Milan Kundera on laughter

Dreaming is not merely an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself.

Optimism is the opium of the people.

True human goodness, in all its purity and freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power.

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.

Mark Twain1835–1910“The Chronicle of Young Satan” (ca. 1897–1900, unfinished), published posthumously in Mark Twain’s Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (1969), ed. William Merriam Gibson (pp. 165–166 in the 2005 paperback printing, )

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.

Victor Hugo1802–1885

You can’t deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

Stephen Kingborn 1947