Barry Humphries Quotes

To smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast is to become a principal in the mischief.

There used to be such a thing as a sick joke, or laughing at misfortune, because comedy and laughter are a way of coping. And there is a kind of cruelty to it, but you can separate finding something horrible funny, and what you really think of it.

Everybody funny, now you funny too.

There can be a blurry line between laughing at the expense of a character and laughing at the recognition of something painful and true. But blurry as it may be, it is nevertheless unmistakable, and sometimes the laughter I hear makes me wince.

Laughter means: taking a mischievous delight in someone else's uneasiness, but with a good conscience.

I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.

The world laughs at another man's pain.

Somehow I enjoy watching people suffer.

What teenagers are ready to laugh at is the misery of other people.

The easiest time to be funny is during a fairly serious situation. That way, you can break the ice. It's crazy, but even at funerals, people will get huge laughs.

If the laughter of the audience was malicious we wouldn't show it.

As with anything that involves emotional pain, comedy isn't too far behind. There's that element of no matter how painful something is - as long as it is not you that is going through it - it can be funny.

[As a kid] I did enjoy making people laugh but I was also attracted to funny people. I'm [still] quite happy to not be the one trying to make other people laugh. I'm happy laughing at someone else. I enjoy laughing and I'll happily be the one just laughing all night if you can make me laugh.

I'm inspired by making people laugh at subjects that should make them cry.

Shall I crack any of those old jokes, master, At which the audience never fail to laugh?

Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry -- and the world laughs harder.

Comedy is very important. For one thing, it keeps you sane. But it's not really a conversion. I mean, it's marginally a conversion, because if people tune in or go to a nightclub or even watch television, and hear that a lot of other people are laughing at something you thought was not funny, at least it'll force you to reconsider.

There is no sweeter sound than the crumbling of one's fellow man.

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

He burst into one of his rare fits of laughter as he turned away from the picture. I have not heard him laugh often, and it has always boded ill to somebody.

I'm very much of the "make it dark, make it grim, make it tough", but then, for the love of God, tell a joke.

She is laughing up her sleeve at you.

The role of humour is to make people fall down and writhe on the Axminster, and that is the top and bottom of it.

Everyone was laughin'. Even that deaf mute boy was breathing heavy and pointing at me. Which is laughter to their kind.

A thing derided is a thing dead; a laughing man is stronger than a suffering man.