A Quote by Elif Batuman

I think humor is a really important way of creating solidarity - like, through humor you can make people realize that certain situations, where they thought they were alone, are actually shared by everyone.
I can't fall apart every time I mention that my mother's gone. I actually laugh about stories or things or situations. Of course there's a wound that will never be patched up, but I approach it with humor. Of course, I don't overlook it and go straight for the humor, but I think we have to have humor to move forward.
I like the way that Dexter mixed humor, dark humor and tragedy, in a way I don't think that I've seen another show do. To handle those tonal shifts with so much confidence. Normally, you can mix humor and dark humor, you can mix dark humor and tragedy, but to mix all three... There are just moments with Robin and Reuben, the next door neighbors, that are just funny.
I actually pay careful attention to that sort of thing - infusing humor into my films - because that's how important I think humor is.
For us what we're trying to do is find the right balance of creating a space for emotion that leads to a sense of empathy and solidarity rather than a sense of division. In my most grandiose moments I think of HuffPost as a platform that makes solidarity possible, that really thinking about the emotional content of stories is a way to help people who think, or who have been manipulated to think, that they're interests are opposed to one another, that they actually are aligned in a fundamental way and they're actually in the same boat.
One thing a girl has to have is a good sense of a humor. I'm a really laid back guy who can find humor in just about anything, so my girlfriend would need to be a little like that too. She doesn't have to be a big jokester, but to me finding humor in things and not taking too much too seriously is a way of enjoying life, so that is important to me.
Humor is not a mood but a way of looking at the world. So if it is correct to say that humor was stamped out in Nazi Germany, that does not mean that people were not in good spirits, or anything of that sort, but something much deeper and more important.
I think shows that are completely dramatic are a lie. People use humor to cope. That is how we deal with things. In the darkest situations, there's humor. And if you don't show that, you're not being true to real life.
From a simple, mammal perspective, you think you're going to make friends through the movie. You think, "Oh, this kind of humor that I play with will bring people that have a similar kind of humor. I'll make new friends," or something. You don't even think in terms of audience or of money.
I compare Stephen Sondheim with humor, because humor is unanalyzable. You can't analyze humor. You just have to get through it.
I think that sense of humor is important in marriage. A sense of humor gets people through marriage.
The American public highly overrates its sense of humor. We're great belly laughers and prat fallers, but we never really did have a real sense of humor. Not satire anyway. We're a fatheaded, cotton-picking society. When we realize finally that we aren't God's given children, we'll understand satire. Humor is really laughing off a hurt, grinning at misery.
The irony or humor of my pieces is never really calculated, but they somehow always end up that way. Humor, especially when dealing with matters of extreme gravity, has a way of toppling set ideas and opening up new modes of interpretation. Furthermore, adding humor tends to shift the power balance.
Humor is important in everything. Dress with a little humor and you can go a long way.
I think the essence of humor has not changed. It's all about surprise, facilitating follows. But the context of humor has changed. Previously, the jokes were more related to current issues, political. Today people make about each other either funny or about people like Kim Kardashian. It's brutal. Everything is so much vielschmutziger.
Somebody who opposes Trump is wound so tight, they're not funny people anyway, that they don't get his humor. They really believe when he tells these jokes that that's dead serious stuff. There's not enough laughter on the left. Even their comedians are angry. Their comedians, the humor they shoot for is all personal put-down kind of humor where it used to not be that way. But Trump's humor, even the stuff that's not subtle, they miss, they take it literally and are frightened to death by it. It's incredible.
It's interesting, a lot of my friends and family thought that was the moment I kind of showed everyone my humor; the silly side of me that friends and family know, so that could be what people were responding to. I have a big sense of humor, and people who know me know that silly side of me, so moving forward, I think it gives me the freedom and confidence to do more of that.
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