Comedy Quotes - Page 26

• What is our life? A play of passion. Our mirth the music of division. Our mother's wombs the tyring houses be, Where we are drest for this short Comedy.

  Walter Raleigh

  Life, Mother, Passion

  Sir Walter Raleigh (1965). “Sir Walter Raleigh: Selected Prose and Poetry”

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• We may observe in humorous authors that the faults they chiefly ridicule have often a likeness in themselves. Cervantes had much of the knight-errant in him; Sir George Etherege was unconsciously the Fopling Flutter of his own satire; Goldsmith was the same hero to chambermaids, and coward to ladies that he has immortalized in his charming comedy; and the antiquarian frivolities of Jonathan Oldbuck had their resemblance in Jonathan Oldbuck's creator.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Hero, Humorous, Knights

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• I used to think it was clever to confuse comedy with tragedy. Now I wish I could distinguish them.

  John le Carre

  Clever, Thinking, Tragedy

  John le Carre (2002). “A Murder of Quality”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• Comedy is an intellectual affair, and deals chiefly with logic. Tragedy is an emotional affair, and deals chiefly with value. Horace Walpole once said that "life is a comedy to the man who thinks and a tragedy to the man who feels." Comedy is negative; it is a criticism of limitations and an unwillingness to accept them. Tragedy is positive; it is an uncritical acceptance of the positive content of that which is delimited. Since comedy deals with the limitations of actual situations and tragedy with their positive content, comedy must ridicule and tragedy must endorse.

  James Kern Feibleman

  Acceptance, Men, Emotional

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• Comedy is allied to justice.

  Aristophanes

  Lying, Justice

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• So excited for the Apple Watch. For centuries, we've checked the time by looking at our phones. Having it on your wrist? Genius.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Technology, Reality, Phones

  Ellen DeGeneres‏ @TheEllenShow, twitter.com. September 9, 2014.

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• As comedy presents the vital rhythm of self-preservation, tragedy exhibits that of self-consummation.

  Susanne Katherina Langer

  Self, Tragedy, Preservation

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• There is material among us for the broadest comedies and the deepest tragedies, but, besides money and leisure, it needs patience, perseverance, courage, and the hand of an artist to weave it into the literature of the country.

  Frances Harper

  Country, Perseverance, Artist

  Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (2009). “Iola Leroy (EasyRead Large Edition)”, p.328, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• The household is a school of power. There, within the door, learn the tragi-comedy of human life.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  School, Power, Doors

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2738, Delphi Classics

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• Just by nature, I think in comedy. I think in sketches and what have you. In every drama or action movie I've been in, I have to make a concerted effort not to turn it into a comedy. Every shot, before action is called and after cut is called, I'm usually in some goofy head space. It feels natural to me.

  Michael Jai White

  Drama, Cutting, Thinking

  "Black Dynamite's Michael Jai White and Scott Sanders: The Movieline Interview". Interview with S.T. Vanairsdale, movieline.com. October 14, 2009.

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• But if you stagnate, the growth is over. I have done many comedy films. Success of films like Partner, Singh is Kinng gets you to a very wide audience reach. But for greater gains, you need to take greater gambles. If it works, you get respect and recognition.

  Katrina Kaif

  Growth, Needs, Done

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• Comedy is in my blood. Too bad it's not in my act.

  Rodney Dangerfield

  Blood

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• The happy ending of the fairy tale, the myth, and the divine comedy of the soul, is to be read, not as a contradiction, but as a transcendence of the universal tragedy of man. The objective world remains what it was, but, because of a shift of emphasis within the subject, is beheld as though transformed. Where formerly life and death contended, now enduring being is made manifest-as indifferent to the accidents of time as water boiling in a pot is to the destiny of a bubble, or as the cosmos to the appearance and disappearance of a galaxy of stars.

  Joseph Campbell

  Stars, Destiny, Men

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• have you ever noticed how a man orders food at a fast-food drive-through window? ... men have an innate desire to be cute while placing their order through the drive-through microphone. It's as if they believe the invisible mike on the plastic menu screen is actually connected to a standup comedy stage somewhere in the recesses of the restaurant.

  Becky Freeman

  Cute, Believe, Men

  Becky Freeman, Becky Freeman Johnson (1996). “Marriage 911”, B & H Publishing Group

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• The world of men show like a comedy without laughter: populations, interests, government, history; 't is all toy figures in a toyhouse.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Laughter, Men, Population

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.328

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• I think comedy is the most difficult thing in the world, I really do.

  Martha Graham

  Thinking, World, Laziness

  "Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance". archive.nytimes.com. March 31, 1985.

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• A third variety of drama ... begins as tragedy with scraps of fun in it ... and ends in comedy without mirth in it, the place of mirth being taken by a more or less bitter and critical irony.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Fun, Drama, Taken

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• Life is a double-faced creature; one face is tragedy, the other one is comedy. We have no way but to face the first face with dignity!

  Mehmet Murat Ildan

  Life, Tragedy, Way

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• Nobody is here without a reason. I always had a different sensibility. I like a huge range of comedy - from broad and farcical, the most sensitive, the most understated - but I always wanted my comedy to be more embracing of the species rather than debasing of it.

  Lily Tomlin

  Different, Reason, Sensitive

  Interview with Randy Shulman, www.metroweekly.com. April 26, 2006.

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• The actress (Heidi Swedberg) is this wonderful girl, and ... I love her! i couldn't figure out how to play off of her. Her instincts for doing a scene - where the comedy was - and mine were always misfiring.

  Jason Alexander

  Love, Girl, Play

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• Once you capitulate to one dictator, does that mean that the next dictator or the next terrorist that says you're not going to make a comedy about - or a film at all about ISIS. All of us in public life have a responsibility right now to speak out and to say, 'No, Sony, you did the wrong thing' and to say to Hollywood, come behind - the other studios should come behind Sony and offer their support.

  Ed Royce

  Life, Mean, Responsibility

  "Washington outraged over Sony decision" by Jeremy Diamond, www.cnn.com. December 19, 2014.

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• Where there is no belief in the soul, there is very little drama . . . . Either one is serious about salvation or one is not. And it is well to realize that the maximum amount of seriousness admits the maximum amount of comedy. Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Drama, Soul, Littles

  Flannery O'Connor (1969). “Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose”, p.167, Macmillan

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• First and foremost, I just want to write comedy.

  Peter Baynham

  Writing, Want, Firsts

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• No subject is unsuitable for comedy.

  Peter Baynham

  Subjects

  "Dead funny" by Peter Baynham, www.theguardian.com. April 6, 2004.

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• A lot of our favorite comedies in general are usually directed by writers, whether or not they wrote the original script themselves.

  Jon Hurwitz

  Scripts, Originals

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