Quotes by Thurber, James

Some American writers who have known each other for years have never m >>

Next to reasoning, the greatest handicap to the optimum development of >>

Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, innuendo, >>

Quotations about Laughter

No one is more profoundly sad as one who laughs too much. >>

Blessed is he who makes his companions laugh. >>

Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill mann >>

We are a nation that has always gone in for the loud laugh, the wow, the yak, the belly laugh, and the dozen other labels for the roll- em-in-the-aisles gagerissimo. This is the kind of laugh that delights actors, directors, and producers, but dismays writers of comedy because it is the laugh that often dies in the lobby. 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.

Thurber, James