Mary Ellen Mark Quotes

I love the absurd - kind of absurdist comedy, absurd things in life.

Life is funny and weird.

I think comedy's often the little and the large, isn't it?

I laugh at absurdity hardest, then stories, then observations, then bearded men on roller skates.

Many of my poems try to use a comic element to reach a place that isn't comic at all. The comic element works as a surprise. It is unexpected and energizing.

Funny is as funny does, and funny puts on a walrus mask and slowly gyrates in a mall food court. I laugh at absurdity hardest, then stories, then observations, then bearded men on roller skates.

The best jokes resonate because they uncover ridiculousness in our daily lives, reveal the silliness - and sometimes sadness - of things we see every day.

Being a comedy writer gives you permission to be an outsider and poke fun at what people think about other people.

My work is not so much a direct commentary as it is an open-ended observation of the absurdities around us.

I think I've been called edgy - but in all honesty, there is a safety in what I do because I'm always the idiot. Unless you're just listening to buzz words and not taking into account the context of the situation, you see I'm always the ignoramus.

Comedy to me is all about the bumps and bruises and weird tics.

I have always found humor in places where humor wasn't necessarily intended.

You achieve the surreal jokes through the realism by making it elastic.

More eccentric characters can push pretty far, but if you stay on the side of reality, it's always funnier.

I think great humor lies in playing the truth of a situation.

One question about a joke is, how well is the strangeness of the situation resolved? At 'The New Yorker', we retain a lot of incongruity, tapping the playful part of the mind - Monty Python-type stuff. We also try to use humor as a vehicle for communicating ideas. Not editorial comment, but observation.

Being an outsider helps breed comedy.

The truth is really funny. It's uncomfortable sometimes, it's dramatic sometimes, but it's really funny. Life is funny.

Absurdity is my favorite brand of humor because deep down inside, in our subconscious, it's all surrealism. It's all abstract. The world is the surrealism, the absurdity, the humor - it all just overlaps.

The best comedy is based on truth.

I'll see something, and I'll go, 'Oh, wow, that's interesting,' because really, comedy comes from the truth.

Every funny story has at least one unusual thing in it.

I see the absurdity in things, and I think it's my job to point it out.

I just love well-organized, very serious nonsense.

People say the comedy is so shocking, but if you read newspapers or look around generally - I mean, obviously I'm not writing about all the lovely things that there are, which I do see as well - but there is a lot of outrageousness around, slightly covered up. And obviously, it's fun to take that a little bit further.