Comedy

The Marx Brothers were a popular team of sibling comedians who appeared in vaudeville, stage plays, film, and television.

Comedy has a popular meaning (stand-up, along with any discourse generally intended to amuse), which differs from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in Ancient Greece. The theatrical genre can be simply described as a dramatic performance pitting two societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Comedy contains variations on the elements of surprise, incongruity, conflict, repetitiveness, and the effect of opposite expectations, and there are many recognized genres.

Sourced

• I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things — because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself. But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy.
  • Woody Allen, interview in Helene Zuber (June 20, 2005). "Interview with Woody Allen: 'Nothing Pleases Me More than Being Thought of as a European Filmmaker'", Der Spiegel, SPIEGELnet GmbH. Retrieved on 26 December 2007.

• What we eventually run up against are the forces of humourlessness, and let me assure you that the humourless as a bunch don't just not know what's funny, they don't know what's serious. They have no common sense, either, and shouldn't be trusted with anything.
  • Martin Amis, "Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin" (1997)
• By calling him humourless I mean to impugn his seriousness, categorically: such a man must rig up his probity ex nihilo.
  • Martin Amis, Experience (2000), Part I: "Failures of Tolerance"

• Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
  • Mel Brooks, The 2,000 Year Old Man (1961).

• A Day without Laughter is like a Day without Sunshine
  • Charlie Chaplin

• It is the duty of the humor of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they cannot die before they are killed.
  • Lord Buckley, "H-Bomb" (comic monologue), 1960. Reported in Stephen Holden, It's Comedy! From Skit To Song To Satire (October 27, 1989) The New York Times.

• A joke's a very serious thing.
  • Charles Churchill, The Ghost (1763), book iv, line 1386.

• Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time—of anything. If you’re laughing, I defy you to be afraid.
  • Stephen Colbert, interview in James Kaplan (September 23, 2007). "After tragedy, TV funnyman Stephen Colbert says,: "If you are laughing, you can’t be afraid", PARADE Magazine, ParadeNet, Inc. Retrieved on 16 January 2008.

• Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humour?
  • Frank Moore Colby, (1926) The Colby Essays, Vol. 1., "Satire and Teeth". Reported in Robert Andrews, The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations, Columbia University Press. (1993) ISBN 0231071949. p. 431.

• I think you are absolutely right about everything, except I think humor springs from rage, hay fever, overdue rent and miscellaneous hell.
  • Will Cuppy, in a letter to Max Eastman, 1936, about Eastman's book, The Enjoyment of Laughter
  • Unpublished source: "Eastman mss.", Lilly Library Manuscript Collections, Indiana University

• 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.
  • Madeline Kahn, interview with Michael Specter, (April 8, 1993) "At Home With: Madeline Kahn; Funny? Yes, but Someone's Got to Be", The New York Times, The New York Times Company

• 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.
  • Christopher Morley, as quoted in An Enchanted Life : An Adept's Guide to Masterful Magick‎ (2001) by Patricia Telesco, p. 189

• I'd like to make you laugh for about ten minutes. Though I'm gonna be on for an hour.
  • Richard Pryor, reported in (December 11, 2005). "In quotes: Richard Pryor", BBC News, BBC. Retrieved on 16 January 2007.

• Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that Humour excites in those who lack it.
  • George Saintsbury, A Last Vintage, p. 172

• A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.
  • Ludwig Wittgenstein, as quoted in "A View from the Asylum" in Philosophical Investigations from the Sanctity of the Press (2004), by Henry Dribble, p. 87

Attributed

• Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.
  • Karl Barth, reported in Mary Cox Garner (2004). The Hidden Souls of Words, SelectBooks, Inc. p. 143. ISBN 1590790596.

• As soon as You realize Everything's a Joke,being The Comedian is the only Thing that makes Sense
  • The Comedian Watchmen

• Comedy is tragedy plus time.
  • Carol Burnett, reported in Marty Grothe (2004). Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit and Wisdom from History's Greatest Wordsmiths, HarperCollins. p. 126. ISBN 0060536993.

• There are two thoughts that will ensure success in all you do; (1) Don't tell everything you know, and (2) until Ace Ventura, no actor had considered talking through his ass.
  • Jim Carrey, reported in Patrick Combs; Jack Canfield (2003). Major in Success, Ten Speed Press. p. 60. ISBN 1580085326.

• The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays the part.
  • Miguel de Cervantes, reported in Marty Grothe (2004). Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit and Wisdom from History's Greatest Wordsmiths, HarperCollins. p. 126. ISBN 0060536993.

• If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And, if I can persuade you to laugh at a particular point that I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge it as true.
  • John Cleese, reported in Nicki Joy (2003). What Winners Do to Win!: The 7 Minutes a Day That Can Change Your Life, John Wiley and Sons. p. 113. ISBN 0471265772.

• Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite.
  • Christian Morgenstern, reported in Mary Cox Garner (2004). The Hidden Souls of Words, SelectBooks, Inc. p. 142. ISBN 1590790596.

• Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.
  • Will Rogers, reported in Geoff Tibballs (2004). The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners, Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 122. ISBN 0786714077.

• Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.
  • Peter Ustinov, reported in Geoff Tibballs (2004). The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners, Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 122. ISBN 0786714077.

• 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.
  • Bert Williams, reported in Jacqueline Sweeney (1997). Incredible Quotations: 230 Thought-Provoking Quotes With Prompts to Spark Students' Writing, Thinking and Discussion, Teaching Resources/Scholastic. p. 26. ISBN 0590963783.

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