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Comedy Quotes by Mark Twain

51 Comedy quotes by Mark Twain

All Comedy quotes Mark Twain’s page

Mark Twain points out that a humorous story feels American, a comic story feels English, and a witty story feels French. He says even the dullest life hides drama, comedy, and tragedy. He also notes that humor works best when it rests on ideas people already know and understand.

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The funniest things are the forbidden.

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The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow.

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Humor is mankind's greatest blessing.

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Comedy keeps the heart sweet.

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Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

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Humor is the good natured side of a truth.

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A German joke is no laughing matter.

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Humor is man's greatest blessing.

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“The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French.”

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Guides cannot master the subtleties of the American joke.

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The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven.

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Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.

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We laugh and laugh. Then cry and cry- Then feebler laugh, Then die.

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The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter.

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The secret source of humour itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven.

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The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

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Low comedies are written for the drawing-room, the kitchen and the stable, and if you cut out the kitchen and the stable…

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I never made a success of a lecture delivered in a church yet. People are afraid to laugh in a church. They…

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The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect…

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Wit and Humor - if any difference, it is in duration - lightning and electric light. Same material, apparently; but one is…

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Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations,…

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The old man laughed loud and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying…

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“Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a…

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When a humorist ventures upon the grave concerns of life he must do his job better than another man or he works…

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The old man laughed loud and joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and ended by saying…

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The true and lasting genius of humour does not drag you thus to boxes labelled 'pathos,' 'humour,' and show you all the…

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When grown-up persons indulge in practical jokes, the fact gauges them. They have lived narrow, obscure, and ignorant lives, and at full…

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Comedy keeps the heart sweet; but we all know that there is wholesome refreshment for both mind and heart in an occasional…

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“Artemus Ward used that trick a good deal; then when the belated audience presently caught the joke he would look up with…

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I have never examined the subject of humor until now. I am surprised to find how much ground it covers. I have…

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What is it that strikes a spark of humor from a man? It is the effort to throw off, to fight back…

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Humor, to be comprehensible to anybody, must be built upon a foundation with which he is familiar. If he can't see the…

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So you see, the quality of humor is not a personal or a national monopoly. It's as free as salvation, and, I…

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Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them—and by laughing at them…

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Humor is tragedy plus time.

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The source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow.

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Humor is like a frog; if you dissect it, it dies.

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Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.

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There are several kinds of stories, but only one difficult kind-the humorous.

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A joke, even if it be a lame one, is nowhere so keenly relished or quickly applauded as in a murder trial.

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More by Mark Twain

Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.

If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could…

“The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking. Behind him stretched the illimitable continent of heaven, steeped in a glory of light and color; before…

It's easy to quit smoking. I've done it hundreds of times.

“It is never wrong to do the right thing.”

A man accustomed to American food and American domestic cookery would not starve to death suddenly in Europe, but I think he would gradually…

There is nothing training can't cannot do. Nothing is above its reach.

I never write Metropolis for seven cents because I can get the same price for city. I never write policeman because I can get…

The higher animals get their teeth without pain or inconvenience. Man gets his through months and months of cruel torture; he will never get…

“As far as I can see, Italy, for fifteen hundred years, has turned all her energies, all her finances, and all her industry to…

Begin with the determination to succeed and the work is half done already.

Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don't know what happened on either…

If we could imagine such a man, that is a man who could invent the fly and send him out on his mission and…

You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly…

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms.