Humour Quotes - page 13
There was far more to Sharon than a lovely face and a sexy figure. What enchanted me about her as much as anything was her immutable good nature, her high spirits, her love of people and animals-of life itself. Over-demonstrative, over-solicitous women had always made me uneasy, but Sharon struck the perfect balance between affection and concern. Though more a spectator than a participant in our gags and shenanigans, she had a great sense of humour. She was also a born housewife. Aside from cooking like a dream, she used to cut my hair, a skill acquired from Jay Sebring. She liked to pack my bag whenever I had to take a trip. She always knew exactly what to put in-so much so that I can never pack or unpack, even today, without thinking of her.
Sharon Tate
In his own lifetime Jesus made no impact on history. This is something that I cannot but regard as a special dispensation on God's part, and, I like to think, yet another example of the ironical humour which informs so many of his purposes. To me, it seems highly appropriate that the most important figure in all history should thus escape the notice of memoirists, diarists, commentators, all the tribe of chroniclers who even then existed.
Jesus Christ
Mumtaz was in the Marilyn Monroe-mould - every man's fantasy woman. She is or was, the kind of woman any man would want to pamper and bury in diamonds, silks, satins... She had a courtesan kind of charm. Absolutely top marks go to her as greatest sex symbol. She was cute, impish, voluptuous. The way she used her body was so natural. She looked juicy! Her smile, her eyes, her pug nose, she was all woman. I don't think anyone else projected sexuality the way she did. She was a raving beauty, and in person too, was very attractive. A great smile, a great sense of humour, and a very no-nonsense down-to-earth manner. She was one woman who did not antagonise other women. And I'm sure every man she met lusted after her. She seemed immensely beddable.
Mumtaz (actress)
Hard to categorize other than as conjurors - singers of strange, sometimes acutely humorous songs . It is to three of the greatest entertainers in the field that we now turn. Entertainers whose dark, humanistic humour might be said genuinely to reflect the spirit of the decade: Robert Sheckley, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and Philip K. Dick.
Sheckley has a wry inventiveness which skates him over profound depths, and a sense of playfulness even in his darkest moments. The 'science' in Sheckley's work is not physics but metaphysics and his protagonists are wide-eyed innocents sent on journeys designed to disillusion the widest-eyed idealist. Thomas Blaine in Immortality Inc. (1959) and Joenes in Journey Beyond Tomorrow (1963) are typical of this Candide archetype.
Robert Sheckley
We are brought to a belief of God either by reason or by force. Atheism being a proposition as unnatural as monstrous, difficult also and hard to establish in the human understanding, how arrogant soever, there are men enough seen, out of vanity and pride, to be the authors of extraordinary and reforming opinions, and outwardly to affect the profession of them; who, if they are such fools, have, nevertheless, not the power to plant them in their own conscience. Yet will they not fail to lift up their hands towards heaven if you give them a good thrust with a sword in the breast, and when fear or sickness has abated and dulled the licentious fury of this giddy humour they will easily re-unite, and very discreetly suffer themselves to be reconciled to the public faith and examples.
Michel de Montaigne
Complementary to his is Thurber's remark that "humour is a kind of emotional chaos, told about quietly and calmly in retrospect". Emotional chaos is not pleasant; distillation of that chaos afterward may perhaps be pleasant in some of its aspects, and undoubtedly gives pleasure to others.
Robertson Davies
I have never consciously "used" humour in my life. Such humour as I may have is one of the elements in which I live. I cannot recall a time when I was not conscious of the deep, heaving, rolling ocean of hilarity that lies so very near the surface of life in most of its aspects. If I am a moralist - and I suppose I am - I am certainly not a gloomy moralist, and if humour finds its way into my work it is because I cannot help it.
Robertson Davies
Algren's work was soon attracting attention for its unusual marriage of sumptuous prose and dry humour, describing a subject – the lives of those at the bottom – normally rendered in the dreariest of naturalistic tones. Algren's world, in one of the many phrases he brought into common usage (including "walk on the wild side", "monkey on the back", and "I knew I'd never make it to 21 anyway") was "neon wilderness".
Nelson Algren
Certainly Mr Eliot in the twenties was responsible for a great vogue for verse-satire. An ideal formula of ironic, gently "satiric", self-expression was provided by that master for the undergraduate underworld, tired and thirsty for poetic fame in a small way. The results of Mr Eliot are not Mr Eliot himself: but satire with him has been the painted smile of the clown. Habits of expression ensuing from mannerism are, as a fact, remote from the central function of satire. In its essence the purpose of satire - whether verse or prose - is aggression. (When whimsical, sentimental, or "poetic" it is a sort of bastard humour.) Satire has a great big glaring target. If successful, it blasts a great big hole in the center. Directness there must be and singleness of aim: it is all aim, all trajectory.
Wyndham Lewis
