John Schlesinger Quotes

People are always saying, 'You use irony,' and it's like, actually, we don't use irony: we use wit and playfulness and irreverence.

Even on the most serious ballads, I'll throw in a tongue-in-cheek remark.

Sometimes you say things with a smile with the precise intention of making it clear that you are not being serious, and are only kidding. If I salute a friend with a smile and say, 'How are you, you old scoundrel!' clearly I don't really mean he's a scoundrel.

If possible, be funny.

I'm not serious most of the time.

I'm too self-serious for a comedy.

I always gravitate toward the humor in something.

Oh, I've never been asked a silly question in my entire life.

I can't be serious, apparently.

Humor without sadness underneath it feels cheap and aggressive.

I like to make fun of serious matters.

You can laugh at somebody because they are innocent, and because they are naive or they are about to walk into a wall, but if somebody's giving you stuff, if somebody's talking, giving you their take on things, what makes you laugh, generally speaking, is going to be somebody who is telling it in an angry way.

I can be sarcastic.

The best way to make the most serious point in the world is to be as unserious as possible.

The problem with having a sense of humor is often that people you use it on aren't in a very good mood.

My success comes in making fun of whatever you're doing. That's my way.

Not necessarily, a lot of my songs are firmly tongue in cheek.

I suppose I look for humor in most situations because it humanizes things; it makes a character much more three-dimensional if there's some kind of humor. Not necessarily laugh-out-loud type of stuff, just a sense that there is a humorous edge to things. I do like that.

I use humour a lot. My foundation is tragic, but my appearance is humorous.

You can pretend to be serious; but you can't pretend to be witty.

A lot of my rhymes are just to get chuckles out of people. Anybody with half a brain is going to be able to tell when I'm joking and when I'm serious.

Crankiness is at the essence of all comedy. My wife and I were discussing the different types of cranky. There's entertaining cranky, annoying cranky, angry cranky.

Humor is my default mode.

I can be very dry and sarcastic.

Even people that I agree with can do something that would be a target for a bit of humor.