The Lighten Up Book. Allen Klein

      S. J. Perelman

      I tend to head for what’s amusing because a lot of things aren’t happy. But usually you can find a funny side to practically anything.

      Maggie Smith

      Kids can amuse themselves with almost anything.

      Allen Klein

      Wearing underwear on the outside of your clothes can turn a tedious trip to the store for a forgotten carton of milk into an amusement park romp.

      Hunter “Patch” Adams

      When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the color-petals out of a fruitful flower.

      John Ruskin

      The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

      Voltaire

      Be amusing; never tell unkind stories; above all, never tell long ones.

      Benjamin Disraeli

      You live but once; you might as well be amusing.

      Coco Chanel

      The whole object of comedy is to be yourself, and the closer you get to that, the funnier you will be.

      Jerry Seinfeld

C

cheer●cheerful●chuckle clown●comedian comedy●comic●comical

      cheer n 1. state of mind; feeling; spirit; mood 2. gladness; joy; gaiety; encouragement

      cheer vt 1. to make happy or glad 2. To grow or be cheerful

      cheer●ful adj gay; joyful; full of cheer cheer●ful●ly adv cheer●ful●ness n

      Be of good cheer.

      William Shakespeare

      While there is a chance of the world getting through its troubles, I hold that a reasonable man has to behave as though he were sure of it. If at the end your cheerfulness is not justified, at any rate you will have been cheerful.

      H. G. Wells

      Fake feeling good… You’re going to have to learn to fake cheerfulness. Believe it or not, eventually that effort will pay off: you’ll actually start feeling happier.

      Jean Bach

      I can’t be happy every day, but I can be cheerful.

      Beverly Sills

      Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

      Joseph Addison

      A glad heart makes a cheerful countenance…a cheerful heart has a continual feast.

      Proverbs 15:13–15

      Since God has given me a cheerful heart, He will forgive me for serving Him cheerfully.

      Franz Joseph Haydn

      Nothing is more beautiful than cheerfulness in an old face.

      Jean Paul Richter

      A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn’t let them get her down.

      Beverly Sills

      Cheerfulness is like money well expended in charity; the more we dispense of it, the greater our possession.

      Victor Hugo

      The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.

      Mark Twain

      chuck●le vi to laugh in mild amusement, softly in a low tone

      A chuckle a day may not keep the doctor away, but it sure does make those times in life’s waiting room a little more bearable.

      Anne Wilson Schaef

      clown n a person who plays the fool, invents jokes or pranks; a buffoon

      A clown is like aspirin, only he works twice as fast.

      Groucho Marx

      Though the clown is often deadpan, he is a connoisseur of laughter.

      Mel Gussow

      A clown sees life simply, without complications.

      George Bishop

      A clown is a poet in action.

      Henry Miller

      A good clown caricatures his fellow men;

      a great one parodies himself.

      Pierre Mariel

      It is meat and drink to me to see a clown.

      William Shakespeare

      The arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than of twenty asses laden with drugs.

      Thomas Sydenham

      The comic spirit masquerades in all things we say and do.

      We are each a clown and do not need to put on a white face.

      James Hillman

      Clowns are ordinary folk, jest like you and me, only worse.

      Edward Fitchner

      I remain just one thing and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.

      Charlie Chaplin

      The more one suffers, the more, I believe, one has a sense of the comic. It is only by the deepest suffering that one acquires the authority in the art of the comic.

      Søren Kierkegaard

      What a fine comedy this world would be if one did not play a part in it.

      Denis Diderot

      God writes a lot of comedy…the trouble is, he’s stuck with so many bad actors who don’t know how to play funny.

      Garrison Keillor

      Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you.

      Mel Brooks

      The art of the clown is more profound than we think… It is the comic mirror of tragedy and the tragic mirror of comedy.

      André Suarès

      Clown and guru are a single identity: the satiric and sublime side of the same higher vision of life.

      Theodore Rozak

      Send in the clowns.

      Stephen Sondheim

      co●me●di●an n one who plays comic parts

      com●e●dy n the humorous element in life or in a literary work; an amusing event or events

      com●ic adj having to do with comedy; intended to be humorous, funny, amusing com●ic n

      com●i●cal adj causing laughter because of humor unexpectedly introduced

      com●i●cal●it●y n com●i●cal●ly adv

      Professor to student: “Ask me what is the secret to comedy.”

      Student: “What is the secret—”

      Professor: “Timing!”

      Anonymous

      Comedy has to be truth. You take the truth and put a little curlicue at the end.

      Sid Caesar

      Comedy breaks down walls.

      Goldie