Martha Graham Quotes

A man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad,’ said he. ‘Few realize it. That is why there are so many madmen in the world.

There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.

It's hard enough to write a good drama, it's much harder to write a good comedy, and it's hardest of all to write a drama with comedy. Which is what life is.

I find myself laughing at really bad situations.

A sense of humor is the main measure of sanity.

They didn't know why these things were funny. Sometimes you laugh because you've got no more room for crying. Sometimes you laugh because table manners on a beach are funny. And sometimes you laugh because you're alive, when you really shouldn't be.

The life of every individual is really always a tragedy, but gone through in detail, it has the character of a comedy.

Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing.

Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.

We must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the forces of nature, or go insane.

Perhaps the way to succeed is to think of life on Earth as a colossal joke, a creation of such immense stupidity that the only way to live is to laugh until you think your heart will break.

Life, a beauty chased by tragic laughter.

You have to laugh at yourself, because you'd cry your eyes out if you didn't.

Laughter keeps you healthy. You can survive by seeing the humor in everything. Thumb your nose at sadness; turn the tables on tragedy. You can’t laugh and be angry, you can’t laugh and feel sad, you can’t laugh and feel envious.

Human life is basically a comedy. Even its tragedies often seem comic to the spectator, and not infrequently they actually have comic touches to the victim. Happiness probably consists largely in the capacity to detect and relish them. A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable.

In real life, bad things happen and they're not funny, and then bad things happen and they can be funny. When you're unhappy you don't go an entire time without laughing. You don't go your whole life without laughing. It's just life.

Charlie Chaplin said something to the effect that humor is an act of defiance, that we must laugh in the face of our helplessness in the forces of nature or go insane. And where is he now? Dead.

I am in general a very pessimistic person with an optimistic, day to day take on things. The bare facts of life are utterly terrifying. And yet, one can laugh. Indeed, one has to laugh precisely because of the darkness: the nervous laughter of the trenches.

If you can't laugh at yourself, life is going to seem a whole lot longer than you'd like.

We've got to laugh or break our hearts in this damnable world.

I've looked at the world for quite a few years now and I've found that if I don't laugh, I'll probably end up crying." - Prince Kheldar of Drasnia

Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?

I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life.

Even in despair, man must laugh.

Nobody says you must laugh, but a sense of humor can help you overlook the unattractive, tolerate the unpleasant, cope with the unexpected, and smile through the day.