Laughter

A clever conjurer is welcome anywhere, and those of us whose powers of entertainment are limited to the setting of booby-traps or the arranging of apple-pie beds must view with envy the much greater tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain.

During 'Saturday Night Fever' at the end of the first act dance number I tried to perform a split-jump, only I can't do them so I ended up on my ass followed by the most unsightly backward roll out of it, followed by the cast falling over in laughter and a good portion of the audience too.

Laughter springs from the lawless part of our nature.

I hope you realize, in a democracy, laughter is assent.

I have seen and heard comedians who had really funny 'stuff' but yet could not make the people laugh, then, again - I have seen others whose stuff was anything but humorous, and the audience would howl with laughter.

Laughter is an important part of a good relationship. It's an immense achievement when you can move from your thinking that your partner is merely an idiot to thinking that they are that wonderfully complex thing called a loveable idiot. And often that means having a little bit of a sense of humour about their flaws.

The one thing I think I've noticed about shows that are supposed to be funny on television is that they've sort of become routinized, so there's an awful lot of mannerisms and joke lines that are sort of there to trigger laughter, rather than give actors a chance to play a moment.

I think anger and laughter are very close to each other, when you think about it.

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

Amour is the one human activity of any importance in which laughter and pleasure preponderate, if ever so slightly, over misery and pain.

The sense of humor has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter.

It is still not clear from this study how laughter can directly help the heart but other studies have shown that laughter is beneficial for every system in the body.

Laughter can help relieve tension in even the heaviest of matters.

Now, a recent study from cardiologists at the University of Maryland, has shown that laughter may have a beneficial effect on the heart.

Since the goal of my programs is to show audiences how humor can both help them heal as well as deal with not-so-funny stuff, I decided to discuss the events of the previous week, the pain all of us were feeling, and how humor and some laughter might be beneficial.

Working mothers' laughter comes hardest when our double life is revealed for what it is: a juggling act in which the balls can drop at any time, invariably on our own head.

There is little success where there is little laughter.

Of all the logical impasses, unknowings, paradoxes, and terrors that provoke laughter, death by its finality and unsolvable mystery is paramount.

I know it's corny, but laughter is a two-way gift, and hearing people laugh just warms me through and through.

I like a quiet evening with family or friends over, great food and great discussion and a lot of laughter. That's really what I think fills my tank.

I have two lovely parents who support everything I do, two siblings, and three beautiful nieces. My house is always filled with laughter and fun!

I started quite young at school, compering a charity event at an old people's home. I would do stand up and impressions and enjoyed the laughter. It's very addictive. It's a lovely sensation to say something and hear a whole room laugh.

Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects.

Ninety-eight per cent of laughter is nothing to do with jokes, which do not deserve to bear the weight of all the funny stuff in the world.

All you need in the world is love and laughter. That's all anybody needs. To have love in one hand and laughter in the other.

I get very confused about being called a comedian, because when you say 'I'm a comedian,' people expect you to crack a joke. Maybe I use laughter and humour to make people think. I don't know what you call that - a humourist? A satirist? A pessimistic comedian? I don't know. Satirists can be very dark.

The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed.

Laughter brings out the child in all of us.

Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.

I love to laugh, and laughter is one of my favorite things. When you have a really good laugh, you feel great afterwards.

I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.

I think one reason for a successful marriage is laughter. I think laughter gets you through the rough moments in a marriage.

If you look at Jack Benny, George Burns, or Don Rickles, they've all had long, successful marriages. So, I think there's something about laughter and the durability of a marriage.

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.

Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.

Laughter is the best way to get over something or get closer to something. It's one of the things I respect most about Amy Schumer. She's found a way to get us closer to ourselves and see the ugly side of humanity, but not in a way that's pointing a finger or that's angry. She does it in a way that makes us see the absurdity and laugh at it.

I have the gift of laughter. I can make people laugh at will. In good times and in bad. And that I don't question. It was a gift from God.

With acting, I started very young, and I'd performed for a lot of children in boarding schools, late at night after the dormitory lights were out. I'd have a flashlight, and I'd be Count Dracula, or Shakespeare, or Yogi Bear, and leap from bunk to bunk. I loved the laughter, I liked the way it made people feel.

Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.

Laughter is much more important than applause. Applause is almost a duty. Laughter is a reward.

I would put belly laughing at the top of my highlights list. They always say that laughter is the best medicine.

I always knew looking back on my tears would bring me laughter, but I never knew looking back on my laughter would make me cry.

Who would want a face that hasn't seen or lived properly, hasn't got any wrinkles that come with age, experience and laughter? Not me, anyway.

My parents are really funny. Laughter was a big part of my childhood. Of course, they tell a lot of bad jokes - but so do I. I tell a lot of bad jokes.

I've made great friends through acting. When I'm with Victoria Wood and Julie Walters, we have grand fun. We can make each other howl with laughter because we know each other so well.

A day without laughter is a day wasted.

All preconceptions when you laugh go out the window. Laughter kills it.

If there's one thing I could attribute my strength to, I would say it's the gift of laughter, which I inherited from my mother's side.

I took a lot of time off after Mobsters and although I did something I had never done before, which was to direct a play, The Laughter Epidemic, it felt like a vacation.

Carol Burnett probably had the biggest influence on me as kid. Although I was very young and watched her a lot in reruns, I was mesmerized by the way she transformed, by her physical comedy and the rolling laughter from the live studio audience. I loved her most as Scarlett O'Hara and her well known Cleaning Lady character.

Laughter can bring a new perspective.

Once you have heard a strange audience burst into laughter at a film you directed, you realize what the word joy is all about.

Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter.

Startup culture fosters laughter, debate, and a passionate, non-politically-correct focus on getting things done. And this startup of culture is something entrepreneurs struggle to maintain as the business grows. To ensure this environment continues, create a strong foundation and ensure everyone is on board.

When you're on a movie set and you are hopefully making a comedy, everyone's stifling their laughter. You're looking at the crew guys, hoping someone is making that face like, and not like, this is not working out, man.

Laughter does not please the mighty.

When you're with Chris Wylde, there's never not laughter.

Laughter is binary: It either happens or it doesn't. As each joke arrives in the course of a film, the cavernous space of the theater is either filled with joy and laughter or with the quiet of cringing embarrassment. Every time you step to the plate to make a joke, you're going to experience one or the other.

Laughter is really a gift. It's the most vulnerable state you can be in.

Today, Japan is one of the few countries in the world where one hears laughter everywhere.

I think laughter is the best medicine. If you can't laugh at yourself, then you can't laugh at life and the silliness of it all.

I have always liked shows that have laughter in them.

There is something irresistibly funny about a funeral. More basically, I think the point is that beyond the deepest tragedy, there is laughter. Even in the midst of tragedy, there is always the possibility for it.

If the laughter of the audience was malicious we wouldn't show it.

That's also why comedy and horror are my two favorite genres of film to write, because you get these outbursts of emotion from people, laughter and shock, and it's really thrilling, and I like to be thrilled.

Laughter and joy are part of the beauty of life.

When I was in kindergarten, I had one line in a little play. I said, I am Patrick Potato and this is my cousin, Mrs. Tomato, and I heard laughter. I wanted to be an actress from that moment on.

Real laughter is spontaneous. Like water from the spring it bubbles forth a creation of mingled action and spontaneity - two magic potions in themselves - the very essence of laughter - the unrestrained emotion within us!

I grew up in a house where there was lots of teasing and language play and laughter, it was very important. When I was a teenager, you wouldn't go to a bar and find lots of televisions everywhere. People were talking. Talk was the mental fire you would gather around in the evening. It occupied a big part of your existence.

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

In my household there is an insane amount of laughter and celebration.

Laughter is the mind's intonation. There are ways of laughing which have the sound of counterfeit coins.

I think that some laughter comes from escaped horror, doesn't it?

The house of laughter makes a house of woe.

Gratitude helps you to grow and expand, gratitude brings joy and laughter into your life and into the lives of all those around you.

Let there be more joy and laughter in your living.

If we're destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there's got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.

We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.

Seeing unhappiness in the marriage of friends, I was content to have chosen music and laughter as a substitute for a husband.

Drama is hard for me. Crying is much harder for me than laughter.

Being able to laugh at a situation can help you hang on to your perspective. And there's an intimacy in laughter that nothing else can come close to.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

I believe in things that move people, if the audience isn't deeply caught up and moved to either laughter or tears then I don't think it is theater.

Discourse has ended in America. It's all just shouting and ranting and demonization. Do you know how the rest of the world laughs at you guys? Have you got any idea? They're just rocking with laughter night and day.

To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.

One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.

You should celebrate the end of a love affair as they celebrate death in New Orleans, with songs, laughter, dancing and a lot of wine.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs, he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

I found that laughter was a form of acceptance, and I really enjoyed that and I just - I crave it.

Laughter is healing and helpful and fun, and I see my role as an entertainer, and I want readers to leave my books smiling.

Laughter made you live better and longer.

She knew what all smart women knew: Laughter made you live better and longer.

It's awfully nice when people thank you for the pleasure and laughter you've brought to their lives.

It is not time for mirth and laughter, the cold, gray dawn of the morning after.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

Laughter relieves us of superfluous energy, which, if it remained unused, might become negative, that is, poison. Laughter is the antidote.

Sensitive, responsive, eagerly welcomed everywhere, the drama, holding the mirror up to nature, by laughter and by tears reveals to mankind the world of men.

I keep my skin - especially on my face and neck - out of the sun. My brother died of melanoma eight years ago, and I've got SPF on all the time, 24-7. It makes you realize, the sun is a wonderful thing, but it can be a very devastating thing. So sunscreen is key, and a lot of laughter, too.

You feel completely in control when you hear a wave of laughter coming back at you that you have caused.

You can compel fear. You can even make someone feel they're in love if they're isolated and dependent for long enough. But laughter is free.

So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword other than laughter.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

I was named Class Clown in the high school yearbook, so I was always turning to comedy and laughter to heal and to get me through things.

The important thing, once you get 'em laughing, is to keep 'em laughing until you're through. With a 90-minute feature, you've got to stop the laughter and then pick it up again, which is tough.

I like playing with that space between laughter and discomfort where your discomfort can also make you laugh, and you're confused about the mixed feelings. That's challenging, and I think that's what makes for some of the best art.

I just tried to create a life for myself that's full of fun and fantasy and things that equal laughter. My life's been cartoons and comedy and acting, and it's just been a fun life, man.

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings.

In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate and consequently to correct our neighbour.

It seems that laughter needs an echo.

Our laughter is always the laughter of a group.

Laughter is not a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is the best ending for one.

Laughter is day, and sobriety is night, a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either.

From quiet homes and first beginning, out to the undiscovered ends, there's nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.

We all go to the theater and cinema to be inspired and moved on an emotional level, sometimes to laughter, sometimes to tears. Once I discovered that acting could have such an effect, I was sold. It has been one of the most rewarding discoveries I have ever made.

Every joke in 'The Office' was unexpected. I cringed, I could hardly look. I cried with laughter.

Laughter drives shouting away.

I have laughter dates with myself, where I find comics on YouTube and watch them. Louis C.K. was my first laughter date a couple years ago. I'll also watch those videos of people doing idiotic things. That cracks me up.

I think there is nothing sexier than laughter lines.

Every blessed one of you feels better for that burst of laughter.

There's no family in America that can celebrate a victory better than the Harbaughs. You'll never hear more laughter, more storytelling, or more embellishment.

Spiritual practice should not be confused with grim duty. It is the laughter of the Dalai Lama and the wonder born with every child.

There is nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends.

Stuttering is painful. In Sunday school, I'd try to read my lessons, and the children behind me were falling on the floor with laughter.

Humor is the most precious gift I can give to my reader, a reminder that the world is not such a terribly serious place. There is more than video games and drugs and nuclear threats, there is laughter, and there is hope.

Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.

The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.

There is nothing incompatible about laughter and demons, nor about athletic achievement and depression. Mike Flanagan made me laugh, too. But mostly, he made me brave.

If you laugh, we just do another take. Laughter is too rare nowadays. If you can bust a gut, let it go, and we'll just go back to one.

Our shows are packed with laughter and light-hearted songs to lift the listener from their everyday life. We encourage the audience to participate in any way.

Laughter is the best medicine - unless you're diabetic, then insulin comes pretty high on the list.

Because I actually find the next take after they've controlled it a little bit and repressed the laughter is actually a really interesting take, because that's still going on underneath the surface. That struggle to maintain composure becomes part of the joy of the scene.

At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.

A good fart joke makes me bawl with laughter, so will somebody farting. And the word 'poo.' You can't beat a good poo joke.

Laughter crosses boundaries of class and age... Humour is universal.

I remember certain people in the audience laughing and I wanted to ask: 'What are you laughing at? This isn't funny.' Now I realize that laughter can come from insecurity. They don't know how they should be feeling.

My biggest pet peeve is when you go to a fine restaurant, and it's like a mausoleum inside. Good food should be joyful. There should be laughter and chatter, not people sitting there like they're in a funeral-parlor waiting room.

I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get you're emotions going.

Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.

Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.

There is something very human in this apparent mirth and mockery of the squirrels. It seems to be a sort of ironical laughter, and implies self-conscious pride and exultation in the laughter.

A wonderful thing about true laughter is that it just destroys any kind of system of dividing people.

My approach is so simple, every song I sing, every story I tell, every move I make, must move the audience to laughter, tears, or inspiration. Otherwise, why do it? It's the communication.

I take people very seriously. People are all I take seriously, in fact. Therefore, I have nothing but sympathy for how people behave - and nothing but laughter to console them with.

When you think about a walking tree, laughter is the response.

'Ray Donovan' was all fiction and pure fun, to be working with such greats as Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight. My character was recurring, but my storyline was intricate to the whole thing. With the character that I played, I got to go through all aspects of my instrument. I got to bring it to tears and to laughter.

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally disposed to it.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

What the real world of 1941 needed most was the release and relief provided by laughter.

We do have a zeal for laughter in most situations, give or take a dentist.

Laughter is God's blessing.

Laughter is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one place.

There are two possibilities: Either the kiss is a human universal, one of the constellation of innate traits, including language and laughter, that unites us as a species, or it is an invention, like fire or wearing clothes, an idea so good that it was bound to metastasize across the globe.

'Tickle Monster' is an interactive book and, by the nature of the story, bonds the parent and child through tickling and laughter.

One of my teachers says the sound you hear in the center of the universe is laughter. I don't know if it's true, but if you do something and 30 years later it still produces laughter, that's a fantasy you can't make up.

Close friends contribute to our personal growth. They also contribute to our personal pleasure, making the music sound sweeter, the wine taste richer, the laughter ring louder because they are there.

I try to bring the audience's own drama - tears and laughter they know about - to them.

I used to do a lot of serious theatre during my school and college days. Comedy was only reserved for youth festival and inter-college competitions. Then once 'The Great Indian Laughter Challenge' was launched, a regional channel in Punjab started a program based on that. I participated in it and emerged as the winner.

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.

Laughter and grief join hands. Always the heart Clumps in the breast with heavy stride, The face grows lined and wrinkled like a chart, The eyes bloodshot with tears and tide. Let the wind blow, for many a man shall die.

When I was a little girl, the only real form of entertainment I was exposed to was theater, being raised in St. Louis, and I still love theater, and I think sitcoms are similar to that, in there's a live audience, and you know, I definitely like the comedy of it, too. I like to make people laugh, and I definitely think laughter is healing.

Laughter heals all wounds, and that's one thing that everybody shares. No matter what you're going through, it makes you forget about your problems. I think the world should keep laughing.

The two things in the world we all share in this world are laughter and pain. We've all got problems. The levels of those problems vary, but we've all got problems. When you can take things that are painful and make them funny, that's a gift - to you and your audience.

I live a very joyful life, with a lot of laughter and good times.

Whatever it is that I feel, I express it! I am free with my joy, my laughter, my pleasure, my pain, and I am blessed in that way as an actress that I can access those feelings within myself and not be ashamed to show whatever that is that's appropriate for the character.

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

I'm really only happy when I'm on stage. I just feed off the energy of the audience. That's what I'm all about - people and laughter.

Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don't remember me at all.

Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.

And I definitely gravitate toward people who use laughter to pull themselves out of the abyss.

I always was trying to make people laugh as a kid. I was a big fan of Carol Burnett and Gilda Radner. I watched them and I remember feeling as a child, when I heard the laughter they got, a little jealous that they made someone laugh like that.

The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can't fake it... try to fake three laughs in an hour - ha ha ha ha ha - they'll take you away, man. You can't.

While the laughter of joy is in full harmony with our deeper life, the laughter of amusement should be kept apart from it. The danger is too great of thus learning to look at solemn things in a spirit of mockery, and to seek in them opportunities for exercising wit.

I think laughter may be a form of courage. As humans we sometimes stand tall and look into the sun and laugh, and I think we are never more brave than when we do that.

I keep doing stand-up because the world needs laughter - there's always something happening in the country and in the world. That's why I wanted to become an entertainer: to help people forget about their problems for a little while.

Nothing can confound a wise man more than laughter from a dunce.

I would have a poet able bodied, fond of talking, a reader of the newspapers, capable of pity and laughter, informed in economics, appreciative of women, involved in personal relationships, actively interested in politics, susceptible to physical impressions.

I'm happy that I have brought laughter because I have been shown by many the value of it in so many lives, in so many ways.

There were mornings in the make-up trailer where I'd have fits of laughter because of the extraordinary daily events of the shoot. Sometimes, it was all too much to believe. But the wildest things happened.

Laughter is a strange response. I mean, what is it? It's a spasm of some kind! Is that always joy? It's very often discomfort. It's some sort of explosive reaction. It's very complex.

The highest state is laughter.

Imagination in the child is powerful. Reading and laughter and love are essential in our lives.

Laughter is regional: a smile extends over the whole face.

It was a somber place, haunted by old jokes and lost laughter. Life, as I discovered, holds no more wretched occupation than trying to make the English laugh.

Humor and laughter - not necessarily derogatory derision - are my pet tools. This may come from my general philosophy of never taking the world too seriously - for fear of dying of boredom.

Laughter is ever young, whereas tragedy, except the very highest of all, quickly becomes haggard.

Shared laughter is erotic too.

I think Britain has this tradition which suggests that if you make the readers laugh too much, you can't really be serious. Whereas, I think one of the functions laughter can perform in a book, as in life, is that it's a reaction to genuine horror.

Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

Laughter is important, not only because it makes us happy, it also has actual health benefits. And that's because laughter completely engages the body and releases the mind. It connects us to others, and that in itself has a healing effect.

What laughter is to childhood, sex is to adolescence.

Make them laugh, make them cry, and hack to laughter. What do people go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise. I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.

I've had the fame and the joy of getting laughter - those are gifts.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

I believe that laughter is the best emotional Band-Aid in the world. It's like nature's Neosporin.

Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.

Nobody ever died of laughter.

Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together.