At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.
Interpretation
The author highlights that humor arises from observing the absurdities of life rather than intentionally creating it.
In this quote, Richard Russo suggests that humor is not something he fabricates but rather a reflection of the often ridiculous nature of the world around him. He sees comedy as an inherent quality of life, stemming from genuine observation rather than a deliberate attempt to write humor, which emphasizes the value of authenticity in comedic expression.
In practice
In a speech about creativity, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of being observant and authentic.
I think that if people are instructed about anything, it should be about the nature of cruelty. And about why people behave so cruelly to each other. And what kind of satisfactions they derive from it. And why there is always a cost, and a price to be paid.
I have to have a character worth caring about. I tend not to start writing books about people I don't have a lot of sympathy for because I'm just going to be with them too long.
My books are elegiac in the sense that they're odes to a nation that even I sometimes think may not exist anymore except in my memory and my imagination.
I told him the truth, that I loved him and didn't regret anything about our lives together. But do we ever 'tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God' as my father used to say, to those we love? Or even to ourselves? Don't even the best and most fortunate of lives hint at other possibilities, at a different kind of sweetness and, yes, bitterness too? Isn't this why we can't help feeling cheated, even when we know we haven't been?
He'd discovered that his memories of that summer were like bad movie montages - young lovers tossing a Frisbee in the park, sharing a melting ice-cream cone, bicycling along the river, laughing, talking, kissing, a sappy score drowning out the dialogue because the screenwriter had no idea what these two people might say to each other.
A couple years ago, the novelist Russell Banks told me he was reading the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. I asked why. He said, 'Because I've always wanted to and am tired of having my reading assigned.' I thought it was a marvelous declaration of independence.
They all laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well, they're not laughing now.
I hate to lull the audience into letting them think that something is something. It's always fun to defy expectations.
You thunder and lightning too much; the reader ceases to get under the bed, by and by.
Hypocrite: The man who murdered his parents, and then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.
Maybe age is kinder to us than we think. With my bad eyes, I can't see how bad I look, and with my rotten memory, I have a good excuse for getting out of a lot of stuff.
I sometimes wonder how many of these lifetime achievement awards you can accept before you have to do the decent thing and die.
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