Humorist Quotes

The fool has said in his heart: pass me another Everlasting God-Stopper, please. ~ M.J. McGuire

The sublime humorist is the most miserable, most pitiable creature in creation. ~ Frank Wedekind

I think that you are only obliged to be a humorist from the age of 18 until you turn 30. Past the age of 30 I don't think there is any obligation to be clever at all. ~ Garrison Keillor

Like most seasoned phonies, I roundly suspect that everyone is as disingenuous as I am. ~ David Sedaris

Sahl was never a great comic. His nervous, jabbing, keep-them-off-balance delivery was the strategy of a man who was not comfortable in front of an audience. His creative method -- a rapid scanning of the day's output of newspapers, magazines, and radio broadcasts -- was a recipe for superficiality or, at best, the kind of quick, shallow laugh triggered by a topical allusion. Sahl was always devoid of the two basic ingredients of great humor: imagination and soul. He could make fun of the latest Hollywood movies. He could stab at the pieties of his own class. He could take an abrupt insight into politics or wold events and phrase it neatly into a gag. What he could never do was suggest a world of living, breathing people behaving in ridiculous yet recognizably human patterns. ~ Albert Goldman

To paraphrase the great humorist, Will Rogers . . . "We're all ignorant, but only on different subjects". ~ Wilson Casey

I'm quite the humorist, for a woman who hires killers. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Behind every humorist who delights in knifing hypocrites is a major self-critic. ~ Wendy Aron

The humorist who invented trial by jury played a colossal practical joke upon the world, but since we have the system we ought to try and respect it. A thing which is not thoroughly easy to do, when we reflect that by command of the law a criminal juror must be an intellectual vacuum, attached to a melting heart and perfectly macaronian bowels of compassion. ~ Mark Twain

I learned as a young man that I don't write jokes, but that I can deliver more mundane material and get a laugh. I call myself a humorist. ~ Nick Offerman

ZANY, n. A popular character in old Italian plays, who imitated with ludicrous incompetence the _buffone_, or clown, and was therefore the ape of an ape; for the clown himself imitated the serious characters of the play. The zany was progenitor to the specialist in humor, as we to-day have the unhappiness to know him. In the zany we see an example of creation; in the humorist, of transmission. Another excellent specimen of the modern zany is the curate, who apes the rector, who apes the bishop, who apes the archbishop, who apes the devil. ~ Ambrose Bierce

This is the funniest book I've ever held in my hands.
Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize winning humorist and author says about Radical Sabbatical ~ Dave Barry

Since much of American taxes prior to 1763 went to support the local clergy, one humorist suggested the opportunity to vote on that. If the minister was turned out, he could open a tavern and preach to his customers if he served them liquor. ~ Colin G. Calloway

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people – that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature. ~ James Thurber

I'm not a comic. I'm a humorist. ~ Dick Gregory

The audience is invisible and that's good. Somewhere my voice is drifting through a swine barn and the sound of it seems to perk up the sows' appetite. Or a lady is listening on headphones as she jogs along a beach, running to my cadence. Or a dog sits in front of the radio, head cocked, and the sibilants excite him in some mysterious way. A dog's humorist, that's me. ~ Garrison Keillor

The humorist has a good eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Few authors have captivated the American penchant for curiosity like Samuel Longhorne Clemens. Many have called his cantankerous alter ego, Mark Twain, the greatest American humorist-philosopher of his age-if not of all times. With his wry observations and forthright humor-unleashed in his particularly pithy paragraphs-Mark Twain became one of the most prolific satirists in American literature.
The New York Times editorial, reporting of his death on April 22, 1910, said. " He has been quoted in common conversation oftener, perhaps, than any of his fellow-countrymen, including Benjamin Franklin and Lincoln.
In 1909, Mark Twain is quoted as saying, " I came in with Haley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Haley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."
His prediction was accurate-Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, one day after the comet's closest approach to earth.
In Mark Twain's Guide to Audacious Sarcasm-volume 1,
Lowell Smith has assembled twenty of the classic cantankerous tales and wry observations of Mark Twain's celestial career. ~ Lowell Smith

The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance. ~ Peter De Vries

Wisdom of the Ages: "Government" Like a mafia protection racket-without the protection. ~ Matthew Heines

I am billed as a humorist, but of course I am a tragedian at heart. ~ Will Cuppy

If there's anything I hate it's the word humorist-I feel like countering with the word seriousist. ~ Peter De Vries

The key, I would say to any fledgling humorist starting out, is to make sure that sloppiness is part of your recipe. That way they come to expect fumbling and clumsiness and they say, "Oh, it must be a charming part of his personality." ~ Nick Offerman

Humor is an absurd answer to a reasonable question. ~ Mark Bell

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines. ~ Amy Tan

But I'm a humorist. I'm not a reporter, I never pretended to be a reporter. ~ David Sedaris

When a humorist ventures upon the grave concerns of life he must do his job better than another man or he works harm to his cause. ~ Mark Twain

Randy lay there like a slug. It was his only defense. ~ Jean Shepherd

I was a lazy reader as a kid. One nutrition label on a box of Cap'n Crunch and I'd have to take a nap. ~ M.J. McGuire

The American humorist sat on his couch suffering thoughts of her, trying to figure out how to win back her affections, wondering what had happened between them or just tumbling head-over-heels down into romantic oblivion where the image of a remembered kiss provokes bottomless despair and makes death seem like the right idea.
He experienced the basics of love ended. ~ Richard Brautigan

As the tragic writer rids us of what is petty and ignoble in our nature, so also the humorist rids us of what is cautious, calculating, and priggish
about half of our social conscience, indeed. Both of them permit us, in blessed moments of revelation, to soar above the common level of our lives. ~ Robertson Davies

How am I going to explain to my kids one day that I can't buy them a happy meal because the toy will make them fat? ~ Carroll Bryant

A heartwarming tale of Christmas past that's chock full of all the wit and hilarity we admire in America's favorite humorist
Mark Twain. Carlo DeVito brings us back one hundred years to a magical time in Twain's family life, revealing a house that's brimming with love and laughter, as well as the profound heartbreaks of life. A Mark Twain Christmas only deepens our understanding and respect for both the man and his work. ~ Gilbert King

HUMORIST, n. A plague that would have softened down the hoar austerity of Pharaoh's heart and persuaded him to dismiss Israel with his best wishes, cat-quick. ~ Ambrose Bierce

To quote a noted Jewish humorist, Sholom Aleichem: "First comes health. You can always hang yourself later." As ~ Bel Kaufman

I'm a Best-Selling author and humorist; my brother points out that a humorist is a writer who's not funny enough to call themselves a comedian. Gotta love family. ~ Dan Alatorre

I saw that Roy was not inclined to be amused. I was not annoyed, for I am quite used to people not being amused at my jokes. I often think that the purest type of the artist is the humorist who laughs alone at his own jests. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

A year ago I came here without a nickle in my pocket, now, I've got a nickle in my pocket. ~ Groucho Marx

I recommend you don't attend the wheat and chaff bonfire. ~ M.J. McGuire

When a comic becomes enamored with his own views and foists them off on the public in a polemic way, he loses not only his sense of humor but his value as a humorist. ~ Johnny Carson

The difficulty with humorists is that they will mix what they believe with what they don't - whichever seems likelier to win an effect. ~ John Updike

Bungee jumping is like suicide with strings attached. ~ M.J. McGuire

Humor has to surprise us; otherwise, it isn't funny. It's a death knell for a writer to be labeled a humorist because then it's not a surprise anymore. ~ Garrison Keillor

The 'absurdities' of life can either turn you into a 'philosopher' or a 'humorist'..
Both 'opposing' poles of the same scale, a matter of understanding..
Ideal, if we can slide down the scale this way and that...
Read somewhere..Philosophers get heard, Humorists get paid..:-) ~ Abha Maryada Banerjee

In this land of unlimited opportunity, a place where, to paraphrase Woody Allen, any man or woman can realize greatness as a patient or as a doctor, we have only one commercial American filmmaker who consistently speaks with his own voice. That is Woody Allen, gag writer, musician, humorist, philosopher, playwright, stand-up comic, film star, film writer and film director. ~ Vincent Canby

Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers. ~ Leo Rosten

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."
~ (1919-), American writer, producer, humorist. ~ Andy Rooney

PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called trousers by the enlightened and pants by the unworthy. ~ Ambrose Bierce

They were not in the least deterred when a celebrated Washington humorist claimed that his calculations proved that the world ended on December 31, 1999 - but that everyone had had too much of a hangover to notice. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

How will I be remembered? As a technician or artist? As a humorist or a visionary? ~ Norman Rockwell

God is a great humorist. He just has a slow audience to work with. ~ Garrison Keillor

- You gave me a dead frog for my birthday!
- To remind you we all die and end up rotting underground eaten by maggots so we should enjoy our birthdays while we have them. I found it thoughtful. ~ Soman Chainani

I'm essentially a humorist and, I think, a pretty good one. I've known all along that 'My Friend Dahmer' is the one book I'll be most known for, and in a way, that's a drag, as it's nothing like the rest of the work I've done or will do moving forward. But the way I figure, it's better to have a best-known work than not to have one at all. ~ Derf

I've never made up events, but I've always been a big exaggerator. It's written on my humorist license that I'm allowed to do that. ~ David Sedaris

Mark Hensley Jr. And Flore Barbu refuse to watch These Charming Men, a seemingly odd decision when you consider they each paid thirty dollars to attend a convention where that band was performing twice. These are the prototypical "weird white kids": Hensley appears to be auditioning for Bud Cort's role in a remake of Harold and Maude, and Barbu seems like the kind of woman who thinks Sylvia Plath was an underrated humorist. Both are wearing neckties for no apparent reason. These are the people you remember as being Smiths fans. And heaven knows they're miserable now. ~ Chuck Klosterman

The history of science abounds with examples of discoveries greeted with howls of laughter because they seemed to be a marriage of incompatibles-until the marriage bore fruit and the alleged incompatibility of the partners turned out to derive from prejudice. The humorist, on the other hand, deliberately chooses discordant codes of behaviour or universes of discourse to expose their hidden incongruities in the resulting clash. Com ~ Arthur Koestler

Perhaps the Hungarian humorist Ferencz Karinthy captures the spirit of the situation best in a tableau about a bored businessman who amuses himself by looking through high-powered binoculars from his office high in a skyscraper into neighbouring office rooms. On one occasion he spies a middle-aged executive chasing a comely secretary around his desk. As it happens the observers knows the building in which this drama is taking place and can even make out the name of the occupant from the plaque on his desk. He consults the telephone directory and gives the culprit, who is still trying to force his attentions on the secretary, a ring. When the culprit answers the telephone the observer announces himself as God Almighty and tells him to stop molesting the young woman in his employ. The culprit, thunderstruck and unable to account fo the observer's exact knowledge of what has been going on, fall son his knees in a paroxysm of fear and wonder and begs forgiveness. The observer roundly berates the culprit who swears he will do anything to make amends and promises never to sin again. Hereupon the observer informs the culprit that he can indeed make amends by lending him 100 pengo [dollars]. The answer, of course is a burst of profanity and the abrupt termination of the call. Karinthy then draws his moral: if you want to play God don't try to borrow money... ~ George Bailey

But pure wit is akin to Puritanism; to the perfect and painful consciousness of the final fact in the universe. Very briefly, the man who sees the consistency in things is a wit - and a Calvinist. The man who sees the inconsistency in things is a humorist - and a Catholic. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

I have the humorist Paul Krasner to thank for pointing out a big difference between George W. Bush and Hitler: Hitler was elected. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

By his provocations to good-natured merriment, a humorist of the first water contributes as much to the sum of happiness as the gravest philosopher. ~ Christian Nestell Bovee

First, I was an idealist (that was early - fools are born, not made, you know); next I was a realist; now I am a pessimist, and, by Jove! if things get much worse I'll become a humorist. ~ Ellen Glasgow

Does your mind feel more and more like teflon? Nothing sticks to it? ~ Lily Tomlin

And as Craig Brown - he's an English humorist, not a comedian but he's just a writer and humorist - I'm quite a fan of. I heard him talking in a rather similar way on the radio. He said I'm the sort of person - I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was rather interesting - he said I'm the sort of person that can be reduced to tears in an empty church and feel like I'm the CEO of the Devil's organization in a full one, and I tend to feel like that as well. I love empty churches and going into them looking around, but I'm not a churchgoer at all. ~ Nick Lowe

If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be
a Christian. Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist ~ George Washington