Sad Mirth Quotes & Sayings

I went out to dinner with a Marine last weekend. He looked across the table and he goes, "I could kill you in seven seconds." I go, "I'll just have toast, then." — Margaret Smith

To-day I think
Only with scents, - scents dead leaves yield,
And bracken, and wild carrot's seed,
And the square mustard field;
Odours that rise
When the spade wounds the root of tree,
Rose, currant, raspberry, or goutweed,
Rhubarb or celery;
The smoke's smell, too,
Flowing from where a bonfire burns
The dead, the waste, the dangerous,
And all to sweetness turns.
It is enough
To smell, to crumble the dark earth,
While the robin sings over again
Sad songs of Autumn mirth.
- A poem called DIGGING. — Edward Thomas

I wrote much more quickly when I was younger. Over the years I've required more time in order for the pieces to arrive in a place I am happy with. The process cannot be rushed. I have to live with a piece for quite a while to feel it ultimately is where it needs to be - though anything resembling complete satisfaction remains elusive. — Michael Hersch

If you find him sad, say I am dancing. If in mirth, report that I am sudden sick. — William Shakespeare

His face was sad and stern because of the doom that was laid on him, and yet hope dwelt ever in the depths of his heart, from which mirth would arise at times like a spring from a rock. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

We flatter those we scarcely know, We please the fleeting guest; And deal full many a thoughtless blow, To those who love us best. Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own. There is new strength, repose of mind, and inspiration in fresh apparel. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in dialogue. — John Steinbeck

Often in the summer, as I go to or come from the vestry, I sit down
for a moment on the turf that covers my old friend Rodgers, and think
that this body of mine is everyday moldering away, til it shall fall a
heap of dust into it's appointed place. But what is that to me? It is
to me the drawing nigh of the fresh morning of life when I shall be
young and strong again, glad in the presence of the wise and beloved
dead, and unspeakably glad in the presence of God. — George MacDonald

The best revenge is living well, my dad told me once. — Barry Lyga

The body can feed the body only. — Henry David Thoreau

For the briefest instant, his brain was the only thing that reacted. Mistake, thought his brain. Then the mouthful of water, mixed with what remained of the almond toffee crunch, fire hosed out of his mouth, arced across the table and hit Mary Turlington just above her bosom. — Stuart McLean

As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gaiety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest. — Nathaniel Hawthorne