A Quote by Elizabeth McCracken

Short fiction is like low relief. And if your story has no humor in it, then you're trying to look at something in the pitch dark. With the light of humor, it throws what you're writing into relief so that you can actually see it.

Elizabeth McCracken

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Elizabeth McCracken
American - Author
Born: 1966

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.

Jane Espenson

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

I feel like I don't really have a sense of humor... I don't know if I could characterize it dark or light. I just - I do like humor.

Sandra Oh

I was always kind of finding humor to be an access point to the conversation, to a pain relief, if you will. My mother was in a wheelchair since I was very young, so she was in pain and we used humor.

Tom Shadyac

Writing a short story is a little like walking into a dark room, finding a light and turning it on. The light is the end of the story.

Dan Chaon

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

I like dark humor. I think the world is very funny and tragic, and my photographs are basically dark Jewish humor.

William Klein

I'm more than a little suspicious of humor in poems, because I think it can at times be a way of getting a reaction out of a reader, or an audience, that is something closer to relief: i.e., thank god this isn't poetry, but stand-up comedy. Some poets are really funny, but more often poets are fourth rate stand up comics at best. But they benefit from the sheer relief of the audience.

Matthew Zapruder

Humor and laughter are not necessarily the same thing. Humor permits us to see into life from a fresh and gracious perspective. We learn to take ourselves more lightly in the presence of good humor. Humor gives us the strength to bear what cannot be changed, and the sight to see the human under the pompous.

Joan D. Chittister

In looking for humor, keep in mind this guideline: Sometimes it takes a little time to see the humor in your upsets; you may not find something to laugh about immediately.

Allen Klein

When I look at a lot of older stuff that I've written, I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.

David Sedaris

You know what make me laugh? Good, clean, honest humor. Not-trying-to-be-funny humor. Like Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell got that kind of humor.

Redman

When you work with new people, I think that it throws all of the matters into relief, because you have to explain yourself every time. It's like crossing a new border. They want to see your documents.

Elvis Costello

Going to AA helped me to see that there were other people who had problems that had found a way to talk about them and find relief and humor through that.

Carrie Fisher

Working on newspapers, you're writing to a certain length, often very brief pieces; you tend to look for easy forms of humor - women can't drive, things like that. That's about the level of a lot of newspaper humor. It becomes a form of laziness.

Tom Wolfe

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it ... what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is, and you must laugh. Humor is your own unconscious therapy. Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.

Langston Hughes

A Quote by Elizabeth McCracken

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