Catch-22's first readers were largely of the generation that went through World War II. For them, it provided a startlingly fresh take, a much-needed, much-delayed laugh at the terror and madness they endured.
I never wanted to be a model. I never wanted to be a serious actress. I started off doing comedy. I did a stand-up comedy camp at the Laugh Factory, and I started out on Nickelodeon.
What I've been able to do with my character, Madea, and the other characters, with the jokes, is use it as an anesthetic to get to the heart and soul of real issues. And what I've found on stage over the years is that, while making people laugh, I can drop in pearls of wisdom.
When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.
A game one of my sisters will play with me in my first year of being alive is called Good Baby, Bad Baby. This consists of being told I am a good baby until I smile and laugh, then being told I am a bad baby until I burst into tears. This training will stand me in good stead all through my life.
There's something in the moment when you can make them laugh or cry and show and incredibly compassionate side of life. I find that a really exemplary way to live.
I always laugh when I listen to my old stuff. I was just trying way too much back then. Doing too many harmonies and too many runs and all the crazy stuff. Rapping all funny and animated.
Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.
I think it's awesome to be able to make people laugh.
Being funny has always mattered a lot to me. It's why I started acting - to make my friends laugh.
The 'Family Ties' role was the first of many gay roles that I've ended up playing. I remember that I made them laugh, and it made me feel good, 'cause it really cracked them up.
I don't do politics. I just like to laugh.
I don't care if the audience is 600 Saul Bellows; I'm going to knock them dead with a comedy routine. I'm out there as a missionary for literature because, if people laugh and enjoy themselves, they might actually do something as bizarre as reading the book.
I think, you know, as an actor we get these terribly sort of pretentious ideas in our heads. We try to take everything very seriously at first, you know, until we lighten up, we get onboard, and have a laugh.
I guess now that I think back, I used to play priest and be a funny priest. I don't know, I grew up in such a Catholic family that I kind of liked to test the boundaries a little bit and I think I had fun watching my mom laugh.
It's definitely a thing to be sitting there, getting a pedicure, and you look over and someone is reading an article about an aspect of your life that you know is not true. It's weird, it's uncomfortable, but I don't see it changing anytime soon, so I should figure a way to laugh through it.
The comedian just wants to get a laugh.
TV is so seductive with a great workday. You're going to work and making people laugh, and that's fantastic.
I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful.
I've definitely had my share of calls where I just laugh. Someone came to me once and wanted to do a signature Hawk cologne. I was like, 'Of what? Sweaty pads? Am I wringing out my pads into a little perfume bottle?'
But if people will laugh at my work and keep a sound roof over my head, who am I to complain?
Most people laugh at situations rather than a tagline anyway.
The myth of my solitude makes me laugh.
To go from Girl, Interrupted, where I had to cry every day, to a TV show like West Wing where I get to laugh and joke around every day, has been a welcome relief.
Art should be serious, not a joke. I don't like to laugh about art.
A woman may have a witty tongue or a stinging pen but she will never laugh at her own individual shortcomings.
Why is it you feel like a dope if you laugh alone, but that's usually how you end up crying?
You can't make everybody laugh. You gotta just do what you think is funny. Just be obstreperous to everybody.
To really be on stage and not know what you're going to say, and to be able to say something that makes people laugh, or do something that's sort of abstract or off the beaten path and have people connect to it by just putting your ideas together, that really makes me happy.
Most of what gets made now, you laugh your way through, go home and forget you've seen it.
So much of what I do is so strictly confidential that it's nice to be able to discuss or vent or laugh about something and not read about it in the newspaper the next day.
Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying or getting overly angry or to maintain control.
It is very important as a human being to be able to laugh at yourself and circumstances and particularly as a Christian. We have to know that good times don't last always and bad times don't last always.
You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humor teaches tolerance.
I'm the kind of person who wants the people around me to be comfortable, to laugh, and to have a fabulous time - I want them to be as happy as I am.
One of the most beautiful things in the world I've ever seen or heard is people laughing, even when there seems to be so little reason for them to laugh.
