Humour And Laughter Quotes

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think. ~ Clarence Darrow

Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not. ~ Vaclav Havel

Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to that where the jokes are rather small and laughter abundant. ~ Washington Irving

A sense of humor is a major defense against minor troubles. ~ Mignon McLaughlin

Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain. ~ Charlie Chaplin

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

I was practically The Boy in the Bubble; all my autoimmune responses stripped bare by chemical representations of pine forests and summer meadows. ~ Matthew Crow

On the doorstep Adele met Tony Limpsfield. She hurried him into her motor, and told the chauffeur not to drive on.

"News!" she said. "Lucia's going to have a lover."

"No!" said Tony in the Riseholme manner

"But I tell you she is. He's with her now."

"They won't want me then," said Tony. "And yet she asked me to come at half-past five."

"Nonsense, my dear. They will want you, both of them. . . . Oh Tony, don't you see? It's a stunt."

Tony assumed the rapt expression of Luciaphils receiving intelligence.

"Tell me all about it," he said.

"I'm sure I'm right," said she. "Her poppet came in just now, and she held his hand as women do, and made him draw his chair up to her, and said he scolded her. I'm not sure that he knows yet. But I saw that he guessed something was up. I wonder if he's clever enough to do it properly. . . . I wish she had chosen you, Tony, you'd have done it perfectly. They have got--don't you understand?--to have the appearance of being lovers, everyone must think they are lovers, while all the time there's nothing at all of any sort in it. It's a stunt: it's a play: it's a glory."

"But perhaps there is something in it," said Tony. "I really think I had better not go in."

"Tony, trust me. Lucia has no more idea of keeping a real lover than of keeping a chimpanzee. She's as chaste as snow, a kiss would scorch her. Besides, she hasn't time. She asked Ste ~ E.F. Benson

Turn your frowns into smiles, your tears into laughter, your weaknesses into strengths, your setbacks into opportunities, and your failures into victories. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

This book first arose out of a passage in [Jorge Luis] Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought - our thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography - breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a 'certain Chinese encyclopaedia' in which it is written that 'animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies'. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that. ~ Michel Foucault

Amis is acutely, vibrantly sensitive to the different registers of laughter. He knows that it can be the most affirming and uniquely human sound, and also the most sinister and animalistic one. He understands every note of every octave that separates the liberating shout of mirth from the cackle of a bully or the snigger of a sadist. ~ Martin Amis

The laughter was sour and not really directed at white women. It was a traditional ruse that was used to shield the black vulnerability; we laughed to keep from crying. ~ Maya Angelou

If the techs are on it we're fine, but Briamiv and his buddy could fuck up a full stop at the end of a sentence. ~ China Mieville

I thought at last that it was time to roll up the crumpled skin of the day, with its arguments and its impressions and its anger and its laughter, and cast it into the hedge. ~ Virginia Woolf

Billos ran. He tore down the shore, bounded up on the rock, and dove into the air.
The warm water engulfed him. A boiling heat knocked the wind from his lungs. The shock alone might kill him.
But it was pleasure that surged through his body, not pain. The sensations coursed through his bones in great unrelenting waves.
Elyon.
How he was certain, he did not know. But he knew. Elyon was in this lake with him.
Billos opened his eyes. Gold light drifted by. He lost all sense of direction. The water pressed in on every inch of his body, as intense as any acid, but one that burned with pleasure instead of pain.
He sank into the water, opened his mouth and laughed. He wanted more, much more. He wanted to suck the water in and drink it.
Without thinking, he did just that. The liquid hit his lungs. Billos pulled up, panicked. He tried to hack the water from his lungs, but inhaled more instead. No pain. He carefully sucked more water and breathed it out slowly. Then again, deep and hard. Out with a soft whoosh. He was breathing the water!
Billos shrieked with laughter. He swam into the lake, deeper and deeper. The power contained in this lake was far greater than anything he'd ever imagined.
"I made this, Billos."
Billos whipped his body around, searching for the words' source. "Elyon?" His voice was muffled, hardly a voice at all.
"Do you like it?"
"Yes!" Billos said. He might have spoken; he might have shouted-- ~ Ted Dekker

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. ~ Charles Bukowski

A story, in which native humour reigns, Is often useful, always entertains; A graver fact, enlisted on your side, May furnish illustration, well applied; But sedentary weavers of long tales Give me the fidgets, and my patience fails. ~ William Cowper

I'm exactly as unlikely to blab our secrets to an anonymous flunky as I am to a Court decoration with a reputation as a gambler and a fop," I said finally.
"'Court decoration'?" he repeated, with a faint smile. The strengthening light of dawn revealed telltale marks under his eyes. So he was tired. I was obscurely glad.
"Yes," I said, pleased to expand on my insult. "My father's term."
"You've never wished to meet a…Court decoration for yourself?"
"No." Then I added cheerily, "Well, maybe when I was a child."
The Marquis of Shevraeth, Galdran's commander-in-chief, grinned. It was the first real grin I'd seen on his face, as if he were struggling to hold in laughter. Setting his cup down, he made a graceful half-bow from his seat on the other side of the fire and said, "Delighted to make your acquaintance, Lady Meliara."
I sniffed.
"And now that I've been thoroughly put in my place," he said, "let us leave my way of life and proceed to yours. I take it your revolt is not engineered for the benefit of your fellow-nobles, or as an attempt to reestablish your mother's blood claim through the Calahanras family. Wherefore is it, then?"
I looked up in surprise. "There ought to be no mystery obscuring our reasons. Did you not trouble to read the letter we sent to Galdran Merindar before he sent Debegri against us? It was addressed to the entire Court, and our reasons were stated as plainly as we could write them--and all our names signed to it. ~ Sherwood Smith

I had a vague feeling that someone was still holding my arms behind my back, and the sound of laughter rang in my ears. I couldn't stop shaking. I wanted the night to last forever, or for a nuclear missile to come and annihilate everything―and I couldn't even sleep because the whole horrible scene came back to me the minute I closed my eyes. ~ Kanae Minato

Katsa and Po were trying to drown each other and, judging from their hoots of laughter, enjoying it immensely. ~ Kristin Cashore

I want you. I want you inside and out. The parts you cover with laughter. The depth you shrug off with indifference. I want you. I want you to take me to the place you've hidden your heart. I want to walk by your side on this journey. You're worth it. We're worth it. Because... I want you. ~ Alfa Holden

A femme fatale and a warrior princess. ~ Cassandra Clare

Oh, that's great. That way, when things have quieted down, and we come up for air, or money, or re-supply, we'll get a nice explosive package from him that says "so nice to see you again" in a way that only multi-megaton yields can. ~ Howard Tayler

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

And the way you lost your temper!" went on Wallis enthusiastically. "Oh, Mr. Allan, it was beautiful! You haven't been more than to say snarly since the accident! It was so like the way you used to throw hair-brushes
~ Margaret Widdemer

His familiar husky voice sent a wave of wistfulness through me. A thousand memories spun in my head, tangling together- a rocky beach strewn with driftwood trees, a garage made of plastic sheds, warm sodas in a paper bag, a tiny room with one too-small shabby loveseat. The laughter in his deep-set black eyes, the feverish heat of his big hand around mine, the flash of his white teeth against his dark skin, his face stretching into the wide smile that had always been like a key to a secret door where only kindred spirits could enter. It felt sort of like homesickness, this longing for the place and person who had sheltered me through my darkest night. ~ Stephenie Meyer

There is a child-like side to both of them, which makes laughter easy and joy abundant. I envy them that. ~ Ruth Bailey

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

Now that Janet and Frances were older, Grandpa would let them visit him in his study, where the parrot lived. Grandpa came from a long line of parrot-keeping men, and Polly's predecessor, a white cockatoo, had fought with Wellington's armies in the Napoleonic Wars. Janet's father's earliest memories were of the astonishing oaths known to this bird, who was then a hundred and two years old and spoke in ripe gamey accents long since gone from the world of men. Grandpa believed that there must be a fair number of such long-lived birds in Scotland - even perhaps in England - and it would have been a fine thing to have them all gathered in a great dining hall, invoking ghostly midshipmen and dragoons, violent drinkers and merry rhymesters, perhaps even occasionally a lady of refinement. This, he said, would afford a historical experience of rare value; indeed, ancient parrots should be fêted and cultivated as true archivists. ~ Elspeth Barker

You learn timing on the road. You learn structure and how to read an audience. You learn so much about the business of laughter that you can't learn on a set, because it's all on you. Sometimes you bomb, and you know not to tell that joke again ... You just hope people find the humor in the awkwardness. ~ Marlon Wayans

Gabe, you're sick, and much as you're a shithead sometimes, I've trained you to be a fairly acceptable shithead to me. If you died I'd have to go to all the effort of training someone else."

"If I died maybe you should consider a change of career into the nursing profession. With your lovely bedside manner you'd be a shoo-in. ~ Lily Morton

Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that bitch. ~ Lili St. Crow

The question is, How can you see the divine intersection of all that shapes and marks your existence, whether it be the heart-wrenching tragedies that wound you or the ecstasy of a great delight that brings laughter to your soul? How can you meet God in all your appointments and your disappointments? How can you recognize that he has a purpose, even when all around seems senseless, if not hopeless? Will there be a last gasp that whispers in one word a conclusion that redefines everything? If so, is it possible to borrow from that word to enrich the now? Can we really see, even a little, the patterned convergence of everything into some grand design? ~ Ravi Zacharias

D'yer see it? This finger, laddie, could send ye to meet yer Maker!
Sgt. Deisenburger stared at the black and purple nail a few inches from his face. As an offensive weapon it rated quite highly, especially if it was ever used in the preparation of food. ~ Terry Pratchett

Now the point of comedy is not just looking funny, it's use of language. We have at our disposal a great language ... and the imaginative, creative use of that language can be at the service of humour. ~ Barry Humphries

My mission is to offend and insult the bourgeois defenders of the status quo, and entertain those who enjoy sex, violence and sick humour in their face and without apology. ~ Ian Martin