Laughter Quotes
More Laughter Quotes
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Francis Thompson— Poems, "The Hound of Heaven" (1893)
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eyeWho cheer when soldier lads march by,Sneak home and pray you'll never knowThe hell where youth and laughter go.
siegfried sassoon— "Suicide in the Trenches"
A feast ismade for laughter, and wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things.
Bible (Old Testament)— Ecclesiastes10:19.
On John Edwards, U.S. Senator from North Carolina: "The stump speech of pretty-boy Senator John Edwards, which I've heard often enough to be able to mouth along with him, has room for everything, including vivid, wrenching portraits of despair: 'Tonight somewhere in America a ten-year-old little girl will go to bed hungry, hoping and praying that tomorrow will not be as cold as today because she doesn't have the coat to keep her warm.' You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be doubled up in laughter at that line.
mark steyn— "It's the war, stupid", 1 March 2004
Only in the theatre was it possible to see the performers and to be warmed by their personal charm, to respond to their efforts and to feel their response to the applause and appreciative laughter of the audience. It had an intimate quality; audience and actors conspired to make a little oasis of happiness and mirth within the walls of the theatre. Try as we will, we cannot be intimate with a shadow on a screen, nor a voice from a box.
Robertson Davies— Lew Fields (1941)
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
Albert Einstein— The New Quotable Einstein
The beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.
virginia woolf— Ch. 1 (p. 17)
Directly the mulberry tree begins to make you circle, break off. Pelt the tree with laughter.
virginia woolf— Ch. 2 (p. 80)
Though the clown is often deadpan, he is a connoisseur of laughter.
— Mel Gussow, about Avner Eisenberg in his broadway show Avner the Eccentric in The New York Times (21 September 1984)
Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumers, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to "charm his pained steps over the burning marle."
sydney smith— Sydney Smith, Dangers and Advantages of Wit.
The laughter of girls is, and ever was, among the delightful sounds of earth.
— Thomas De Quincey, "Coleridge and Opium-Eating" (1845), in Coleridge and Opium-Eating and Other Writings (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1862), footnote on p. 85
O sweet September, thy first breezes bring the dry leaf's rustle and the squirrel's laughter. The cool fresh air whence health and vigor spring and promise of exceeding joy hereafter.
george arnold— George Arnold, September Days.
In a dream I saw Jesus and My God Pan sitting together in the heart of the forest. They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long.
— Khalil Gibran, in Jesus, The Son of Man (1928), Sarkis an old Greek Shepherd, called the madman: Jesus and Pan
The oldest griefs of summer seem less sad than drone of mowers on suburban lawns and girls' thin laughter, to the ears that hear the soft rain falling of the failing stars.
Edgell Rickword— 'Regret for the Passing of the Entire Scheme of Things' (1921)
The Abbey always reminds me of that old toast, 'Above lofty timbers, the walls around are bare, echoing to our laughter, as though the dead were there.'
garrett fort— On the house Count Dracula has just leased
From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend on reading it.
groucho marx— To S J Perelman about his book Dawn Ginsbergh’s Revenge (1929), as quoted in LIFE (9 February 1962)
Life deserves laughter, hence people laugh at it.
henryk sienkiewicz— Petronius, in Ch. 2
I am pleased to see from the laughter on the Ministerial benches that there is no implication on their part to take Sir Oswald Mosley too seriously. It can easily be seen to-day that this idea of a dictator is gradually falling down.
clement attlee— The Times, 14 July 1934, p. 7.Speech in the House of Commons, 13 July 1934, on the Foreign Office estimates. His remarks about dictatorships gradually falling down was a reference to the Night of the Long Knives in Nazi Germany a fortnight before.
And I know you're frightened By my laughter But you're not afraid To hold my pain You see I'm never sure Just what you're after, Babe But it seems you only love me When it rains. How come you only love me when it rains?
harry chapin— It Seems You Only Love Me When It Rains
And for a long time yet, led by some wondrous power, I am fated to journey hand in hand with my strange heroes and to survey the surging immensity of life, to survey it through the laughter that all can see and through the tears unseen and unknown by anyone.
nikolai vasilievich gogol— Vol. I, ch. 7
"Sometimes," I said, "it seems to me that a friend might not take such pleasure in making fun of me as you do." "Dear Odd! If one's friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not, in fact, his friends . How else would one learn to avoid saying those things that would elicit laughter from strangers? The mockery of friends is affectionate, and inoculates against foolishness."
dean r. koontz— Chapter 11; Odd Thomas's recounting of a conversation with Little Ozzie
And the humming-bird that hung Like a jewel up among The tilted honeysuckle horns They mesmerized and swung In the palpitating air, Drowsed with odors strange and rare, And, with whispered laughter, slipped away And left him hanging there.
james whitcomb riley— James Whitcomb Riley, The South Wind and the Sun.
There'll be bluebirds over The white cliffs of Dover Tomorrow Just you wait and see. There'll be love and laughter And peace ever after Tomorrow When the world is free.
— Song The White Cliffs of Dover
"Everything is an object" - Smalltalk and its children. (whispered:) Ruby. (laughter)
— Larry Wall "Present Continuous - Future Perfect", Taken from the transcript of the talk.
If Heaven exists, to know that there's laughter, that would be a great thing.
Robin Williams— Interview with James Lipton
laughter is by definition healthy.
doris lessing— The Summer Before the Dark (1973)
laughter is the climax in the tragedy of seeing, hearing and smelling self-consciously.
— Wyndham Lewis, in "Inferior Religions" (1917)
