Humour Quotes - Page 21

• People come up to me in supermarkets and demand humour. And the less amusing I am, the more they piss themselves. So I say, "I'm doing my shopping, mate, OK?" and the guy will be on the floor in hysterics. Quite odd. Eventually I do have to say something funny so I usually go for something pathetic like, "It's a nice place to shop but I wouldn't like to live here!" and they roar again. Wet themselves. I'm lucky though that I am not massively famous, I can get the Tube without much bother. Must be awful being the Beckhams.

  Steve Coogan

  Nice, Shopping, People

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• The role of humour is to make people fall down and writhe on the Axminster, and that is the top and bottom of it.

  Alan Coren

  Funny, Fall, Humor

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• A husband and wife should resolve never to wrangle with each other; never to bandy words or indulge in the least ill-humour. Never! I say; NEVER. Wrangling, even in jest, and putting on an air of ill-humour merely to tease, becomes earnest by practice.

  Timothy Shay Arthur

  Husband, Air, Practice

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• Comedic actors can be looked at as a lower form because we have to put ourselves in a lower place than most of the audience. I think lofty emotions are somehow considered more special. The best stories in the world to me are the ones that elicit a real emotion, but have humour.

  Jim Carrey

  Real, Thinking, Special

  "This Much I Know". Interview with Tony Horkins, www.theguardian.com. October 19, 2008.

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• My money goes to my agent, then to my accountant and from him to the tax man.

  Glenda Jackson

  Funny, Money, Business

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• When you absolutely don't know what to do anymore, it is time to panic

  John van der Wiel

  Chess, Panic, Knows

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• Fancy and humour, early and constantly indulged in, may expect an old age overrun with follies.

  Isaac Watts

  Age, May, Fancy

  Isaac Watts (1826). “The Improvement of the Mind; with a Discourse on the Education of Children and Youth”, p.19

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• When you don't know what to play, wait for an idea to come into your opponent's mind. You may be sure that idea will be wrong

  Siegbert Tarrasch

  Play, Ideas, Waiting

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• Irony won't save you from anything; humour doesn't do anything at all. You can look at life ironically for years, maybe decades; there are people who seem to go through most of their lives seeing the funny side, but in the end, life always breaks your heart. Doesn't matter how brave you are, or how reserved, or how much you've developed a sense of humour, you still end up with your heart broken. That's when you stop laughing.

  Michel Houellebecq

  Heart, Years, People

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• With the fall of the empire, Art, Philosophy and decent drains all vanished from the West.

  Bryan Ward-Perkins

  Art, Philosophy, Fall

  Bryan Ward-Perkins (2006). “The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization”, p.13, OUP Oxford

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• The first humans to come to Canada were the Indians. There is some mystery as to where the Indians came from. Some experts say that they came from the same place as the Eskimo. This doesn't help much because nobody knows where the Eskimo came from either. (Except the Eskimo, and they aren't talking.)

  Eric Nicol

  Talking, History, Canada

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• British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone spent his declining years trying to guess the answer to the Irish Question; unfortunately, whenever he was getting warm, the Irish secretly changed the Question.

  W. C. Sellar

  Years, History, Trying

  1066 and All That ch. 57 (1930). Coauthored with R. J. Yeatman.

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• In mathematics, if I find a new approach to a problem, another mathematician might claim that he has a better, more elegant solution. In chess, if anybody claims he is better than I, I can checkmate him.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Might, Chess, Problem

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• His wry sense of humour and his stalwart courage were an inspiring example to so many. His ability to laugh at Life's idiosyncrasies and himself in a self deprecating way taught that most valuable of lessons: 'to be of good cheer, no matter what Life threw at you, and ever to find the hope that dwells in every human heart'.

  John McLeod

  Cheer, Heart, Humor

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• My mother taught me what it is to have a sense of humour; my dad, who was a headmaster, everything you need to know about hard work. My dad is the most decent man you could come across.

  James Nesbitt

  Mother, Dad, Hard Work

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• I identify with this guy's frustration and inability to control his fury at moments. I even identify with the way that this guy covers up a lot with humour. So yeah, it's interesting.

  Bradley Whitford

  Frustration, Interesting, Guy

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• A stiff letter galls one like a stiff shirt collar -- whilst a sheet garnished here and there with a careless blot -- and here and there a dash -- but in the main full of excellent matter, is like a clever fellow in a dirty shirt whom we value for the good humour he brings with him and not for the garb he wears.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Clever, Dirty, Letters

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• The humour of the Chinese people in inventing gunpowder and finding its best use in making firecrackers for their grandfathers' birthdays is merely symbolical of their inventiveness along merely pacific lines.

  Lin Yutang

  People, Chinese, Grandfather

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• Humour very often consists of shrewd perceptions about people. It's usually fun at someone's expense. Nowadays if you're funny at anybody's expense they run to the UN and say, "I must have an ombudsman to protect me." You hardly dare have a shrewd perception about anybody.

  Robertson Davies

  Running, Fun, People

  "Conversations with Robertson Davies". Book by Robertson Davies, "World of Wonders", 1989.

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• Few, as I have said, are the humorists who can induce this state. To master and dissolve us, to give us the joy of being worn down and tired out with laughter, is a success to be won by no man save in virtue of a rare staying-power. Laughter becomes extreme only if it be consecutive. There must be no pauses for recovery. Touch-and-go humour, however happy, is not enough. The jester must be able to grapple his theme and hang on to it, twisting it this way and that, and making it yield magically all manner of strange and precious things.

  Max Beerbohm

  Laughter, Tired, Recovery

  Max Beerbohm (2006). “And Even Now”, p.184, 1st World Publishing

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• A chess player never has a heart attack in a good position.

  Bent Larsen

  Heart, Player, Chess

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• All great humorists are sad... I cannot help seeing beyond the tinsel of humour, and recognising the pitiful basis of jest - the world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  World, Helping, Comic

  "Collected Essays, Volume 5: Philosophy" edited by S. T. Joshi, (p. 54), 2006.

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• Sometimes strident, often tender, never afraid and seldom without humour, Desmond Tutu's voice will always be the voice of the voiceless.

  Nelson Mandela

  Voice, Voiceless, Sometimes

  "Desmond Tutu is one of a rare breed" by Cath Elliott, www.theguardian.com. September 17, 2010.

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• By 1914, the royal families of Europe were inbred to the point of pantomine. You feel about them as you do about koalas. Nothing so stupid has any right to exist on the planet. On the other hand, they are rather cute, and in grave danger of extinction due to their specialised needs.

  Nancy Banks-Smith

  Cute, Stupid, Koalas

  "Last night's TV" by Nancy Banks-Smith, www.theguardian.com. December 15, 2006.

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• You sharpen your ideas by reducing yourself to the level of the people you are with and a sense of humour and a complete relaxation, even when you're discussing serious things, does help to mobilise friends around you. And I love that.

  Nelson Mandela

  Ideas, People, Relaxation

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations”, p.198, Pan Macmillan

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