Humor and Tragedy Quotes

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 the creation of comedy, it is paradoxical that tragedy stimulates the spirit of ridicule; because ridicule, I suppose is an attitude of defiance: we must laugh in the face of our helplessness against the forces of nature - or go insane

I never understand when people say, 'Do you do comedy or tragedy?' I don't think they're very much different. They both have to be true, and there isn't a great play in the world that doesn't have funny parts to it - as 'Salesman' does, as 'King Lear' does. The whole idea is to reflect life in some way, which means surely you have to have both.

It's interesting to explore the darker side, but the hero piece is interesting as well. It's like choosing between comedy or drama. I like to do both.

All my work shares a kind of balance between black comedy and sad and despairing melancholy.

I find that very appealing: the blurring of the lines between what's funny and what's tragic. And what's ordinary and what's not - the big things in the small things.

In everything I write, I'm always striving to hit the right mix of light and darkness, humor and pain, fun and seriousness.

You cannot say, because I am from Naples so I like the mixture of drama and comedy all together.

I am interested in shows that are not out-and-out gag fests: you see the truth of a broken heart behind them. That is what life is like: it's really funny, you see funny things as soon as you step out of the room, but underneath that is a whole bag of broken hearts. It's that real pain and that real hilarity that makes life so intriguing.

You can't be funny unless you're tragic, and you can't be tragic unless you're funny.

The myth that theater isn't for everybody is total nonsense. In the 18th and 19th centuries, everybody in America used to go to the theater all the time. The shows they went to see were big, crazy melodramas that had careening storylines and houses burning down and pretty girls in danger and comedy and death and destruction.

We try to... we are, I suppose to a certain extent all affected and erm, that is both funny and sad I think.

For whatever reason, the films I gravitate towards do have these strange sort of tonal balances to them... I kind of realized on '50/ 50' why I liked these blending of tones, because I think it's kind of what life is like: funny one minute, sad the next, scary the next.