Humor

For he did resolve
To extirpate the vipers,
With four-and-twenty men
And five-and-thirty pipers.
~ William Edmondstoune (W.E.) Aytoun, in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine (August 1844). Bon Gaultier and His Friends. The Massacre of the MacPherson

Even the heartiest scream from your listeners should not bring a semblance of a smile to your sphinx-like countenance. Let the gag do its own work.
~ Billy Bennett

The Grand Canyon is just gorges.
~ Captain Billy's Whiz Bang (February 1927), in Studies in American Humor. Volume III (January 1977); William Cole From Scatology to Social History: Captain Billy's Whiz Bang

I think humor is a very serious thing. I use it as a way of weakening the reader's defenses so that I can more easily take him to something more.
~ Billy Collins, in The New York Times (30 November 1997).

Prior to Wordsworth, humor was an essential part of poetry. I mean, they don't call them Shakespeare comedies for nothing.
~ Billy Collins, in Contra Costa Times (1 October 2001). Armed with verse

Good humour is not the product of philosophy, but of temperament or of fortune.
~ William Benton (W.B.) Clulow, Horæ otiosæ; or, Thoughts, Maxims, and Opinions (1833). Part IV. On Happiness

It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.
~ William Congreve, The Double Dealer (1694). Epistle Dedicatory

To define Humour, perhaps, were as difficult, as to define Wit; for like that, it is of infinite variety.
~ William Congreve, Published in Letters upon several Occasions (1699). Concerning Humour in Comedy (written in 1695).

I'm sure everyone in this room has been told a joke about that subject. I have many times and I've laughed, even though they are horrifying and shocking. ... I think there's no boundary at all, whether it's that subject or another.
~ Billy Connolly, quoted in Ananova Ltd (13 August 2001). Paedophilia should 'not be ignored by comedians' - Connolly

Anyone should be able to say on stage what they want. But those who have knowledge, do understand that certain things on stage can be abused and misused. And if such topics are used just for laughter, the humor will not stand the test of time.
~ Bill Cosby

If you can find humor in anything -- even poverty -- you can survive it.
~ Bill Cosby

Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.
~ Bill Cosby

Humor is meant to blow up evil and make fun of the follies of life.
~ Will (William Jacob) Cuppy

Overall, there's the same ratio of good stuff to bad as there was in the so-called golden age of comedy. But the rules were different, the restrictions. I once said that when we were writing comedy, America was so uptight sexually you couldn't show a close-up of the stork on "Zoo Parade." We were blessed with having to get our laughs out of pure comedy, pure in the sense of universality.
~ Bill Dana (William Szathmary), The Associated Press (19 March 1998). Five Questions with Bill Dana: AKA Jose Jiminez and A-OK

The love of truth lies at the root of much humour.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, in Our Living Tradition (1957). Stephen Leacock

The people who fear humour -- and they are many -- are suspicious of its power to present things in unexpected lights, to question received opinions and to suggest unforeseen possibilities.
~ (William) Robertson Davies, in Happy Alchemy: Writings on the Theatre and Other Lively Arts (1997).

The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for 5 seconds and think for 10 minutes.
~ William Davis

Tell the FBI that the kidnappers should pick out a judge that Nixon wants back.
~ William Orville Douglas

Comedy is defiance. It's a snort of contempt in the face of fear and anxiety. And it's the laughter that allows hope to creep back on the inhale.
~ Will Durst, The Los Angeles Times (12 May 2002). Comedy; Just Try Making Jokes; Political comedian Will Durst chronicles life on the road as he tries to amuse a post-Sept. 11 nation

There is humor in the specter of the worst disaster in our nation's history. All I have to do is sweep away the debris of shock to find it.
~ Will Durst, The Los Angeles Times (12 May 2002). Comedy; Just Try Making Jokes; Political comedian Will Durst chronicles life on the road as he tries to amuse a post-Sept. 11 nation

When you're doing stand-up, you achieve an intimacy with the audience you can't get on TV. There's not a better feeling in the entire world then when you look out and see the audience is identifying with you.
~ Bill Engvall

Analyzing humour is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
~ W.C. Fields, The Saturday Evening Post (1949). W.C. Fields: Rowdy King of Comedy

Comedy is a serious business. A serious business with only one purpose -- to make people laugh.
~ W.C. Fields

No one likes a fellow who is all rogue, but we'll forgive him almost anything if there is warmth of human sympathy underneath his rogueries. The immortal types of comedy are just such men.
~ W.C. Fields, quoted in W.C. Fields: A Life on Film (1984).

It's a genetic mechanism to try and control these emotions, which have destructive factors in them. We try to create humor out of tragedy in an attempt to relieve fear and/or depression.
~ William F. Fry, Jr., MD, The San Francisco Chronicle (2 February 2003). Conspiracy theories springing up in Internet chat rooms: Experts say predictable reactions include the bizarre, tasteless and opportunistic

Humor offers an alternative to violence. ... Humor gives us a choice.
~ William F. Fry, Jr., MD, Address given at the Annual Convention of the American Orthopsychiatric Association, Washington DC (April 1979).

Humor opposes directly those emotions which have been specifically recorded as being associated with precipitation of heart attack. These emotions are fear and rage. Humor acts to relieve fear. Rage is impossible when mirth prevails.
~ William F. Fry, Jr., MD

We're comic. We're all comics. We live in a comic time. And the worse it gets the more comic we are.
~ William Gaddis, The Recognitions (1955).

Funny without being vulgar.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert

[H]umor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse.
~ William Schwenck (W.S.) Gilbert, The Played-out Humorist

A keen sense of humor helps us to overlook the unbecoming, understand the unconventional, tolerate the unpleasant, overcome the unexpected, and outlast the unbearable.
~ Billy Graham, Hope for the Troubled Heart (1991).

A lot of people write angry letters saying Zippy is stupid. And that's why they don't get it: because it is stupid.
~ William Henry Jackson (Bill) Griffith, in the Monthly (February 2000).

Comedy naturally wears itself out -- destroys the very food on which it lives; and by constantly and successfully exposing the follies and weaknesses of mankind to ridicule, in the end leaves itself nothing worth laughing at.
~ William Hazlitt, from The Round Table, Vol. I (1817). On Modern Comedy

There wasn't much expected from those cartoons. We were hackin' 'em out on the cheap, getting' the job done. ... But we made 'em as funny-looking as we could under the circumstances and I guess something clicked between the writing and the cartooning.
~ William "Tex" Henson (from an early 1990's interview in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram), quoted in Reuters (5 December 2002). Bullwinkle animator dies in car accident

Is it worth while to observe that there are no Venetian blinds in Venice?
~ William Dean Howells, Venetian Life (1866).

I have never understood why it should be considered derogatory to the Creator to suppose that He has a sense of humor.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, A Rustic Moralist (1937).

When I do something directly political, even if [an audience] doesn't agree with it, if it's funny and true, they gotta give it up. ... Stand-up is more personal; a monologue is standing on the corner watching the parade go by and making wisecracks about it.
~ Bill Maher (on political candidates), in Entertainment Weekly (20 September 1996). Special Coverage: Maher's Attacks

I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949). 1902 entry

It is well known that Beauty does not look with a good grace on the timid advances of Humour.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930).

The humorist has a good eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up (1938).

When we realize finally that we aren't God's given children, we'll understand satire. Humor is really laughing off a hurt, grinning at misery.
~ William H. (Bill) Mauldin, in Time Magazine (21 July 1961).

The deeply thoughtful and human consciousness of a Macbeth is not found in comedy. Comic action tends to be as Bergson described it, physical or purblind, instead of highly conscious. Similarly, the great comic actor specializes in the presentation of mental obtuseness.
~ William G. McCollom, The Divine Average: A View of Comedy (1971). Chapter 1

And here I must part company with Saint Thomas, who teaches that the Almighty's nature precludes a sense of humor.
~ William McGurn

After God created the world, He made man and woman. Then, to keep the whole thing from collapsing, He invented humor.
~ Guillermo Mordillo

A comedian can only last 'til he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious.
~ Will Rogers, (1931).

Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else.
~ Will Rogers, The Illiterate Digest (1924). Warning to Jokers: lay off the prince

I don't know what humor is. Anything that's funny -- tragedy or anything, it don't make no difference so [long as] you happen to hit it just right. But there's one thing I'm proud of -- I ain't got it in for anybody. I don't like to make jokes that hurt anybody.
~ Will Rogers

I never lack material for my humor column when Congress is in session.
~ Will Rogers

Lord, let me live until I die.
~ Will Rogers

My own mother died when I was 10 years old. My folks have told me that what little humor I have comes from her. I can't remember her humor, but I can remember her love and understanding of me. Of course, the mother I know the most about is the mother of our little group. She has been for 22 years trying to raise to maturity four children, three by birth and one by marriage. While she hasn't done a good job, the poor soul has done all that mortal human could do with the material she had to work with.
~ Will Rogers

The way to judge a good comedy is by how long it will last and have people talk about it. Now Congress had turned out some that have lived for years and people are still laughing about them.
~ Will Rogers

There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
~ Will Rogers

Anyone without a sense of humor is at the mercy of everyone else.
~ William Rotsler

I realize that humor isn't for everyone. It's only for people who want to have fun, enjoy life, and feel alive.
~ Anne Wilson Schaef, Laugh! I Thought I'd Die (If I Didn't): Daily Meditations On Healing Through Humor (1990).

A jest's prosperity lies in the ear
Of him that hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it.
~ William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost

I'll tickle your catastrophe.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part II. Act II, scene i

Was ever woman in this humour wooed?
Was ever woman in this humour won?
~ William Shakespeare, King Richard III

Good humour may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, from Sketches and Travels in London (1847). Mr. Brown's Letters to his Nephew: On Tailoring -- And Toilettes in General

[H]umor is wit and love ... the best humor is that which contains most humanity, that which is flavored throughout with tenderness and kindness.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, Address Delivered in New York City (1852). On Charity and Humor

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.
~ William Arthur Ward

I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what entertainment is all about. ... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

You should stick with what you enjoy, what you find funny -- that's the humor that will be the strongest, and that will transmit itself. Rather then trying to find out what the latest trend is, you should draw what is personally interesting.
~ Bill Watterson, Honk Magazine (Interview; 1986).

Anything that was meant to be formal and went wrong she enjoyed. She would have a good giggle. She had such a young sense of humour.
~ Prince William, Reuters (7 April 2002). Young princes pay tribute to "amazing" Queen Mum

She had such a young sense of humor. Every single thing that went wrong or was funny for any reason, she laughed herself stupid about it -- it kept us all sane.
~ Prince William (in press interview at York House), The Associated Press (6 April 2002). Teen Princes Recall Queen Mother

It was not until I was able to see myself as another person that my sense of humor developed. For I do not believe there is any such thing as innate humor. It has to be developed by hard work and study, just as every other human quality.
~ Egbert Austin "Bert" Williams, in American Magazine 85 (January 1918). The Comic Side of Trouble

One of the funniest sights in the world is a man whose hat has been knocked in or ruined by being blown off -- provided, of course, it be the other fellow's hat! ... This is human nature. If you will observe your own conduct whenever you see a friend falling down on the street, you will find that nine times out of ten your first impulse is to laugh and your second is to run and help him get up. To be polite you will dust off his clothes and ask him if he has hurt himself. But when it is all over you cannot resist telling him how funny he looked when he was falling. The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortunes.
~ Egbert Austin "Bert" Williams, in American Magazine 85 (January 1918). The Comic Side of Trouble

Comedy is acting out optimism.
~ Robin Williams

People say satire is dead. It's not dead; it's alive and living in the White House.
~ Robin Williams, (1988).

The only weapon we have is comedy.
~ Robin Williams (on dealing with the September 11 attacks), BBC News (3 October 2002). Robin Williams: I was stalked

Be sudden, be neat. Be unimpassioned, if you're serious about something, leave it out.
~ Clerow "Flip" Wilson (Flip's "Laws of Comedy")