“If humor ever became extinct, human beings would be left without souls. Philosophically, we must start with the idea of laughter. I cannot imagine anything more horrible than a society where laughter and poetry are prohibited, where the morbid self-absorption of the rich and the powerful and the hypocrisies of our clergymen and politicians go unchecked. Protecting from ridicule those who proclaim eternal truths is where most intellectual energy is expended in our world.”
– Charles Simic, The Life of Images
__________
“This is because the self who laughs is greater than the self who suffers—is momentarily outside the suffering self, liberated from it, laughing at it.”
– Oliver Sacks, quoted in Lawrence Weschler, And How Are You, Dr. Sacks?: A Biographical Memoir of Oliver Sacks
__________
Laughter is something better experienced than described.
It’s a sensation, spontaneous rather than deliberate.
I cannot will myself to laugh from a standing start.
But I can be more receptive to it.
Every situation, interaction, proclamation, sensation can be funny.
It’s a state of mind.
I can laugh at anything, if it’s funny.
And nothing can be funnier than the seriousness and self absorption of others.
The wilful absence of humour provokes the need for it to rush in and spread some warmth.
I will be on the lookout for a good laugh.
I’ll start with myself.
Conversations With Quotations 