Quotes about humor

In general he doesn’t know any more about magic than an ostrich knows about icebergs.

It had been one of those warm late spring days when no air moves and nothing else wants to. Not oppressively hot—just warm enough to enervate and to cause attacks of acute vernal inertia.

And to save time, shall we pretend we’ve had the argument and I won?

“I notice you didn’t laugh, Mr. Black!”

“No, Your Majesty. We are forbidden to laugh at the things kings say, sire, because otherwise we would be at it all day.”

They obeyed, as wise men do when a woman puts her foot down.

Another thing about grandmother was her believe that a conversation consisted of someone else listening to her talking, so even mild interruptions seem to her to be some strange, puzzling inversion of the natural order of things, like pigs flying. It baffled her.

She felt better for all that. A good shouting at somebody always makes you feel better and in control, especially if you aren’t.

Daphne thought: I’m learning things. I hope I find out soon what they are.

“Are you trying to be smart, boy?”

“Trying not to be dumb, sir.”

Her father had said that if you knew where to look, you could find Mrs. Ethel J. Bundy’s Birthday Island, and loaned her a large magnifying glass. She spent long Sunday afternoons lying on her stomach, minutely examining every necklace of dots, and concluded that Mrs. Ethel J. Bundy’s Birthday Island was a Father Joke, i.e., not very funny but sort of lovable in its silliness.

He believed in rational thinking and scientific inquiry, which was why he never won an argument with his mother, who believed in people doing what she told them, and believed it with a rock-hard certainty that dismissed all opposition.

: When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth: Yes; and take all the fun out of it.