A Quote by Billy Collins

The really authentic thing about humor is that anyone can pretend to be serious. Anyone who's ever had a job - in fact, we're pretending to be serious now, more or less.

Billy Collins

Quote Topics

About Anyone Authentic Ever Fact Had Humor In Fact Job Less More More Or Less Now Pretend Pretending Really Serious Thing

Quote Author

Billy Collins
American - Poet
Born: March 22, 1941

There's something very authentic about humor, when you think about it. Anybody can pretend to be serious. But you can't pretend to be funny.

Billy Collins

I always try to be ironistic in everything I do. I love people who understand humor and who live through humor. So, of course, I was not too serious covering such things as Motörhead or "Black Magic Woman" by Santana. But I was serious enough about Led Zeppelin and the Celtic song "Wild Mountain Thyme." In my life, serious and humor are always together.

Albert Kuvezin

I realize that homosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is - but then, of course, heterosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is, too. And being a man is a serious problem and being a woman is, too. Lots of things are problems.

Edward Gorey

Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn't know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world.

B. Traven

When someone says to me "I want to be enlightened." I immediately take a vacation because I know that the person isn't serious. I've never met anyone who's serious about enlightenment

Frederick Lenz

The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious. More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to "the serious." One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious.

Susan Sontag

We need to get serious about defeating ISIS; we just aren't serious about it yet. I would be very serious about getting it done. I know how to do it. We need to take the fight to them on the battlefield in a more serious way.

Evan McMullin

The only time anyone has ever gotten into serious trouble was when he decided he could do nothing about something.

L. Ron Hubbard

Anyone who really loves you wants you to be authentic. And anyone who doesn't want you to be authentic doesn't really love you.

Nathaniel Branden

I like telling stories with a sense of humor. But humor can also distance you from the subject you're writing about. I'm interested in using humor as a portal to something a bit more serious.

Jens Lekman

The hard part about writing about a guy like John Brown is that he was so serious, and his cause was so serious, that most of what's been written about him is really serious and, in my opinion, a little bit boring.

James McBride

The essence of my lyrics is the desire for peace and harmony. That's all anyone has ever wanted. How could it become outdated?...We are trying to communicate a fulfilled ideal...I am a reflection of what I sing. Sometimes I have to get serious because the things I've been through are serious...The way I see it, rock n' roll is folk music.

Robert Plant

I think humor is actually a very serious thing. I think the people who shaped culture, for the better, in the last 50 years or so, more than almost anyone else are people like Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor and even Chris Rock, back when he was doing the edgier stuff.

John Lurie

I'd be curious to find out, but I don't think people in the entertainment industry are proportionally more or less serious politically than anyone in the landscaping industry.

David Cross

I had a serious and rather drunken research session with the great Charles MacLean, who took me through the history of whisky and malts. I can't remember a thing about it now. In fact I don't think I remembered a thing about it the following morning. Very, very entertaining.