Calvin Trillin Quotes

'Discworld' is taking something that you know is ridiculous and treating it as if it is serious, to see if something interesting happens when you do so.

I saw a tree fall in the woods, and I didn't hear it.

I always believe that funny is serious and serious is funny. You don't really need a distinction between them.

I have the heart of a child. I keep it in a jar on my shelf.

The absolute truth is the thing that makes people laugh.

I never write anything without humor, just because I like humor, but at the same time, it is a way for anything fantastical to become relatable.

Comedy is deep and wild and I am excited about the mysteries within.

The dumber the thing is, the more excitement I get from imagining a very complex world of truth around it.

Lewis Carroll, you see, wasn't really interested in telling an exciting story. Well, he wasn't interested in things like cause and effect or a linear narrative. It's surreal, it's absurd, it's wordplay, it's satirical, it's analyzing itself, it's funny, it's an enormous challenge.

Through humour, we see in what seems rational, the irrational; in what seems important, the unimportant

Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear.

The world is a funny paper read backwards. And that way it isn't so funny.

You can laugh! But people used to believe there were no such things as the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack!

You can't map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld we know that There Be Dragons Everywhere. They might not all have scales and forked tongues, but they Be Here all right, grinning and jostling and trying to sell you souvenirs.

Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it.

To be looked upon as a fool by an idiot is a true connoisseur's delight.

It takes a heap of sense to write good nonsense

I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities.

The author O. Henry taught me about the value of the unexpected. He once wrote about the noise of flowers and the smell of birds - the birds were chickens and the flowers dried sunflowers rattling against a wall.

Everything I say is a joke. I am a joke myself.

My work is not so much a direct commentary as it is an open-ended observation of the absurdities around us.

Growing up, I loved drama and fantasies. I hated the Marx Brothers. I took all that confusion seriously.

You can't be funny unless you're tragic, and you can't be tragic unless you're funny.

I've heard too many times where people say that I'm this ultra-serious guy. In truth, I've got an extremely absurd sense of humor. I thrive on the absurd - I love it.

There's obviously a lot of tragedy in comedy; I really enjoy the paradox of what a really good comedy is.