Audience Quote by Charlyne Yi

Humor is based on surprise, and surprise is a milder way of saying shock. It's surprise that makes the joke.

— George Carlin

Surprise is the essence of humor, and nothing is more surprising than truth.

— Bill Watterson

You can analyse a joke and say it's funny because this guy thought this was going to happen, and that happened, and it's surprising.…

— John Lloyd

Surprise makes a joke funny. I love it when someone tells me something I couldn't possibly have expected; you've been led along one path…

— Josie Long

The secret to humor is surprise.

— Aristotle

Humor has to surprise us; otherwise, it isn't funny. It's a death knell for a writer to be labeled a humorist because then it's…

— Garrison Keillor

Surprise is not humor. I think that there can be a fine line there.

— Keegan-Michael Key

Humor does depend on surprise, and the things that people remember as the funniest things in the world, you look at later and you…

— Matt Groening

The essence of humour is surprise; that is why you laugh when you see a joke in Punch.

— A. P. Herbert

Now, some people do this for shock value. Shock is just another uptown word for surprise. Granted it has a different quality to it,…

— George Carlin

Humor comes from the surprise release of some buried tension.

— Lorrie Moore

Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny.

— Norm MacDonald