It dawned on me then that as long as I could laugh, I was safe from the world; and I have learned since that laughter keeps me safe from myself, too.
The humor I came up with is, for the most part, a bit crude or guttural, and many people aren't going to get it or enjoy it, but some do, and that means a lot to me - to know that I made someone laugh.
This crown to crown the laughing man, this rose-wreath crown: I myself have set this crown upon my head, I myself have pronounced my laughter holy.
I think I have a sense of mischief and that I can laugh at myself.
What was your secret?" That brought another smile. "Learn to laugh, otherwise, you'll beat them to death with a hammer first chance
My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh.
If you can laugh at yourself, you are going to be fine. If you allow others to laugh with you, you will be great.
Every day of my life I have been in situations, not just in Mexico, in the US too, in which I identified the form of operation as racism. There are situations in which a smile, a laugh, a greeting are racist exercises.
Max: "Fang! This is a huge break! Of course we should go check it out!" Fang: "But we're grounded. " Max and Fang: (stare at each other for a second and burst out laughing)
I should clarify that anyone that goes onstage and makes strangers laugh is insane. So I am insane.
Laughing is medicine for the soul.
She wants to be polite and not hurt your feelings, so she's not going to laugh right now. But inside, inside she's laughing.
I have just committed the mortal sin of laughing in the Members' Library. No-one around here has done that for a while.
To laugh is to live profoundly.
I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction.
My grandfather can barely even hear, and Chevy Chase makes a face, and he laughs.
One day, you don't feel like doing anything. Nothing interests you, everything bores you. Feel more and more empty inside, more and more dissatisfied with yourself and the world in general. Then even that feeling wears off, and you don't feel anything anymore. You become completely indifferent to what goes on around you. . . You forget how to laugh and cry - you're cold inside and incapable of loving anything or anyone. . . There's no going back. . . The disease has a name. It's called deadly tedium.
Human beings are powered by emotion, not by reason. Study after study has proven that if the emotion centers of our brain are damaged in some way, we don't just lose the ability to laugh or cry, we lose the ability to make decisions. Alarm bells for every business right there. The neurologist Donald Calne puts it brilliantly: “The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions. ”
I love that I'm able to take people away just for a little while. Even if they come to my show and it's an escape from taxes or heartbreak or a shitty workplace experience - all those human beings I get to sing for laugh and emote with give me more happiness than I could ever give them.
My favorite work is The Full Monty because I got an Oscar for it. But it was really hard work at the time. Sometimes comedy is not a bundle of laughs to actually do.