Punchline Quotes

The punchline of the story relates to an American academic saying of Beckett, 'He doesn't give a fuck about people. He's an artist.' At this point Beckett raised his voice above the clatter of afternoon tea and shouted, 'But I do give a fuck about people! I do give a fuck! ~ James Knowlson

I never cared so much about making perfect sense. I wanted to make perfect nonsense. I wanted to tell jokes, but I didn't give a fuck about the punchline. ~ Harmony Korine

The comedian can put the punchline out there, but it's the audience that receives it - and has to get it. ~ Rachel Sklar

Dying wasn't the joke, it was the punchline, the final guffaw, the crack-up, when your listeners' eyes should be streaming and your woman pees in her pants with laughing. You had to live with sufficient panache that the punchline worked. ~ Jane Messer

What's your name?'

She planted one elbow on the stretch of counter Zuri had wiped so she could lean closer and draw out both syllables. 'Savine.'

'That's a lovely name.'

'Oh, if you enjoy the tip, you'll go mad for the whole thing.'

'That so?' he purred at her. 'How does it go?'

'Savine… dan…' And she leaned even closer to deliver the punchline. 'Glokta.'

If a name had been a knife and she had cut his throat with hers, the blood could not have drained more quickly from his face. He gave a strangled cough, took a step back and nearly fell over one of his own barrels. ~ Joe Abercrombie

It's not easy to act, but to direct to act. It goes form one place to the next. It's not heading for the punchline, and also it's not about scoring goals. It's about passing the ball, and the goals will come by themselves. ~ Gael Garcia Bernal

Sometimes I feel like the punchline of God's favorite joke. ~ Lara McLaughlin

I even get tired performing standup, which is normally a low-impact exercise in futility but looks hard the way I do it. That's why I take a lot of breaks, often stopping in the middle of a joke to catch my breath, or blame the crowd for not laughing before the punchline. ~ Andy Kindler

Books. It's always easier to tell people that a character is funny rather than attempt to hit the punchline of a joke that character would've said. But if we all simply told, books would cease to exist. And so would empathy. And feeling. ~ Joyce Rachelle

Nickelback walks into a bar ... there's no punchline because ruining music isn't funny. ~ Dave Grohl

The inside jokes have already dissolved into unordered words with no punchline. The gifts have been reduced to objects whose saving grace is their monetary value, no meaning and all function. There are photographs, somewhere, but I'm not the person posed in them anymore and whoever that is sitting next to me, all dressed up in your costume and wearing your mask, well, that's not you either. ~ Stephanie Georgopulos

I listen to the rain talk to the leaves. She tells a story of love and
leaving (isn't that always the story? Isn't that always the punchline?)
She tells it softly like someone who has recently lost something that
cannot be replaced. She closes her eyes and remembers. The leaves
quietly wait. They love in silence. They understand in the dark. And I
too begin to understand. We are all part pouring rain, part fallen
leaves. We are all part of the world, and we all have a story. ~ Emm Roy

If our faith is strong, we'll go to heaven, and we'll understand the whole thing when we get there. As if life were a joke, and heaven the place where the cosmic punchline is finally explained to us. ~ Stephen King

I love fishing. It's transcendental meditation with a punchline. ~ Billy Connolly

Are you having problems hearing? If so, those around you already know it. Hearing loss is no laughing matter, so don't be a punchline. ~ Leslie Nielsen

I just think it's fortunate that Sir Isaac Newton didn't share the sense of humor of a member of the public, because had he done so, he would of been so amused by the simple effects of gravity, that he would of never gotten round making a comprehensive study of it's causes.
That's the punchline! 'a comprehensive study of it's courses'! I worked for that! Will you be telling this joke at work? I don't think so!
And yes, I am aware that I say this to you while hanging precariously of this art-deco balcony. And I do so deliberately in the hope that I will fall to my death, and that you will learn about the thin line between slap-stick and tragedy. ~ Stewart Lee

I've been working on the same joke for years. The punchline is you were happy all along. ~ Hala Alyan

There is also the story about Tyrone Slothrop, who was sent into the Zone to be present as his own assembley--perhaps heavily paranoid voices whisper, 'his time's assembley'--and there ought to be a punchline to it, but there isn't. The plan went wrong. He is being broken down instead and being scattered. His cards have been laid down, Celtic style, in the order suggested by Mr. A.E. Waite, laid out and read, but they are the cards of a tanker and feeb: they point only to a long and scuffling future, to mediocrity...-to no clear happiness or redeeming cataclysm. ~ Thomas Pynchon

Writing a first draft is like groping one's way into a dark room, or overhearing a faint conversation, or telling a joke whose punchline you've forgotten. As someone said, one writes mainly to rewrite, for rewriting and revising are how one's mind comes to inhabit the material fully. ~ Ted Solotaroff

I've gotta stop thinking I know what other people think, cause most of 'what other people think' is something I'm making up. So I should just let them have their experience, I'll have my experience and not pretend to know, and just get past that. [I think that] is a major obstacle: manifesting that insecurity, that fear. Believing the audience in your head as opposed to what's really going on in the world - not responding to the one I'm making up, which is always going to judge me harder than the real one. ~ Marc Maron

Jackie looked from me to Denise and back, and I could swear I saw comprehension dawning in his eyes and he was about to say something, but to everyone's surprise, it was Jaymee who suddenly blurted out "Mommy! You're sleeping with him?"

"Jaymee!" Denise gasped, "What are you saying!? Where did you ever learn to ask such a thing!?"

"From Grandma, Mommy! She said when two grownups love each other very much, they go to bed together!"

How could I keep from bursting into laughter? Denise's composure was completely gone, Jaymee was blushing brightly at the realization that something she'd said had come out wrong without quite realizing what it was, and the look on Jackie's face from being beaten to the punchline was priceless. ~ B.R.L. Coryn

One of my favourite things about country music is that, at least until recently, you could always count on a solid story, a punchline and a pun. I think it has that in common with hip hop, where they're not afraid of wordplay and I really appreciate that. ~ St. Vincent

There was a great joke that was forever doing the rounds in the jail and it was probably funny not because it had a humorous punchline but because it was so very true at a deep psychological level. Put anyone in that jail and soon enough they'd actually become a cruel, twisted, sadistic and heartless thug. And some of the prisoners were just as bad. ~ H.M. Forester

I was very stale at Fox. Much of it was my own fault. I was lazy and didn't fight for things I wanted to do at other times. Most of my stuff consisted of setup/punchline jokes to the camera - a very old-school approach. I was part of the establishment, I guess. ~ Frank Caliendo

I wouldn't want to be defined so much by comics or cartoons. My work is more narrative than that. If you take your basic cartoon, there's always a punchline or a joke at the end. My drawings don't depend on that so much. ~ Raymond Pettibon

If you were my girl," he says, but there's an explosion outside in the courtyard, and I miss the punchline. Fireworks crackle in showers of pink, green, blue, white, green, pink, orange. The museum-goers on the escalators heading upwards erupt in a frenzy of applause as we continue heading down. "If you were my girl," Josh says, pressing his nose against my ear. I turn my head, and the lights and the noise and the people disappear. The distance between us disappears.
Our kiss was anything but shy. ~ Stephanie Perkins

The no-secrets era of social media makes one consider the built-in risk factor of nominating high-testosterone men to positions of power at all. Everyone is under too much scrutiny now to take a chance on candidates who suddenly blow up into a comic meme, a punchline, a ribald hashtag. ~ Tina Brown

Eddie remembered the punchline of an old New York joke: "Pardon me, sir, can you tell me how to get to City Hall, or should I just go fuck myself? ~ Stephen King

But if you were Charlotte, and you had been feeling that life was some cosmic joke that had no punchline, and in the space of a moment you had gone from being Charlotte-without-a-kitten to being Charlotte-with-a-kitten, you too would have found it nothing short of remarkable. ~ Anne Ursu

If you live on Statin Island, cholesterol is not a problem. ~ Jon Obermeyer

And it started out fun. We were chattering enthusiastically, flipping between CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News. But as the evening wore on, and the numbers rolled in, it got quieter, and I found myself becoming intensely depressed. Why was I putting myself through this? The issues I've devoted my life to have become so marginalized by the coverage that they have no possible relevance to me. I can't even blame the media - people simply don't care about alternate-party politics. And why should they? I'm so far in the minority that my activism is a joke, a punchline that stopped being funny years ago. It goes beyond rooting for the underdog. It's not rooting for the Giants: it's more like, say, rooting for the Twins. But during the Super Bowl. ~ Phillip Andrew Bennett Low

He knows I'll like a song before I've heard it. He laughs before I even get to the punchline. There's a place on his chest, just below his throat, that makes me want to let him open doors for me. There's only one of him. Park ~ Rainbow Rowell

He worked for two hours, perfecting the storyline-the situation, the setup, the punchline.After changing her tire and practicing macho lines to impress her, Macintosh ended up with five dollars, a stutter, and soaked shoes as Veronica zoomed out of his life. ~ Nora Roberts

The world is really a big straight line. Sometimes the world is actually a punchline. There are things that happen and you'll say, 'I can't believe that. Can you believe that?' And for that reason you don't have to tilt your head because the world at that time is coming at you at a forty-five degree angle, so they're out of wack. But most of the world appears to be straight and level, so you've got to tilt your head forty-five degrees and your vision becomes: how can I take that reality and just distort it enough to suit my purposes? To show them the craziness is there but it's just well-disguised. ~ George Carlin

But since death is inevitable we don't have to deal with it (it'll deal with us when it decides to). What we do have to deal with is the psychic, physical, and fusion diseases wrought during our so-called lives as byproducts of the elemental clash. In other words we're all terminally psychotic and no doctor, hospital, pill, needle, book or guru holds the cure. Because the disease is called life and there is no cure for that but death and death's just part of the set-up designed to keep you terrified and thus in bondage from the cradle to the crypt so ha ha the joke's on you except there's no punchline and the comedian forgot you ever existed as even a comma. ~ Lester Bangs

When people have not learned to interpret the past, to read the present; and to imagine and empower the future, they are living a life without a punchline, clueless about the story they are embarked upon. ("Not on the shortlist" ) ~ Erik Pevernagie

And what do we get for our faith? For the centuries we've given this church or that one our gifts of blood and treasure? The assurance that heaven is waiting for us at the end of it all, and when we get there, the punchline will be explained and we'll say, 'Oh yeah! Now I get it.' That's the big payoff. It's dinned into our ears from our earliest days: heaven, heaven, heaven! We will see our lost children, our dear mothers will take us in their arms! That's the carrot. ~ Stephen King

I think my speeches are hilarious. I think I'm a natural comedian, but I like denying people the chance to laugh. I want to deny you the relief of the punchline. ~ Lydia Lunch

Fate is a bitch with a wicked sense of humor... and today, I'm her punchline. ~ Darling Cruel / The League Series

Sometimes people try to read into my strip and find out what my state of mind is. And I can say if I'm in a good mood, generally the comic strip starts out in a good mood, but the punchline is very negative and sour. ~ Matt Groening

I feel like someone told a joke and I missed the punchline, and now everyone's laughing without me. ~ Francesca Zappia

The one thing that TV is bad at doing is preaching. There are two extremes, you either turn the people into a punchline or turn them into hero, and both of those things suck, because most people are neither in real life. ~ Mike Rowe

Maybe the universe is a giant practical joke and we don't know the punchline. ~ John Lloyd

Every single fat comic uses his weight as a punchline. There is something sad about that. ~ Gene Weingarten

I don't sit down to write a song; they just come to me from something that somebody says, or something in the news. The punchline comes to me, and I go over it in my head and get the song form. I hadn't been doing that a lot. ~ Mose Allison

Myles P. doesn't resist, he sinks down and down, letting the sound of Willard's lisp close over him light as a foaming wave and he drifts gently down, without a gurgle, past the floating beds of giant kelp and the abalone-eating otters, the unschooled senoritas and egg-filled cabezon, he thinks he might touch his toes to the bottom when he gets there and wonders if it will be mud or just more cement.

'Meaning other animals, shoot, soon as the young's able to hunt or run, mother takes off and dad's eyeing the offsprung for dinner. But we can't let ours be, colic to college, we're constantly wiping their little booger'd noses, dolling out free dough and freer advice, thinking they'll powder our own asses later in the home. But a baby's just a for-instance, fact is, others never tender the way you do. Species'd peter, rent'd come due.' Willard goes to Hiro, 'The punchline, my friend, is giving without wanting's the trick once you've managed that, you've partly pierced heaven a bunghole, but it's a pure penniless instigation that you ain't got 'n ain't gonna get got, 'n ain't gonna get it, not on no roadfuckingtrip.'

'Meaning?' says Hiro

'Meaning love's all true. ~ Vanessa Place