Matt Haig Quotes

I think you can tell the human condition better through comedy.

If written with enough care and thoughtfulness, a joke can make you laugh at a belief you hold dear.

Comedy exists to laugh at things that aren't laughable. But isn't it? That's what separates us from the animals. We laugh.

The pun exists in a social and political void, caring nothing for the issues of its day, content merely to display itself in its small cleverness.

The first purpose of comedy is to make people laugh. Anything deeper is a bonus. Some comedians want to make people laugh and make them think about socially relevant issues, but comedy, by the very nature of the word, is to make people laugh. If people aren't laughing, it's not comedy. It's as simple as that.

The whole point of real comedy is that you can say something that is true, and by being funny, you can make it tolerable for people, and hopefully they'll laugh at you, too.

[Comedy] is an escape from illusions. The audience is...thinking, 'This bullshit we see and hear all day makes no sense.'

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

I'm somebody who believes in funny things, and laughing, but I do like for them to come from a place that addresses the human condition.

Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their earthly pedestals.

I've always thought something that makes you laugh, it makes you laugh because there's a little bit of truth to it.

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.

What makes me laugh? Richard Nixon always made me laugh.

Unintentional comedy is comedy just the same.

People... need a time to laugh. It's up to us to bonk ourselves on the head and slip on a banana peel so the average guy can say, 'I may be bad, honey, but I'm not as much of an idiot as that guy on the screen.'

When you take a character seriously, there's more room for comedy because you're not aware of how absurd you are.

I love comedy because I can laugh at myself. I don't take myself too seriously.

Funny is as funny does, and funny puts on a walrus mask and slowly gyrates in a mall food court. I laugh at absurdity hardest, then stories, then observations, then bearded men on roller skates.

There's always a message in my comedy.

I love inappropriate humour. What else are you going to do? You have to laugh.

Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.

I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it's a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.

At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don't really think of myself as 'writing humor.' I'm simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious.

But in terms of satire and comedy, our biggest and earliest influence was Mad magazine.

I think at its best the American sense of humor is the same as the British sense of humor at its best, which is to be wry and ironic and self deprecating.