A Quote by Charles Willeford

Just tell the truth, and they'll accuse you of writing black humor.

Charles Willeford

Quote Topics

Accuse Black Black Humor Humor Just Tell Truth Writing

Quote Author

Charles Willeford
American - Writer
January 2, 1919 - March 27, 1988

Dali Lama said, 'when you open the heart of the person with humor, you can tell him the most truth. But if you tell him truth without humor, the heart closes.'

Marina Abramovic

I use a lot of humor in my writing. But it's completely black humor.

Kurt Vile

I tell the truth and I don't try to sugarcoat things. But I also decided that if you don't use humor or satire, then it's just too dark all the time. And one of my favorite literary works is A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. As you know, that was an enormously famous satire piece that was able to point out, you know, things to people in a different way. And I do believe that satire and humor can reveal truth in a way that sometimes doesn't get revealed through other means. And so I decided to, every now and then, use satire and humor as well.

Ted Lieu

Writing has to do with truth-telling. When you're writing, let's say, an essay for a magazine, you try to tell the truth at every moment. You do your best to quote people accurately and get everything right. Writing a novel is a break from that: freedom. When you're writing a novel, you are in charge; you can beef things up.

Nicholson Baker

Sure, I am funny and have a good sense of humor. Mostly, though, I just tell the truth. The internal dialogue people have in their heads - I just write it.

Kara Swisher

My job is to work at song writing and singing and telling the truth in song writing. My job is to be courageous enough to go on stage and tell the truth, the same truth that's gone into my song writing.

Beth Hart

The only rule I have when writing is to try to tell the truth. That doesn't mean you can't exaggerate, edit, rewrite things to make them more dramatic. But emotional truth is what I look for in writing.

Erica Jong

Sometimes I don't tell the truth, which is telling the truth about not telling the truth. I think people don't tell the truth when they're afraid that something bad's going to happen if they tell the truth. I say things all the time that I could really get into trouble for, but they kind of blow over.

Cher

Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.

Victor Borge

Like I tell people they wind up having short term pleasure and long term pain. I'm a tell what Minister Louis Farrakhan said, "Black people ain't poor, they just don't spend wisely" and that's the truth.

Mr. T

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

Black people are not a monolith. Black people have different thoughts. And sometimes people just need to hear the harsh truth - even myself. But you can't manufacture a hard truth and place it on somebody. When Kanye says slavery was a choice, that's not a harsh truth.

JPEGMAFIA

You write the way you think about the world. My motto in times of trouble - and I'm speaking of life, not writing - is 'no humor too black.'

Elizabeth McCracken

The truth of the matter is, I am a black woman, and I am an actor. I don't try to get caught up in being a black actor; I'm just an actor who is a black woman. It's not about forgetting that you're black, but you don't need to be hammered over the head, either; it just is what it is.