Stanisław Lem on humor

Good books tell the truth, even when they’re about things that never have been and never will be. They’re truthful in a different way.

A smart machine will first consider which is more worth its while: to perform the given task or, instead, to figure some way out of it.

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