Greg van Eekhout Quotes

I love the idea of things being strict and things being uniform. That's the reason why I surround each collection with humor or irony. I want to make sure that it's not too serious and that there is some element that throws it off because otherwise that would make it really boring. There's always a story that's somewhat fantastical.

My poems... the ones that start out as jokes become these big ponderous things and the ones that start out ponderous devolve into jokes.

Some really good things kind of swing both ways and I like to see people that can swing really, really, really sad and horrible and terrible and really, really, really beautiful and funny.

What bothers most critics of my work is the goofiness. One reviewer said I need to make up my mind if want to be funny or serious. My response is that I will make up my mind when God does, because life is a commingling of the sacred and the profane, good and evil. To try and separate them is fallacy.

I think that there's a fine line between comedy and drama.

If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you've created a special little thing, and that's what I'm looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

I'm all about polarities and juxtapositions.

Life was never anything but a perpetual see-saw between gravity and jest.

I'm not against people just being funny or telling stories. I don't need to delve into the soft, dark core all the time. If it happens, it happens.

Ultimate seriousness in not without a dose of humor.

Lord, heap miseries upon us yet entwine our arts with laughters low.

Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.

I'm trying to make sure that there's comedy as well as sadness. It makes the sadness more memorable.

I always try to balance the light with the heavy - a few tears of human spirit in with the sequins and the fringes.

That's the great paradox of living on this earth, that in the midst of great pain you can have great joy as well. If we didn't have those things we'd just be numb.

I like to think my sense of humor is sort of smart and dumb at the same time. I like to work on multiple levels - smart and dumb, funny and sad, profound and mundane, cynical and hopeful.

I've always been drawn to discomfort and that limbo of unease you get between comedy and tragedy.

Humor and seriousness are not in opposition to each other.

I try to sing many different kinds of songs. If I sing a batch of humorous songs, I'll throw in a deadly serious song. Or if I'm singing too many serious songs, I'll throw in a ridiculous song, to mix it up.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

For feel-good fiction to work, there has to be an element of darkness.

I try to acknowledge both the sacred and the silly in my work. That goes for the live show as well. If I find myself in my head or dwelling in seriousness, I think of my friends back home and how they'd be laughing at me.

I don't mind making jokes, but I don't want to look like one.

I like the hot-cold, the sugar-salt, being able to play over-the-top and dramatic things - in the same film. Just as in my life, I can be very funny and at other times almost extinguished.