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People hate it when they're tickled because laughter is not pleasant, if it goes on too long. I think it's a desperate sort of convulsion in desperate circumstances, which helps a little.

— Kurt Vonnegut

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More quotes by Kurt Vonnegut

Maybe God has let everybody who ever lived be reborn — so he or she can see how it ends.

Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970)

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Mother Night (1962)

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.

Mother Night (1962)

Belief is nearly the whole of the Universe, whether based on truth or not.

Bluebeard (1987)

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Player Piano (1952)

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Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

Albert Einstein Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.

William Hazlitt Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.

Karl Barth The Harper Book of Quotations (1993)

Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt,
And every grin so merry draws one out.

John Wolcot

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Kurt Vonnegut (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.