quotations about laughter
How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL? These days, I'd argue that LOL (commonly without caps) barely indicates an internal, silent chuckle, never mind an uproarious, audible guffaw.
GRETCHEN MCCULLOCH
"How many people are actually 'laughing out loud' when they send LOL?", Slate, May 23, 2014
I laugh until I weep
And weep until I smile
RAY BRADBURY
"Christ, Old Student in a New School"
I prefer that laughter shall take me unawares. Only so can it master and dissolve me.
MAX BEERBOHM
"Laughter", And Even Now
It may be remarked in general, that the laugh of men of wit is for the most part but a feint, constrained kind of half-laugh, as such persons are never without some diffidence about them; but that of fools is the most honest, natural, open laugh in the world.
RICHARD STEELE
The Guardian, Apr. 14, 1713
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
CARL SAGAN
Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.
WILLIAM ARTHUR WARD
Woman's Day Magazine, Jun. 1, 2007
In regard to health care, we've all heard that laughter is the best medicine. Laughter is also our least costly healthcare option.
DANNY MURPHY
"If elected president, I promise a laugh in every belly!", The Florida Times-Union, April 1, 2016
Laughter was absent from her life. Unless strategic or issued in triumph at some further depth she'd managed to go down to.
GLEN DUNCAN
By Blood We Live
You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.
BILL COSBY
attributed, Humor Me
You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.
STEPHEN KING
Hearts in Atlantis
Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.
KARL BARTH
attributed, The Harper Book of Quotations
You grow up the day you have your first real laugh -- at yourself.
ETHEL BARRYMORE
The Tell Tale, 1940
Casting for a comedy is not that difficult because laughing is an involuntary thing. They make you laugh? That's the person you should cast.
DAVID CASPE
"The Oral History of 'Happy Endings'", Complex, April 5, 2016
It is a good thing to laugh, at any rate; and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.
JOHN DRYDEN
"A Parallel of Poetry and Painting", Select Essays on the Belles Lettres
It's almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you're just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy.
JOHN CLEESE
The Human Face
Laughter is free, free your laughter.
ANONYMOUS
A laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
Laughter isn't only about expressing joy. Sometimes we laugh out of embarrassment, sometimes from confusion, sometimes out of courtesy, and sometimes from nervousness. In the evil laugh, we celebrate the misfortune of others. Laughter can also express our personality -- the frivolous laugh, or the laugh of the loud and in-your-face extrovert versus the shy, withdrawn laugh of the introvert. Some people have a particular skill for the superior laugh. Does he who laughs last, laugh loudest?
STEVE ELLEN
"The lowdown on laughter: from boosting immunity to releasing tension", The Conversation, March 22, 2016
People who stop laughing are always the ones who get hurt.
JOSH SUNDQUIST
Just Don't Fall
We do not stop laughing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop laughing.
EVAN ESAR
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