Humorists Quotes - Page 8

• Humor has to surprise us; otherwise, it isn't funny. It's a death knell for a writer to be labeled a humorist because then it's not a surprise anymore.

  Garrison Keillor

  Surprise

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• Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country is his saying,-imported by Madame de Staël, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics,-"Providence has given to the French the empire of the land; to the English that of the sea; to the Germans that of-the air!" Richter: German humorist & prose writer.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Country, Thinking, Air

  Thomas Carlyle (1872). “Works”, p.5

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• Humorists always sit at the children's table.

  Woody Allen

  Children, Humor, Tables

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• As the tragic writer rids us of what is petty and ignoble in our nature, so also the humorist rids us of what is cautious, calculating, and priggish--about half of our social conscience, indeed. Both of them permit us, in blessed moments of revelation, to soar above the common level of our lives.

  Robertson Davies

  Blessed, Tragedy, Half

  Robertson Davies (1961). “The Personal Art: Reading to Good Purpose”, London : Secker & Warburg

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• It is the will of God that we must have critics, and missionaries, and Congressmen, and humorists, and we must bear the burden. Meantime, I seem to have been drifting into criticism myself. But that is nothing. At the worst, criticism is nothing more than a crime, and I am not unused to that.

  Mark Twain

  Criticism, Bears, Crime

  Mark Twain, Harriet Elinor Smith (2012). “Autobiography of Mark Twain: Reader's Edition”, p.201, Univ of California Press

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• To say that a humorist exaggerates to get big laughs, I don't see how that's big news.

  David Sedaris

  Laughing, News, Bigs

  Interview with Tony DuShane, www.motherjones.com. July/August 2008.

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• Humorists are not humorous twenty-four hours a day. In fact, when you get to know them well, they are often not humorous at all. They tend to be hypersensitive, taut, neurotic creatures driven by God know what obscure compulsion to earn their living the hard way.

  Margaret Halsey

  Humorous, Four, Way

  Margaret Halsey (1946). “Color blind: a white woman looks at the Negro”

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• There are very few humorists who have written first-rate humor after they've become elderly.

  Richard Armour

  Elderly, Age, Firsts

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• First, I was an idealist (that was early - fools are born, not made, you know); next I was a realist; now I am a pessimist, and, by Jove! if things get much worse I'll become a humorist.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Next, Fool, Firsts

  Ellen Glasgow (1900). “The Descendant”

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• I'm not a comic. I'm a humorist.

  Dick Gregory

  Comic

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• Humor is really one of the hardest things to define, very hard. And it's very ambiguous. You have it or you don't. You can't attain it. There are terrible forms of professional humor, the humorists' humor. That can be awful. It depresses me because it is artificial. You can't always be humorous, but a professional humorist must. That is a sad phenomenon.

  Heinrich Böll

  Depressing, Humorous, Awful

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• HOMŒOPATHIST, n. The humorist of the medical profession.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Medical Profession, Humour

  Ambrose Bierce (2011). “Ambrose Bierce: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs: The Devil's Dictionary, Tales, and Memoirs”, p.663, Library of America

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• One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly." ~ (1919-), American writer, producer, humorist.

  Andy Rooney

  Christmas, Xmas, Holiday

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• A humorist tells himself every morning, "I hope it's going to be a rough day." When things are going well, it's much harder to make the right jokes.

  Alan Coren

  Morning, Rough Day, Harder

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• Think of what would happen to us... if there were no humorists; life would be one long Congressional Record.

  Thomas Lansing Masson

  Thinking, Long, Would Be

  Thomas Lansing Masson (1922). “Our American Humorists”

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• The humorist who invented trial by jury played a colossal practical joke upon the world, but since we have the system we ought to try and respect it. A thing which is not thoroughly easy to do, when we reflect that by command of the law a criminal juror must be an intellectual vacuum, attached to a melting heart and perfectly macaronian bowels of compassion.

  Mark Twain

  Funny, Humorous, Heart

  Mark Twain (1992). “Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays, Volume 1: 1852-1890”, p.725, Library of America

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• Nothing seems too high or low for the humorist; he is above honor, above faith, preserving sense in religion and sanity in life.

  Sean O'Casey

  Humor, Honor, Sanity

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• A humorist doesn't really do that much note-taking.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Notes, Note Taking

  "A Conversation With Colin Powell". Interview with P. J. O'Rourke, www.theatlantic.com. September 2004.

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• The difficulty with humorists is that they will mix what they believe with what they don't; whichever seems likelier to win an effect.

  John Updike

  Believe, Winning, History

  Rabbit, Run (1960) p. 160

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