Quotes About Humor

You probably popped open this tome hoping to find some kick-butt battles, some pithy wisecracks, some unlikely but oh-so-possible end-of-the-world scenario, only to find me up a tree, wallowing in self-pity.

And instead of getting all gushy and apologizing for being politically incorrect, Jacky Hart just laughs.

Today at the hotel, Benji farted in the elevator. It was wrong on so many levels.

A giggle, huh. I guess they think this is a joke," I said. "Well, I'm not laughing.

Mila punched me in the arm. Don't get goofy on me, Jigsaw! Ghosts are not real. And they don't write books! I'll say this for Mila. She's got a pretty good right hand. My arm ached for the rest of the day.

I]t takes a great great deal of salt to keep scurrility sweet.

THE 7 FORMULAS OF HUMOR: 1. POW's -- plays on words 2. Reverses (quick switch in audience point of view) 3. Triples (build to exaggerated finale) 4. Incongruity (pairing two logical but unconventional ideas) 5. Stupidity (so audience feels superior) 6. Paired phrases (using antonyms, homonyms, synonyms) 7. Physical abuse (slapstick)

Governor Reagan delivered perhaps the most famous one-liner. A hippie, he said, is someone who dresses like Tarzan, has hair like Jane, and smells like Cheetah.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.

Authors of light pieces have, nobody knows why, a genius for getting into minor difficulties: they walk into the wrong apartments, they drink furniture polish for stomach bitters, they drive their cars into the prize tulip beds of haughty neighbors, they playfully slap gangsters, mistaking them for old school friends.

Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.

A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption. A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.

You have made the moon, The Jester said. That is the moon.

There was an old coddle so molly, He talked in a glot that was poly, His gaws were so gew That his laps became dew, And he ate only pops that were lolly.

Geep,' whuppled the parrot.

Half a mile from Haverstraw there lived a halfwit fellow, Half his house was brick and red, and half was wood and yellow; Half the town knew half his name but only half could spell it. If you will sit for half an hour, I've half a mind to tell it.

The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.

I trust that this collection of pieces will prove that I ave not become, at sixty six going on fifty, as one friend of mine gallantly put it, completely lugubrious.

As laughter is one way of appraising the serious, so the comic must be taken seriously if it is to be rated at its true value. No one understands a joke by laughing at it; he laughs at it because he understands it.

To arouse laughter, his appreciation of the point of the joke must be almost instantaneous, however long he may be in preparing for that appreciation.

Better than a sharp stick in the eye.

Oosick, cootie shot! Give me a cootie shot!

It was far too absurd to die of a Tuesday