Michael Haneke Quotes

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

Dramas make me laugh. The other day, I saw 'The Place Beyond the Pines,' and I was giggling the whole time. I laugh when I'm uncomfortable.

I've always thought something that makes you laugh, it makes you laugh because there's a little bit of truth to it.

Unintentional comedy is comedy just the same.

It's good just to laugh sometimes, and if it comes out of some truth, it's even stronger.

Rob and I both have this strange sense of comedy which always involves us being the butt of our own jokes.

Most humor comes from truth. In the end, if I can laugh about it, who cares?

Sometimes WRONG is worth the FUNNY!

Humor is consistent with pathos, whilst wit is not.

The most important thing in comedy - apart from empathy, which I think is important even if disguised - is surprise. I like surprising people with the fact that something's even a joke at all.

If I had a sense of humor, I'd be laughing right now.

Taking the humour out of Dickens, it's not Dickens any more.

I don't think comedy is necessarily an attack. It's finding humour in life. I don't think if you're making a joke about something you're automatically demeaning it.

I think laughter is the best medicine. If you can't laugh at yourself, then you can't laugh at life and the silliness of it all.

Comedy becomes intensified in short scenes.

I've always loved pure, silly slapstick comedy. It always makes me laugh.

For me, if you distill comedy down, it is surprise and the unexpected. That has to be it on its most base level, in any form.

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

I think that certain things are funny and certain things are okay to make fun of - including myself.

Comedians, we're just people who whine. But we happen to be funny when we whine. Like, if Jerry Seinfeld wasn't funny, you'd want to punch him in the face; he'd just seem like a whiner to you. But the fact is that he's funny.

Incongruity is the mainspring of laughter.

What makes me laugh? Richard Nixon always made me laugh.

Comedy is such a personal thing. Everybody can cry at the same thing, but it's a lot harder to get everyone to laugh at the same thing.

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.

When you take a character seriously, there's more room for comedy because you're not aware of how absurd you are.