Tragedy And Comedy Quotes

Comedy is the art of making people laugh without making them puke. ~ Steve Martin

The script for 'Infamous' was so poised between tragedy and comedy. It's a dream part. One reads those scripts with a sense of melancholia. When you read a script that good ... I remember thinking, 'Oh, this script is too good. They'll never give it to me.' ~ Toby Jones

Satire is tragedy plus time. You give it enough time, the public, the reviewers will allow you to satirize it. Which is rather ridiculous, when you think about it. ~ Lenny Bruce

The tapestry of history that seems so full of tragedy when viewed from the front has countless comic scenes woven into its reverse side. In truth, tragedy and comedy are the twin masks of history - its mass appeal. ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt. ~ Erma Bombeck

Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more. ~ Jeannette Walls

There is a point in portraying surface vulgarity where tragedy and comedy are very close. ~ Barbara Stanwyck

Tragedy and comedy are simply questions of value; a little misfit in life makes us laugh; a great one is tragedy and cause for expression of grief. ~ Elbert Hubbard

If a new movement in art comes along be awake to it, study it, but don't belong to it. Have a personal humor about things. You will never know your calibre until you have tried yourself. Avoid idle industry. Always leave out the padding. Be venturesome. Try new things that appeal to you. Examine others. Have a pioneer spirit. Prevent your drawing from being common. Put life into it. The way to do this is to see the model, see that the model is great, wonderful - a human creature there before you in the tragedy and comedy of life - then draw. ~ Robert Henri

Sin and grace, absence and presence, tragedy and comedy, they divide the world between them and where they meet head on, the Gospel happens. ~ Frederick Buechner

Chess is a game sufficiently rich in meaning that it is easily capable of containing elements of both tragedy and comedy. ~ Luke McShane

Human life is a combination of tragedy and comedy. The shapes and designs that surround us are the music accompanying this tragedy and this comedy. ~ Alvar Aalto

Wherever comes man comes tragedy and comedy also. ~ Amos Bronson Alcott

Human life is an incongruous combination of tragedy and comedy. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

It is only after knowing him for some time that you begin to realize you are, to him, an essentially fictional character, one he has invested with nearly limitless capacities for tragedy and comedy not because that is your true nature but because he, Richard, needs to live in a world peopled by extreme and commanding figures. ~ Michael Cunningham

Live a life abundant in love and rich in spirit, these are the seeds of a fulfilling existence. Be the safe harbor you seek in the world. Follow your dreams, not your fear.
Go into the New Year with an open mind and hopeful heart. Don't let the chains of unforgiveness weigh you down. Life is too short to live in a prison of past hurts. The futures is yours for the taking and creating.
Life is bittersweet, when we can let darkness and light co-exist as illumination, we can live in true happiness. When we live life at its best, it is a symphony of feelings, of high and low notes, of tragedy and comedy, love and loss, magic and the sublime. It can be quite a spectacular journey when we fully embrace and accept it. ~ Jaeda DeWalt

And in the vine of the divine,
There is a fine line;
Between tragedy and comedy,
That a man cannot define. ~ Stephan Attia

My wife and I take what we call our Friday comedy day off. We watch standup comics on TV. The raunchier the better. We love Eddie Izzard. ~ Gene Hackman

The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it. ~ George Santayana

There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose."
Where?"
In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically. ~ Roald Dahl

I think, in comedy, timing is everything. You and I could tell the same joke, but if one of our timing is off, it won't be as funny. You've gotta know when to deliver your punch-lines. ~ T.I.

Then, there on the screen I saw Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. An American Tragedy, a film I'd seen at least twice, not that it was all that great, but still it was very good, especially the final scene, which was unreeling at this particular moment: Clift and Taylor standing together, separated by the bars of a prison cell, a death cell, for Clift is only hours away from execution. Clift, already a poetic ghost inside his grey death-clothes, and Taylor, nineteen and ravishing, sublimely fresh as lilac after rain. ~ Truman Capote

I'm never going to say, 'Well, I'm never going to do comedy again.' I love comedies, and it's what people know me for, so I love doing it ... I don't really think about it in terms of 'Well, I should do this because it's comedy or drama.' ~ Bill Hader

When it's good, it's the best and most beautiful thing I've ever experienced. So good, that it makes me feel bad for people who haven't had the honor. But when it's bad, it's bad, Nikki. A goddamn Greek tragedy. It's horrific. And really fucking scary. He scares me.
But those good times ... I'll take the bad just so I can have the good. Because the good is outstanding. So, if you must know, I'm going with the flow and taking it as it comes. ~ Belle Aurora

When, late in the war, with the Wehrmacht breaking up on all fronts, our planes were sent to destroy this last major city, I doubt if the question was asked, "How will this tragedy benefit us, and how will that benefit compare with the ill-effects in the long run?" Dresden, a beautiful city, built in the art spirit, symbol of an admirable heritage, so anti-Nazi that Hitler visited it but twice during his whole reign, food and hospital center so bitterly needed now - plowed under and salt strewn in the furrows. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

My theory is, if you can do comedy and you can be in a scene with someone like Brad Garrett and hold your own, you've really got a future in this business. ~ Faith Ford

My paintings and comedy have a lot in common. They are both improvisations based on observation. ~ Jonathan Winters

We have come together with a unity of purpose because our nation demands it. September 11, 2001, was a day of unprecedented shock and suffering in the history of the United States.The nation was unprepared. How did this happen, and how can we avoid such tragedy ~ Anonymous

I'm afraid that the act of writing is so scary and anxiety-filled that I never laugh at all. In fact, when people tell me that such and such a scene or story is comical, I tend to gape. I did not intend comedy - ever, as far as I know. It's probably all a mistake. I am essentially a lugubrious writer. Ha ha! ~ Cynthia Ozick

Years ago, there was a variety theatre in every British town, and people paid to go down and see it. Comedy was the main part of the theatre, and comedians earned a living by being funny. Now you have comedy in television instead. Comedians now have to be funny within a play. ~ Norman Wisdom

He stopped to rest at a cart selling nuts and candy, bought himself some Jelly Belly's, flirted just enought with the Mexican cutie working there to convince her pull out the banana-flavored one. Although he liked his Jelly Belly's mixed up, he didn't like banana, but, since it took too much effort to pull them out himself, he generally tried to talk someone else into doing it. If that didn't work, he just ate 'em.
- Kenny Traveler ~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips

The fact is that comedy is actually too serious to be taken seriously. It may be that comedy touches such deep emotions that people feel better if they can just dismiss it as trivial. Just take a big belly laugh. I have watched people laughing, and for a moment they look-and are-absolutely helpless. Vulnerability. You can be assaulted while you are laughing. ~ Abe Burrows

I've always wanted to be in comedy ... growing up with Asian parents and not seeing yourself represented in media - it was always just a daydream. ~ Anna Akana

it's that particular connection between melancholy and humor that Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl examined in Saturn and Melancholy (1964). Just as melancholy is sadness made light, so humor is comedy that has lost its physical weight (that dimension of human carnality that, however, makes Boccaccio and Rabelais great) and casts doubts on the self, the world, and the entire network of relations they form. ~ Italo Calvino

I think the combination of action and the combination of comedy are two really, really good genres to meld together. ~ Neal H. Moritz

, imagine a loamy earth that starts with genocide, then adds a mix of further disease, wars, hurricanes, murder, great fires, dueling, insurrection and slavery, just to name a few of the many instances of tragedy. What dark seed would take root in such a disturbed and twisted soil? ~ James Caskey

The tragedy of our time is that we've got it backwards, we've learned to love techniques and use people. ~ Herb Kelleher

Another analogy: imagine if you were walking down the street and every few minutes someone would punch you in the arm. You don't know who will be punching you, and you don't know why. You are hurt and wary and weary. You are trying to protect yourself, but you can't get off this street. Then imagine somebody walks by, maybe gesticulating wildly in interesting conversation, and they punch you in the arm on accident. Now imagine that this is the last straw, that this is where you scream. That person may not have meant to punch you in the arm, but the issue for you is still the fact that people keep punching you in the arm. Regardless of why that last person punched you, there's a pattern that needs to be addressed, and your sore arm is testimony to that. But what often happens instead is that people demand that you prove that each person who punched you in the arm in the past meant to punch you in the arm before they'll acknowledge that too many people are punching you in the arm. The real tragedy is that you get punched in the arm constantly, not that one or two people who accidentally punched you in the arm might be accused of doing it on purpose. They still contributed to the pain that you have endured - a pain bigger than that one punch - and they are responsible for being a part of that, whether they meant to or not. ~ Ijeoma Oluo

When I was younger, I was nervous and didn't have a huge amount of confidence as an actor. Comedy is something - you know when you're getting it right because you can hear. And you can hear if you're not getting it right! I like to create interesting, weird characters, and they're often best in comedies. ~ Lucy Punch

A Wasn't just isn't. He just isn't present. But you ... You ARE YOU! And, now isn't that pleasant! ~ Dr. Seuss

As an author I'm in my head all day and I worry that I lose touch with reality. But then my dog pees on my shoe and I know I've found it again. ~ Michelle M. Pillow

I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going deep down into life and not caring a damn ... ~ P.G. Wodehouse

I do not mean to imply that the good old days were perfect. But the institutions and structure
the web
of society needed reform,not demolition. To have cut the institutional and community strands without replacing them with new ones proved to be a form of abuse to one generation and to the next. For so many Americans, the tragedy was not in dreaming that life could be better; the tragedy was that the dreaming ended. ~ Richard Louv

After having edited numerous shorts, earning award nominations for it, and then 4 features edits, the director inside me is now burning to share its voice. Thriller, Horror, zany Comedy. ~ Kyle Cassie

My wife happens to be probably the greatest working woman in comedy. I can't think of anyone who even approaches her achievements and her abilities. ~ Nick Offerman

The tragedy of government welfare programs is not just wasted taxpayer money but wasted lives. The effects of welfare in encouraging the break-up of low-income families have been extensively documented. The primary way that those with low incomes can advance in the market economy is to get married, stay married, and work - but welfare programs have created incentives to do the opposite. ~ Michael Tanner

In the mid-1970s, there was this huge boom of stand-up comedy throughout North America. I went to see a show at a club called Yuk-Yuks, in Toronto, and I was just fascinated. I ended up coming back for amateur hour on a Monday at midnight and got up there without any thought as to what might come of it. ~ Howie Mandel

I'm not a comedian. I don't do stand-up. I don't tell jokes. I'm a comedic actor, and approach my work that way. The comedy comes through the character. ~ Eugene Levy

What stops me from taking myself seriously, even though I am essentially a serious person, is that I find myself extremely ridiculous, not in the sense of the small-scale ridiculousness of slap-stick comedy, but rather in the sense of ridiculousness that seems intrinsic to human life and that manifests itself in the simplest actions and the most extraordinary gestures. ~ Gustave Flaubert

I used to go to the library all the time when I was kid. As a teenager, I got a book on how to write jokes at the library, and that, in turn, launched my comedy career. ~ Drew Carey

As soon as you meet him [james Corden], within five minutes you'll want to sleep with him. He presented me with my award for Comedy Actress of the Year at the Glamour Awards and he said such lovely things. He's so charming and he listens to you and he's funny and sensitive and adorable. I can totally see why all the women fall for him. ~ Joanna Page

When I was a kid, I used to make up all these characters. I love comedy a lot, and I don't get to do it often. Somewhere in the middle, I shifted into doing drama. ~ Omar Dorsey

The body consists of three parts: the brainium, the borax and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain. The borax contains the heart and lungs and the abominable cavity contains the bowels of which there are five: a, e, i, o, u. ~ Tom Magliozzi

To conflict journalists, a tiny, tight-knit tribe, tragedy is practically an occupational requirement: our work requires us to seek it out, measure it, contextualize it, and chronicle it. ~ Bobby Ghosh

Comedy is obviously a matter of personal taste and the world always needs a clown and some people have no taste at all and any clown will do. ~ Marc Maron