We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.

Agnes Repplier (1855 - 1950), Americans and Others, 1912

He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh.

Anonymous¹, (wrongly attributed to the Koran)

We laugh a lot. That's for sure. Sure beats the alternative, doesn't it?

Betty White, Mark Twain Prize, 2010

The more you find out about the world, the more opportunities there are to laugh at it.

Bill Nye, Interview with Wired.com, April 2005

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.

Bob Newhart (1929 - )

Total absence of humor renders life impossible.

Colette (1873 - 1954), Chance Acquaintances, 1952

Laughter is by definition healthy.

Doris Lessing

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

e e cummings (1894 - 1962)

If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you're old.

Edgar Watson Howe (1853 - 1937)

Laugh at yourself first, before anyone else can.

Elsa Maxwell, September 28, 1958

You cannot be mad at somebody who makes you laugh - it's as simple as that.

Jay Leno (1950 - ), O Magazine, February 2003

If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane.

Jimmy Buffett

In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.

John Masefield (1878 - 1967), "Window in Bye Street", 1912

Man is distinguished² from all other creatures by the faculty³ of laughter.

Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719), The Spectator, September 26, 1712

One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you.

Larry Gelbart

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.

Lord Byron (1788 - 1824)

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

He who laughs, lasts!

Mary Pettibone Poole

You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing.

Michael Pritchard

Laughter is inner jogging.

Norman Cousins (1915 - 1990)

I was irrevocably betrothed⁴ to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized⁵ music in the world.

Peter Ustinov (1921 - 2004)

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

Stephen King (1947 - ), "Hearts in Atlantis"

Beware of too much laughter, for it deadens the mind and produces oblivion.

The Talmud

Laughter is the closest distance between two people.

Victor Borge (1909 - 2000)

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.

W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973)