Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

A doctor once told me that with crying you aren't sure what its derivation is. If someone comes at you with a knife, you don't cry: you scream, you try to run. When it's over and you're OK, that's when you cry.

Being funny is a symptom of what's underneath. You're pumping out all that energy because something else is going on inside you, some opposing force, something uncomfortable.

We have to joke about it because the alternative is to be scared

Denial can be a pathology or a survival mechanism - and sometimes it's both.

Normally, we push away the things we're scared of.

Anger is one way to respond to fear. I say one way because responses are categorically multiple.

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

When things are really painful, I turn it into comedy.

Suspicion is one of the morbid reactions by which an organism defends itself and seeks another equilibrium.

I cry all the time. Music makes me cry.

I think I cry when I'm angry. I let it go that way.

When I'm scared, my natural state is to hide and run for cover.

Denial is a powerful force.

Laughing about something is one of the more accessible ways to approach a difficult issue.

Gallows humor is part of our coping mechanism. It's part of our grief process. If we don't know what else to do, we laugh. That's a very real thing.

Everybody laughs all the time, and some of the worst things that happen make you laugh 'cause it's a defense isn't it, I suppose.

Sometimes I yell at my cancer cells, sometimes I make myself laugh.

I mean I'm one of those people that laugh at a funeral. And it's always the worst time, but there's always a place to find something funny.

I can't explain why I play belter when I am down. It's the challenge I suppose.

All my life, my immediate response to emotional pain has been to make jokes. Lots of jokes.

Humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be, to protect yourself.

For some reason, my temper was hardwired to my tear ducts. I usually cried when I was angry, a humiliating tendency.

"Nasty Man" isn't a laughing matter, but you have to laugh anyway. The song, itself, becomes something of a laughing matter because we'd go crazy if we didn't keep laughing.

I curse in everyday life, but usually when I stub my toe. The topics I'm discussing, it's not necessary to curse. I found [cursing] is a sign that a joke is not finished or well-written.

If you have no tragedy, you have no comedy. Crying and laughing are the same emotion. If you laugh too hard, you cry. And vice versa.