Humor

If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.

Tell the truth and run.

I didn’t invent the rainy day, man. I just own the best umbrella.

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. I speak, by the way, not with any sense of futility but with panicky conviction of the absolute meaninglessness of human existence which could easily be misinterpreted as pessimism.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Now, a few words on looking for things. When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad. Because of all the things in the world, you’re only looking for one of them. When you go looking for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good. Because of all the things in the world, you’re sure to find some of them.

A sucker is born every minute.

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

Don't worry about trying something new. Amateurs built the Arc; professionals built the Titanic.

They celebrate diversity with ruthless single-mindedness.

Whence comes this idea that if what we are doing is fun, it can't be God's will? The God who made giraffes, a baby's fingernails, a puppy's tail, a crooknecked squash, the bobwhite's call, and a young girl's giggle, has a sense of humor. Make no mistake about that.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

I like nonsense - it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope... and that enables you to laugh at all of life's realities.

If I’d wanted you to understand I would have explained it better.

We are all worms. But I believe that I am a glow-worm.

Everything else on the paper is drawn in black, but the figure in the middle is a veritable explosion of color. A riot of yellow and red and blue and green and orange and purple. “You’re the funniest thing she knows. That’s why she always draws you in color,” Chapter 25. A Man Called Ove and a Piece of Corrugated Iron

Ove stops at a safe distance from the counter. As if someone might give him a hug if he gets too close.

“Why the hell would I say anything?” Ove points at him with exasperation. “You! You want to buy a French car. Don’t worry so much about others, you have enough problems of your own.”

Sonja used to say that Ove had only admitted he was wrong on one occasion in all the years they had been married, and that was in the early 1980s after he’d agreed with her about something that later turned out to be incorrect. Ove himself maintained that this was a lie, a damned lie. By definition he had only admitted that she was wrong, not that he was.

don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

‘Sam!’ cried Frodo, feeling that amazement could go no further, and quite unable to decide whether he felt angry, amused, relieved, or merely foolish.

‘No! For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.’ He laughed, but the sound now seemed warm and kindly as a gleam of sunshine.

In the meantime you can try Gandalf. He’s not so close as he used to be, though he laughs now more than he talks.

My wife married a man; I saw no reason why she should inherit a baby. I am very fortunate in having a wife who likes being a woman, which means that she likes men, not elderly babies.

The only way to cope with something deadly serious is to try to treat it a little lightly.

If you can’t convince them, confuse them.

I don't like to speak badly of people. I have grown up thinking and being told that if you cannot say something nice about someone, you should not say anything at all. But I must break that rule in this case because I hate Hulk Hogan very much. He is a big ugly goon and I want to squash his face.