34 Quotes by Max Eastman

Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together.

It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.

A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener's mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere at all or just where he didn't expect to go.

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.

Emotion is the surest arbiter of a poetic choice, and it is the priest of all supreme unions in the mind

I don't know why it is we are in such a hurry to get up when we fall down. You might think we would lie there and rest for a while.

A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is a joke

Robert Benchley has a style that is weak and lies down frequently to rest.

Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails. What puts man in a higher state of evolution is that he has got his laugh on the right end.