Quotes on Laughter

The whole play of existence is so beautiful that laughter can be the only response to it. Only laughter can be the real prayer, gratitude.

Laughter isn't even the other side of tears. It is tears turned inside out. Truly the suffering is great, here on earth. We blunder along, shredded by our mistakes, bludgeoned by our faults. Not having a clue where the dark path leads us. But on the whole, we stumble along bravely, don't you think?

Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him.

The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.

I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.

Ninety-eight per cent of laughter is nothing to do with jokes, which do not deserve to bear the weight of all the funny stuff in the world.

There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.

A fit of laughter, which has been indulged to excess, almost always produces a violent reaction.

A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.

Laughter is wine for the soul - laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness - the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living.

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

It used to take me all vacation to grow a new hide in place of the one they flogged off me during school term.

Laughter is an instant vacation.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

To make mistakes is human; to stumble is commonplace; to be able to laugh at yourself is maturity.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.

The Young Soldier It is not death Without hereafter To one in dearth Of life and its laughter, Nor the sweet murder Dealt slow and even Unto the martyr Smiling at heaven: It is the smile Faint as a (waning) myth, Faint, and exceeding small On a boy's murdered mouth.

The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay, I heard the laughter of her heart in every street café.

It was a somber place, haunted by old jokes and lost laughter. Life, as I discovered, holds no more wretched occupation than trying to make the English laugh.

But why doesn't the Gospel ever say that Christ laughed?" I asked, for no good reason. "Is Jorge right?" "Legions of scholars have wondered whether Christ laughed. The question doesn't interest me much. I believe he never laughed, because, omniscient as the son of God had to be, he knew how we Christians would behave. . . .