Alain de Botton Quotes

Comedy arises out of necessity, because some things are so dark that you have to laugh about it.

People find the humor in life all the time. And you have to in order to make it through real life. Like, some things are tragic, but you have to laugh.

I find myself laughing at really bad situations.

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

There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.

Russian humor is to adapt or make some sense or nonsense out of the insanity of their lives.

People who have very devastating lives sometimes have the most wild, avant-garde humor. It's like when you've seen it all and been through it all, nothing is off-limits in a way.

You can find humor in most things, and even terrible things.

I can find the worst thing in the world funny. My humour is dark. If I'm talking about the worst situations in my life, it's like a comedy - you can laugh at my pain.

The peculiarity of sunrise is to make us laugh at all our terrors of the night, and our laugh is always proportioned to the fear we have had.

They didn't know why these things were funny. Sometimes you laugh because you've got no more room for crying. Sometimes you laugh because table manners on a beach are funny. And sometimes you laugh because you're alive, when you really shouldn't be.

A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,’ said he. ‘Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world.

Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.

I commend you, however, for passing the time in as merry a manner as you possibly could; it is assuredly better to go laughing than crying thro' the rough journey of life.

We who think we are about to die will laugh at anything.

Perhaps the way to succeed is to think of life on Earth as a colossal joke, a creation of such immense stupidity that the only way to live is to laugh until you think your heart will break.

When we realize finally that we aren't God's given children, we'll understand satire. Humor is really laughing off a hurt, grinning at misery.

Everything is going to hell, but we should smile all the way.

I have never been able to see life as anything but a vast complicated practical joke, and it's better to laugh than cry.

Even in drama, I like to try to find the humor because I think it's very human. Even in the depths of dreadful situations, there's usually something rather comic, or something you can laugh about afterwards, at least.

This is an ugly and mean world, and only to spite it we mustn't weep. If you want to know, this is the constant source of my good spirit, of my humor. Not to cry, out of spite, only to laugh out of spite, only to laugh.

We believe in healthy, hearty laughter -- at the expense of the whole human race, if needs be. Needs be.

One can always lament, you know — but to laugh in the face of life, that's very hard. And for me the great tragedian should also be a great comedian.

In life you have two choices. You can laugh or you can cry. You have to laugh, you have to.

If you can't laugh when things go bad--laugh and put on a little carnival--then you're either dead or wishing you were.