A Quote by Marshall McLuhan

Jokes are grievances.

Marshall McLuhan

Quote Topics

Jokes

Quote Author

Marshall McLuhan
Canadian - Sociologist
July 21, 1911 - December 31, 1980

When people become too intense, too serious, they will have trouble in relating to any sort of social game or norm. Perhaps this is why jokes are so important. On one hand they tell us about where the problems and grievances are, and, at the same time, they provide the means of enduring these grievances by laughing at the problems.

Marshall McLuhan

You know, Hillary Clinton's out there saying, we need smart diplomacy. We need to do smart power. And that means empathizing with our enemy, understanding their grievances, like we understand the grievances of homosexuals, like we understand the grievances of African-Americans. We must learn to understand the grievances of ISIS.

Rush Limbaugh

Talking about your grievances merely adds to those grievances. Give recognition only to what you desire.

Thomas Dreier

It's a weakness to apologize before hearing what the other person's grievances are. You don't want to end up creating new grievances where there were none to begin with. Another Daddy-ism, if you hadn't already guessed.

Gabrielle Zevin

Literature is an ethical leap. It is a moral decision. A perilous exercise in constant failure. Literature should have grievances, because there are so many grievances in the world.

Miguel Syjuco

It is easier to recount grievances and slights than it is to set down a broad redress of such grievances and slights. The reason is that one fears to be thought of as an arrant braggart.

Elizabeth Kenny

Comedy is grievances. It's a recitation of grievances - whether they're inconsequential, superficial - like "my wife shops too much", or "kids today", all those old-fashioned themes - or, if it's deeper, and somewhat more thoughtful, about social imbalance and inequities, and the folly of human behavior. It's usually a complaint.

George Carlin

When you talk about your troubles, your ailments, your diseases, your hurts, you give longer life to what makes you unhappy. Talking about your grievances merely adds to those grievances. Give recognition only to what you desire. Think and talk only about the good things that add to your enjoyment of your work and life. If you don't talk about your grievances, you'll be delighted to find them disappearing quickly.

Thomas Dreier

I use mother-in-law jokes, kid jokes, tax jokes - anything that works.

Nipsey Russell

There are two kinds of jokes - funny jokes and Jack Benny jokes.

Fred Allen

People would say, "Oh, you say you just do jokes." I don't just do jokes. I do jokes. Jokes are important. They saved my life when I was younger. Hopefully we're making things nicer at the end of the day for people. That's the entire goal, and that's the touchstone and the North Star for the tone.

Stephen Colbert

I had a moment where I was onstage once... As a comedian, you just think, 'Be funny as possible all the time - like, funny at all costs - jokes, jokes, jokes.' That's how my mentality was.

Whitney Cummings

The jokes are great but what really matters for a comedian is his performance, his whole attitude, and the laughs that he gets between the jokes rather than on top of the jokes.

Jack Dee

I'm a taker in terms of jokes. I love to hear a good joke, but I don't retain jokes. I'm not a good teller of jokes.

Steve Carell

I learned all those jokes in second grade. Second grade is really where they tell you those horrific jokes, racist jokes and misogynistic jokes that you have no idea what they mean, and you just memorize them because they have a very strong effect, they make people laugh in this kind of nervous, horrible way, and it's only later that you realize that you've got a head full of crap.