Terry Pratchett Quotes

Taking the humour out of Dickens, it's not Dickens any more.

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

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

When I write, I create really absurd situations which become false because I am after the joke.

David Sedaris is so good that it makes me mad.

I must have read every issue of 'Punch' published in the 20th century, and I think in the process I picked up the true voice of English humour - that amiable, fairly liberal, laconic voice which you find in something like 'Three Men in a Boat.'

Primarily I'm a social commentator rather than someone who's out to get the belly laugh.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people - that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.

I think of myself as writing realist American fiction. 'Cynical but hopeful' wouldn't be the worst thing I've ever been called.

I am a passionate believer that comedy is a way of tackling some of the most dark and difficult aspects of being a human being.

Perhaps naively I thought people understand what humor was, that it was invented by the human race to cope with the dark areas of life, problems and terrors.

Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.

My early prose style - this is so embarrassing - was sort of a suburban, Presbyterian knockoff of Woody Allen.

There are really two types of laughter on the part of the spectator. There is the laughter of recognition - which means seeing things you're familiar with and laughing at yourself. But there's also hysterical laughter - a way of dealing with the things we see that upset us.

I'm a humor writer, so I don't always present myself in the best light.

I think I enlist comedy to a serious purpose.

The best comedy not only makes you laugh, but on the moment of the laugh, you learned.

I think comedy and satire are the strongest ways to deal with very serious themes and very painful themes.

We're never going to please everyone, but all the great Jewish comics have succeeded through irreverence and self deprecation.

Woody Allen's 'The Complete Prose' - It's just the best selection of comic writing by one author. You know it's good comedy when you get quite demoralised about yourself.

Personally I don't spend much time thinking about being funny. For me it's always been just a way to get by, a way to be likable yet to remain removed. When I speak up, it's not because I have any particular answers; rather, I have a desire to puncture the pretentiousness of those who seem so certain they do.

Knowing comedy is knowing human nature.

Comedy is a game played to throw reflections upon social life, and it deals with human nature in the drawing-room of civilized men and women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the correctness of the representation convincing.

I call it predicament humor. You don't do anything that cuts the star off at the knees or worse. You make him intelligent; you give him great ideas and great things to do.

I bought a book of Mark Twain quotes. That's about my speed. I'll read a couple quotes and put it down.