A Quote by Alexandra Petri

George Washington didn't have to make us laugh; he just had to establish precedents and avoid chopping down more cherry trees than he could possibly help. But somewhere along the line, Americans began expecting their presidents to do more than just govern. They also had to make us laugh.

Alexandra Petri

Quote Topics

Along Also Avoid Began Cherry Cherry Trees Chopping Could Down Establish Expecting George George W Govern Had Help Just Laugh Line Make More Possibly Presidents Somewhere Than Trees Us Washington

Quote Author

Alexandra Petri
American - Journalist

Call listened with amusement--not that the incident hadn't been terrible. Being decapitated was a grisly fate, whether you were a Yankee or not. But then, amusing things happened in battle, as they did in the rest of life. Some of the funniest things he had ever witnessed had occurred during battles. He had always found it more satisfying to laugh on a battlefield than anywhere else, for if you lived to laugh on a battlefield, you could feel you had earned the laugh. But if you just laughed in a saloon, or at a social, the laugh didn't reach deep.

Larry McMurtry

People expect us to be different, but we're not. We're very similar people, and it's because we're so similar and close to each other that we make each other laugh - in fact we make each other laugh more than we make anyone else laugh.

Adrian Edmondson

I believe that I am more conservative than George W. Bush. However, it is important to note that he has had to govern, which often necessitates political compromise, I had not had to make any such concessions.

Jeff Gannon

From what type of software could help us make a movie faster to everything else regarding the textures. Some might think, "It's probably very easy to make a film with those textures," but it's much more difficult than what it appears to be. We had to discover a faster process because otherwise it could have taken us 10 years to make it.

Alex Abreu

I guess, for me, I've always thought that there was humor everywhere. And as a kid, I just, you know, I grew up an only child, and I - sort of nothing made me happier than to make my parents laugh. I remember I had costumes and things laying around the house that I was, you know, anything that I could do to make my parents laugh.

Justin Timberlake

The funny thing is, when I've gone through the relentless editing process, my editor and I are amazed the Mercy Watson books still make us laugh. The same jokes that made us laugh the first time around still make us laugh in the 16th rendition.

Kate DiCamillo

I'm honored that other comedians like what I do. That means the world to me. But at the same time when I'm on stage I'm not just trying to make the comedians laugh - I'm also trying to make the audience laugh. I want to make everybody laugh.

Brian Regan

At first the cartoon medium was just a novelty, but it never really began to hit until we had more than tricks... until we developed personalities. We had to get beyond getting a laugh. They may roll in the aisles, but that doesn't mean you have a great picture. You have pathos in the thing.

Walt Disney

If you're asking me what I love, it's that point where I'm just scribbling and trying to make myself laugh and trying to outrage myself. Getting in that frame of mind where the more you laugh the more you laugh - I think that's what I'm attempting to do.

Barry Blitt

Laughter is more than just a pleasurable activity...When people laugh together, they tend to talk and touch more and to make eye contact more frequently.

Gretchen Rubin

I've been doing comedy since I was two. You know, kids who make other kids laugh. The sickness had set in! I could make my friends' parents laugh; I had a sense of what was silly and funny.

Albert Brooks

We have had more brilliant Presidents than Cleveland, and one or two who were considerably more profound, but we have never had one, at least since Washington, whose fundamental character was solider and more admirable.

H. L. Mencken

If I can make you laugh and learn, I want to be like George Carlin and Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy and Sam Kinison and Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle. I want to be of that ilk, I don't want to just make you laugh, I want to make you think.

Ralphie May

Words cause pain, they evoke anger, they make us hate, they lead us to war. But they also make us laugh, bring us joy, and satisfying our emotional hungers.

Marlene Caroselli

I wanted to do another movie that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world. I wanted to do something else that could make us smile. This is a time when we need to smile more and Hollywood movies are supposed to do that for people in difficult times.