John Irving Quotes

Art is too serious to be taken seriously.

Why is it so hard to be serious, so easy to be too serious?

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.

Oh sorry, I was taking life seriously.

I hope I can now use my ability to communicate, without being too precious or serious. It's good to have some levity, even as you're facing some really dark times, to mix it up a bit.

Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.

I don't get to the global issues or anything like that. I am just trying to be silly.

I can be quite serious sometimes so laughing is key.

I don't think life is to be taken too seriously. Take it too seriously, and it'll getcha.

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.

If everything gets too serious for me on the album, I get kinda bored. I've got to have some kind of jovial things in there.

You know, the funny thing about Lorne and that show is that, you can go over one million things, but in a business of bean counters, he still likes to laugh at small things and creates a show around it.

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 have to be entertained by what I'm writing, so a lot of my stuff has a goofiness or scatological quality. If these characters can entertain me, then I feel like I can deal with the darker or more serious stuff.

Once you take yourself too seriously the art will suffer.

I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it.

Well, first of all it's entertainment. That stops us becoming too pretentious or thinking we're great artists.

Also, I think having that comic gene kind of makes you look at things in a different way. If you take yourself so seriously, eventually you end up one of those people having a 'Do Not Disturb' sign on their lives. You see them drawing the curtains and they don't even realize that they've kind of drifted off somewhere.

When you take things too seriously, you get old. You have to be silly. Whenever people say, 'Hey, man, are you ever going to grow up?' That's when you know you're doing things right.

I prefer a life in which we don't take ourselves too seriously.

Comedy is great because there's no overhead.

I'm too self-serious for a comedy.

Inevitably, when directors work with me on a set, they say, 'This isn't what I was expecting. I thought you were going to be very serious.' But I like to stay loose and have a good time and not take myself too seriously. I think, otherwise, you get in your own way.

Most of my artwork is geared towards being humorous in some light.

I say funny stuff in my lyrics to make people laugh, but it's all in the seriousness of the music. I'm just being witty.