Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

Man is the only creature endowed with the power of laughter; is he not also the only one that deserves to be laughed at?

I think you can tell the human condition better through comedy.

The human comedy is always tragic, but since its ingredients are always the same - dupe, fox, straight, like burlesque skits - the repetition through the ages is comedy.

I think that Ionesco's greatest weapon is that he's able to make us laugh at the darkest corners of our souls.

The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.

Laughter is the best way to get over something or get closer to something. It's one of the things I respect most about Amy Schumer. She's found a way to get us closer to ourselves and see the ugly side of humanity, but not in a way that's pointing a finger or that's angry. She does it in a way that makes us see the absurdity and laugh at it.

If you examine any aspect of the human condition long enough, you really do have to start laughing at it. Because the business of being human is kind of ridiculous.

I think that laughter and death are closely related: comedy is the quintessential human reaction to the fear of death. It's probably linked with the fact that we are the only animals who know we must die.

I guess what I always found funny was the human condition. There is a certain comedy and pathos to trouble and accidents. Like, when a driver has parked his car crookedly and then wonders why he has the bad luck of being hit.

The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only.

Humor is such a wonderful thing, helping you realize what a fool you are but how beautiful that is at the same time.

Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.

Larry David just makes me laugh.

Much of the best humor is found in the frequently tragic reality of human experience.

I think a joke is a form of truth-telling. A good joke that's absurd contains elements of our daily darkness and also a possibility to escape that darkness. So, for me, humor is an attempt to capture everyday tragedy and everyday hopeful moments that we experience all of the time.

If we do not know what humor is, that may be because we do not know what humankind is.

Shakespeare did not consider himself the legislator of mankind. He faithfully records man's problems and does not evidently propose to solve them.

I guess what I always found funny was the human condition.

All comedy is funny because it tells us truths that we recognise through laughter, but that doesn't mean it can't be unnerving. Think of 'Fawlty Towers'; it can be very, very dark, but by God, it's funny. The two things are not in opposition.

If written with enough care and thoughtfulness, a joke can make you laugh at a belief you hold dear.

Comedians play off of social commentary.

'Man Down' is not a serious study of the human condition: it is a balls-out attempt at making people laugh. So nobody in the show can afford to cling on to any vanity, because we're always going to push the humiliation levels.

I've been inspired for a long time by Nicole Holofcener. I admire her greatly as an auteur, examining the human condition in a funny, growing, spirited, honestly dark and human way.

My favorite playwright is probably Samuel Beckett, and he was always laughing at the abyss.

A lot of French comedy is satire.