay," he reported. "A little banged up, but nothing major. Kane, when this is over, I'm going to have your baby! — Melissa Landers

A laughing fool ... seems born for nothing but to show his teeth. — George Pope Morris

Joliffe knew their audience was with them when Christ declared at the money-changers, "You knaves! You thieves and rascals! Defaming the Lord God's honor as you do! Making his house into a den of thieves and taking what is not yours to take, like shepherds never shearing but butchering every sheep!" and among the lookers-on heads turned and some people pointed at Father Hewgo standing at his church door, glaring, his arms tightly folded aross his chest, well apart from it all but making sure his disapproval lowered over everything. Joliffe had not written the lines at him but might as well have because his parishioners surely saw a match; there was even scattered laughter that would do nothing to soften him toward the players. — Margaret Frazer

There is nothing wrong with anger. Anger is a beautiful emotion, as valid and rich as joy or laughter. But you have been taught to repress your anger. Your anger has been condemned. If anger is unexpressed, it will slowly poison you. The key is to know how to express your anger. Do not throw it out onto any one. No one is responsible for your anger. Simply express your anger. Beat up a cushion. Go for a run. Express your anger to a tree. Dance your anger. Enjoy it. — Leonard Jacobson