Tragic Comedy Quotes

You know, you spend your childhood watching TV, assuming that at some point in the future everything you see there will one day happen to you: that you too will win a Formula One race, hop a train, foil a group of terrorists, tell someone 'Give me the gun', etc. Then you start secondary school, and suddenly everyone's asking you about your career plans and your long-term goals, and by goals they don't mean the kind you are planning to score in the FA Cup. Gradually the awful truth dawns on you: that Santa Claus was just the tip of the iceberg - that your future will not be the rollercoaster ride you'd imagined, that the world occupied by your parents, the world of washing the dishes, going to the dentist, weekend trips to the DIY superstore to buy floor-tiles, is actually largely what people mean when they speak of 'life'. Now, with every day that passes, another door seems to close, the one marked PROFESSIONAL STUNTMAN, or FIGHT EVIL ROBOT, until as the weeks go by and the doors - GET BITTEN BY SNAKE, SAVE WORLD FROM ASTEROID, DISMANTLE BOMB WITH SECONDS TO SPARE - keep closing, you begin to hear the sound as a good thing, and start closing some yourself, even ones that didn't necessarily need to be closed. ~ Paul Murray

I can't go on, I'll go on. ~ Samuel Beckett

The Faces of Love
Love is a muse for the poet;
a gift for the thankful;
a remedy for the heartbroken;
a game for the powerful;
a tragic comedy for the poor;
a raison d'etre for the non-believer;
a proof of God's presence for the faithful. ~ Beryl Dov

Would the tragic comedy of memory ever stop replaying? ~ Jacqueline Woodson

Here is the most telling fact: you wish to possess me.

Here is another fact: I loved you and let you think you could. ~ Louise Erdrich

When I hear a politician has died in a car accident, I think, "How tragic! Even if the car suffered only a small dent, it makes me want to cry out to God in despair. ~ Jarod Kintz

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. ~ Cassia Leo

Down through the years my face has been called a sour puss, a dead pan, a frozen face, The Great Stone Face, and, believe it or not, "a tragic mask." On the other hand that kindly critic, the late James Agee, described my face as ranking "almost with Lincoln's as an early American archetype, it was haunting, handsome, almost beautiful." I can't imagine what the great rail splitter's reaction would have been to this, though I sure was pleased. ~ Buster Keaton

Kaz reached into his coat pocket. "Here," he said and handed Jesper a slender book with an elaborate cover.
"Are we going to read to each other?"
"Just flip it open to the back."
Jesper opened the book and peered at the last page, puzzled. "So?"
"Hold it up so we don't have to look at your ugly face."
"My face has character. Besides - oh!"
"An excellent read, isn't it?"
"Who knew I had a taste for literature? ~ Leigh Bardugo

I always think it's just best to just make stuff and to carry on making stuff, even if it's not off your own back, because that's the only way ... especially as a comedy writer, I make short films and then show them to live audience, so if they're laughing you know you're doing something right. ~ Alice Lowe

One of the biggest misconceptions about me is that I'm a comedian, which I'm not. A comedian is someone who can stand up in front of an audience and make you laugh. I've never done stand-up and I never will. I'm a comic actor. My comedy comes through my characters. ~ Eugene Levy

Look, kid," he said, "you don't spend a lifetime in comedy without learning a thing or two about evil. ~ Larry McCarley

Oh, you wanna do a little bit of roleplay? Could you just play dead? ~ Jack Whitehall

I am a passionate believer that comedy is a way of tackling some of the most dark and difficult aspects of being a human being. ~ Stephen Mangan

I think that it's so powerful for me to go see someone like Bridget Everett at Joe's Pub and watch her weave her songs in and out of these funny, tragic stories - you can talk and sing and it's not this horrible offense, you're going to get thrown in artistic jail. ~ Kathleen Hanna

From now on Anne saw herself as someone indelibly marked by suffering. Her letters to Sarah often ended with an allusion to her tragic history of bereavement, for she took to signing them "your poor unfortunate faithful Morley. ~ Anne Somerset

He was an FBI agent. She was a wanted fugitive. To think the would be together was like saying maybe a shark could go vegetarian. It just wasn't going to happen. ~ Tiffany Snow

Life is difficult and those who make us laugh are angels. ~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

Lonely? Yes. But a solemn, brooding, tragic loneliness that a man hates with a passion - and yet loves so much he craves for more. ~ George R R Martin

Comedy comes easily to me, and so for me, comedy is suspect. ~ Marshall Brickman

Comedians are never really on vacation because you're always at attention ... that antenna is always out there. ~ Bob Newhart

There's a lot of people out there who didn't like my style of comedy. ~ Pauly Shore

For the first time in years, I have vivid dreams, vivid enough to count the stars and the number of ripples in the sea. ~ Brittany Weekley

With comedy, you never know until you put it in front of an audience. You shoot it and a year later you have no idea if it's going to work. And then you get the response. It's great when it's good. ~ Steve Martin

Love me, even if it's a lie. Leave me yet never say goodbye. ~ Faraaz Kazi

You know, crankiness is at the essence of all comedy. ~ Jerry Seinfeld

My favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinning. ~ Alan Arkin

I cannot concern myself with the intolerable affections and frivolous actions of a cruel, selfish, and litigious society. I must treasure the invisible muteness and inherent intelligence that nature blessed me with at birth. I shall endeavor to find beauty in living, striving, suffering, and dying in nature's glorious wonderland of grasslands, forest, rivers, and seas situated under an of infinite canopy of glittering stars. Perhaps when I reach the end of this long scroll I will finally leave behind me the tragic sense of ignobly that haunts my nights and begin living in a world filled with infinite sunshine and boundless delight. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

More people are going out to comedy shows than they were before. ~ Jimmy Carr

Comedy and sausages are the two things that if you know how they're made they affect the appetite. ~ Mike Myers

I try not to blame the public, because the public - men, especially - have seen not great portrayals of women in supporting roles, because they're not given the lead roles a lot of the time. Especially in comedy, they're relegated to the adversary, which is like "the mean girlfriend." ~ Paul Feig

I mean, there's an aspect I've always said that is - it's, you know, it's not poetry but it's kind of like it. It's not song lyrics but it's kind of like song lyrics. It's not rap but it's kind of like rap. And it's not stand-up comedy but it is kind of like stand-up comedy. It's all those things together. ~ Quentin Tarantino

Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;
There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!
As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master,
And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as, swinging heel and toe,
We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic road to Anywhere,
The tragic road to Anywhere, such dear, dim years ago. ~ Robert W. Service

Maybe one of the monsters ate him," Daphne whimpered.
"That would be awesome," Puck said.
Sabrina flashed him an angry look.
"Awesome in a terrible, heartbreakingly tragic way," Puck continued. ~ Michael Buckley

If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs. ~ Tina Fey