John Prine Quotes

I have to be entertained by what I'm writing, so a lot of my stuff has a goofiness or scatological quality. If these characters can entertain me, then I feel like I can deal with the darker or more serious stuff.

I say funny stuff in my lyrics to make people laugh, but it's all in the seriousness of the music. I'm just being witty.

Many of my poems try to use a comic element to reach a place that isn't comic at all. The comic element works as a surprise. It is unexpected and energizing.

Funny is when you're serious.

I don't think I've ever written a poem whose intention was just to be funny. I've written poems that start out funny and often shift into something more serious.

I think I was born with a natural way of looking at something and trying to find the ways in which it was odd or funny, Even in the sad or angry stuff, I was, 'Well, but where is the funny part of this?'

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

In my opinion, I think sarcasm and humor in a song, without turning it into a novelty song, is really charming.

There's something that's really fun about the challenge of making the mundane funny, too, I think.

I always believe that funny is serious and serious is funny. You don't really need a distinction between them.

Humor and seriousness are not in opposition to each other.

There is some humour in 'Family Values.' I don't want everyone to think it's not going to make them laugh. But there are quite a lot of poems there that aren't funny at all.

Caution: These verses may be hazardous to your solemnity.

I've always littered my songs with jokes. You might need to dig a little deeper to find the humor, but I would totally object to being some kind of distraught personality. I've never tried to attach myself to that.

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.

I wish there were more humor in my work than I see in it.

Humour is a great vehicle for getting a message across. If you get too serious, you could die of starch.

I have a good sense of humor. I think everything we do should have whimsy in it.

If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you've created a special little thing, and that's what I'm looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything.

I like situational comedy when people are being completely serious and yet you can find something extremely funny, not jokes.

Things can be funny only when we are in fun. When we're 'dead earnest,' humor is the only thing that is dead.

I never write anything without humor, just because I like humor, but at the same time, it is a way for anything fantastical to become relatable.

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

I think things are funny when the character is taking it totally seriously.

Just because a subject is serious doesn't mean it doesn't have plenty of absurdities.