Mignon McLaughlin Quotes

Isn’t it wonderful the way the world holds both the deeply serious, and the unexpectedly mirthful?

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.

On one level, I am a massive joker and can't take anything seriously, but on the other hand, I'm incredibly serious and a deep thinker, so I have that dichotomy within me.

Life really is a series of contrasts.

Humor and seriousness are not in opposition to each other.

Life is that perfect fine line between ironies.

Life is dramatic and comedic at times. Sometimes in the most dramatic situations, there is comedy. And good comedy comes from a sense of reality.

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

In high drama or high tragedy or anything, it's not really human unless there's some humor at the same time. And vice versa. So I guess I tend to gravitate towards projects which tread a dodgy tightrope between two things, which aren't really one or another.

In life, there's a ying and a yang and a balance. And when you don't have balance, you have comedy.

I'm all about polarities and juxtapositions.

I really like blending two things together that are polar opposites. Because I feel like, in a large aspect, that's kinda like what I am.

I have a fun side and a serious side.

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

One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both...Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both.

There's two heads to every coin.

Serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites.

I've noticed that when people are joking they're usually dead serious, and when they're serious, they're usually pretty funny.

Ultimate seriousness in not without a dose of humor.

Don't take yourself too seriously. And take yourself as seriously as death itself.

Absolute seriousness is never without a dash of humor.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

When I define polarities in my work, I actually create the space between things. I point to the question I am actually interested in, without naming it.

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.