Edward St Aubyn Quotes

Why do we laugh at such terrible things? Because comedy is often the sarcastic realization of inescapable tragedy.

I can find the worst thing in the world funny. My humour is dark. If I'm talking about the worst situations in my life, it's like a comedy - you can laugh at my pain.

I'm inspired by making people laugh at subjects that should make them cry.

I was a scared kid... I think I was born a nervous wreck, and I think movies were one way to find a way transferring my own private horrors to everyone else's lives. It was less of an escape and more of an exorcism.

Comedy arises out of necessity, because some things are so dark that you have to laugh about it.

Bad humor is an evasion of reality; good humor is an acceptance of it.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

I am a passionate believer that comedy is a way of tackling some of the most dark and difficult aspects of being a human being.

The difference between tragedy and comedy: Tragedy is something awful happening to somebody else, while comedy is something awful happening to somebody else.

'The Sundial' is written with the kind of humor that would make a guillotine laugh.

There are really two types of laughter on the part of the spectator. There is the laughter of recognition - which means seeing things you're familiar with and laughing at yourself. But there's also hysterical laughter - a way of dealing with the things we see that upset us.

All people are sad clowns. That's the key to comedy - and it's a buffer against reality.

I think when people are scared, they like to see movies where the scares are not real.

A lot of my work has been about stuff I've been frightened of: cliffs, explosions, meteorites, that kind of stuff. I would have been this trembling blob of fear if I hadn't got into making art, which is a good way of deferring it.

There used to be such a thing as a sick joke, or laughing at misfortune, because comedy and laughter are a way of coping. And there is a kind of cruelty to it, but you can separate finding something horrible funny, and what you really think of it.

I find myself laughing at really bad situations.

The horror genre is real cathartic. It allows us to bring out the things that scare us and get it out and have an emotional release.

Horror serves a cathartic role in human society, all throughout the world. It is a way of confronting the darkness, both within and without.

A lot of my comedy is to do with being angry, then finding a way to channel that.

The things we laugh at are awful while they are going on, but get funny when we look back. And other people laugh because they've been through it too. The closest thing to humor is tragedy.

All the energy of their frustration and fear going into their laughter.

Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time - of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid.

Comedy defends the commonplace; tragedy explodes it.

Humor is the mistress of tears.

Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.