John Gould Quotes

I remember reading in a comedy book very long ago when I first started, a person said there's a difference between a sense of humor and a sense of funny. A sense of humor is knowing what makes you laugh and a sense of funny is knowing what makes other people laugh. The journey of comedy, in a sense, is negotiating those two worlds.

It's much easier to write a solemn book than a funny book. It's harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. People are always on the verge of tears.

I love doing [stand-up]. I love making people laugh no matter how. Whether it's a commercial, or a TV show, or a reality show, or a talk show, or a special, or a book. However I can make people laugh, that's what I want to do.

To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand.

Laughter is the cipher key wherewith we decipher the whole man

Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite.

I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have got its divisions and frontiers down on a piece of paper. I find it defined as a production of the brain, as the power of the brain to produce something humorous, and the capacity of percieving humor.

People talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations.

It was in Warwick Castle that I came across the curious stranger whom I am going to talk about. He attracted me by three things: his candid simplicity, his marvelous familiarity with ancient armor, and the restfulness of his company--for he did all the talking.

I'm looking for something to laugh over. After long enough, your body just needs to keep the hydration. You can't keep crying it out.

A good laugh is the best pesticide.

Talking over the things which you have read with your companions fixes them on the mind.

People laugh at me. Sometimes I know why, and sometimes I don't. But I can pretty much find humor in anything. That is a necessary part of life. I don't want to say laughter is healing, because it sounds corny, but it's a release.

I follow my own nose. So I read things that are different. People will always say to me, "Have you read Robert S. Bosco's latest novel?" or "Have you read so and so's history of Peru, which is reviewed in the New York Review of Books and the New York Times and has a buzz about it?" I don't even know what you're talking about. I'm like from another planet. I'm a pygmy from the jungle.

Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.

People don't understand how hard it is to get recognized, how hard it is to get people to read your books. How hard it is to get people to even to understand what they're reading when they're talking to you about their books.

If I can laugh, I can live.

Life deserves laughter, hence people laugh at it.

The essence of humour is surprise; that is why you laugh when you see a joke in Punch.

Mirth is God's medicine.

Strangers talking over piles of books do not remain strangers for long.

Comedy is a serious business. A serious business with only one purpose--to make people laugh.

Ten times must you laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise your stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb you in the night.

It was funny how dad was more honest in a book that anyone in the world could pick up and read than he could be talking to me. Or maybe it was sad. One or the other. Sometimes it’s hard to tell.

Everybody needs to laugh and have fun and feel good.