Jonathan Raban Quotes

Humor is the only way to tell a story. Especially the dark ones.

Humor is very interesting to me. My films are not comedies, but there's comedy in them from time to time, absurdities, just like in real life.

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

Part of being a comedian is that it's your job to look at life and regurgitate it in a funny way, to point out its absurdities.

In comedy, I hate that cop-out where you say, "Just kidding." I know you're just kidding. Don't insult my intelligence by spelling it out for me that much.

I think laughter is the best medicine. If you can't laugh at yourself, then you can't laugh at life and the silliness of it all.

For me, if you distill comedy down, it is surprise and the unexpected. That has to be it on its most base level, in any form.

Silences are the most underrated part of comedy.

I'm not a great joke writer, which is odd for a comic to say, but I'm not.

Neil Hamburger writes such cutting jokes.

Humor is really one of the hardest things to define, very hard. And it's very ambiguous. You have it, or you don't. You can't attain it.

I don't think that there's necessarily a side to drama that has to be completely bleak. You have to have a flicker of humor 'cause everyone has a flicker of humor, something they find funny in life.

I still love a well-crafted joke. Twitter's been great for that.

Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.

Comedy is drama. I think that if your characters are feeling something that is very real, then they have to respond in a way that feels real to them, and some situations, the only response you could possibly have is to respond in a way that's so extreme that people are going to laugh.

If it bends, it's funny; if it breaks, it's not funny.

I'm like a sight gag.

My sense of humor is a turkey, and I pull it out of the oven and baste it in reality.

There's a few tunes of mine that don't have jokes, but most of them have a joke and they have a humorous point of view somewhere.

You have to be careful what you say in front of comedy writers because they will absolutely make fun of it in the next episode.

In order to be able to write a good joke, you have to find the truth.

In the end, everything is a gag.

The nature of comedy is 'just do it.' But I think what's interesting about it is this joke has been around and why. And it's just saying what's wrong and how wrong can you be if you say it.

I don't write punch lines.

Comedy isn't just timing; it's about rooting out the funny in the real. You just bend reality to the left a little.