James Joyce on humor

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

(Of Shakespeare) A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.

Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end.

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