"Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart."

"And however our Dennises take offence, A double meaning shows double sense; And if proverbs tell truth, A double tooth Is wisdom's adopted dwelling."

"A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket."

"Unconscious humour."

"The self-righteously bitter cartoons that appear in sectarian magazines are fine if all you want to do is preach to the choir, but I believe you can reach a lot more people with humor."

"Comedy only works when it comes from an honest place and the relief that I’d miscarried twins was real!"

"A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes."

"Comedy can be a cathartic way to deal with personal trauma."

"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. That is what I am called upon to do every day."

"The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel."

"A tragedy can never suffer by delay: a comedy may, because the allusions or the manners represented in it maybe temporary."

"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."

"Asperæ facetiæ, ubi nimis ex vero traxere, Acram sui memoriam relinquunt."

"If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time. But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy."

"Humor cannot bring Heaven to earth, but it can keep it from becoming a hell."

"If tragedy is an experience of hyperinvolvement, comedy is an experience of underinvolvement, of detachment."

"A dry jest, sir…. I have them at my fingers' end."

"A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it."

"Jesters do often prove prophets."

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."

"Moria and stultitia are both rendered nowadays as 'folly', but both have far stronger senses than folly has now. They imply derangement of mind, madness, mania. Such are the defects attributed to Christians by the worldly-wise. And vice-versa. ... Although the mutual laughter may seem six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, it is not. The Christian is profoundly mad merely by the standards of the world. To the world the wicked seem wise, but are mad in the sight of God. The Christian is touched by the Infinite and will not only have the last laugh at the end of time: even now he laughs more insanely than the worldlings."

"Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that Humour excites in those who lack it."

"There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don't even have to exaggerate."

"I certainly know that [A] comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious and I don't want either of those to happen to me til I am dead (if then)."

"Every Gag I tell must be based on truth. No matter how much I may exaggerate it, it must have a certain amount of Truth. ... Now Rumor travels Faster, but it don't stay put as long as Truth."

"I'd like to make you laugh for about ten minutes. Though I'm gonna be on for an hour."

"I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realize it's a comedy."

"Since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."

"The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth."

"As soon as you realize everything's a joke, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense."

"Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs."

"Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite."

"If we can't have sanity, we can fake it with humor. Humor gives you the same distance from the situation, the same metaview, only laughing is easier than sanity and possibly more fun."

"Creator — A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh."

"As examples from history show, when jokes start circulating about a powerful leader, cracks in political legitimacy begin to appear."

"Dictatorship... is devoid of humor. The basic reason why Americans will never endure a dictator is... their sense of humor."

"That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously, because I think our opposition, whoever they may be, in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humor. You know, and we are humorous, we are, what are they, Laurel and Hardy. That's John and Yoko, and we stand a better chance under that guise, because all the serious people, like Martin Luther King, and Kennedy, and Gandhi, got shot."

"Who could be on a stage, crowing about their victory and ridiculing those less fortunate than them without any sense of irony, shame or self-knowledge? That’s not a stand-up comedian. That’s just a cunt."

"The law of levity is allowed to supersede the law of gravity."

"The more one suffers, the more, I believe, has one a sense for the comic. It is only by the deepest suffering that one acquires true authority in the use of the comic, an authority which by one word transforms as by magic the reasonable creature one calls man into a caricature."

"Humor empowers the disempowered"

"I can't even really tell a joke. I find being funny very hard work. I am always asked about it and I feel guilty saying that, but it's the truth. I love my work but it ain't easy."

"A sense of humor is the ability to see yourself when you are not looking in the mirror."

"The effect of jokes that mock victims of assault seems to be fairly consistent among audiences, which is why comedians like to use them: rape jokes evoke an emotional response. They are used by comedians and the media to cheaply shock the audience into awkward “did-they-really-just-say-that?” laughter. When audiences allow this sort of humor, it desensitizes them to the horrors of sexual assault; eventually, audiences associate the use of rape in a joke with laughter and consider sexual assault legitimate comedic material. This effect of rape humor is deeply disturbing—it seeks to make sexual assault funny. I imagine that three possible events occur in audience members’ heads after hearing a rape joke: laughter due to shock/discomfort; mindless laughter; or the terrifying, literal image of a rape occurring. It takes courage to speak up when someone tells a joke that crosses the line from comedic wit into tasteless, knee-jerkreaction laughter—especially considering that women most commonly attempt to combat these jokes, and often become disregarded as sensitive and humorless."