Robertson Davies on humor

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

To be apt in quotation is a splendid and dangerous gift. Splendid, because it ornaments a man’s speech with other men’s jewels; dangerous, for the same reason.

When irony first makes itself known in a young man’s life, it can be like his first experience of getting drunk; he has met with a powerful thing which he does not know how to handle.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

George Bernard Shaw1856–1950The Doctor’s Dilemma (1911), Act V

• Life & Death

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritation and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.

Mark Twain1835–1910“What Paul Bourget Thinks of Us?” (1897)

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.

Bill Cosbyborn 1937