Serious Quotations | Page 5

Everything serious in the world is well approached by humour. It's a powerful and often quite subversive tool. I suppose there is an argument that could be made against me for being frivolous, but I do think a laugh is a very generous thing to give.

I don't ever try to make a serious social comment.

It's fun once in a while to do a serious part but I really enjoy doing comedy because I love to laugh.

I could definitely see myself making a serious movie or a drama in the future.

So let's be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

I'd have to say that my favorite kind of film is serious comedy. Comedy with serious underpinning. 'Little Miss Sunshine' is like that. That's my fave genre, if I had to pick one.

A true Englishman doesn't joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager.

I'm a quite serious actor who doesn't mind being ridiculously comic.

For me, art is always a kind of theater. When I started the spot paintings, I made them as an endless series. But I was never serious about it being an endless series. It was just an implied endless series. The theater means you just have to make it look good for that moment in the spotlight.

I think that comedy is one of the more serious things that you can do in our day, especially in the world that we're living in.

In about 9th grade, an English teacher told me I had a talent to act. He said I should audition for a performing arts high school, so I did on a whim. I got accepted. Then I got accepted at the Julliard School, and by then, I was serious about it.

I always loved the creative process, from 'Shakespeare in Love' to 'Finding Neverland' to 'Basquiat'; whether it's serious, or it's comedic, whether it's the 'inside look' at that, it seems to be a theme of what I do.

I was ten when I got my first serious beating. It was rough.

I am there to entertain. I call my work high escape fiction; it's high, it's good - but it's escape, and I have no delusions about that. I have no ambition to be a serious writer, whatever that means.

Most serious writers refuse to make themselves available to the things that technology is doing. I've never been able to understand this sort of fear.

I repeat that the distance between the earth and her satellite is a mere trifle, and undeserving of serious consideration. I am convinced that before twenty years are over, one-half of our earth will have paid a visit to the moon.

When I met Jack Kennedy, he was a serious young man with a dream. He was not a womanizer, not as I understood the term.

I view Al Jazeera as a very serious journalistic outfit. They have proven to observers around the world that they are serious and objective. They will have to, at a P.R. level, prove to the American public that that is the case. And I think that over time they will succeed at doing that.

There's a difference between early and late abortions. If you have a late abortion, where the fetus might feel pain, then I think you should have a good reason. Because then you're inflicting pain. As you go through the third trimester, you need to have more serious reasons to end a pregnancy.

The serious questions that are talked out or strangled with red tape are more numerous than those that are killed by silence; the number of people whose ideas are knocked on the head in societies is greater in our day than that of the solitary fighters who go under.

Groupthink can become a serious issue - old ideas stay around after they're useful, and new ideas too often don't get a fair hearing.

My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.

There is but one nation on the globe from which we have anything serious to apprehend, but that is the most powerful that now exists or ever did exist. I refer to Great Britain.

Know about the appeals process, especially in the case of the most serious crimes.

I believe it should be possible for someone stricken with a serious and ultimately fatal illness to choose to die peacefully with medical help, rather than suffer.

If you don't think there is any value in the work I, or any other serious journalists do, then don't spend your money on it. At least you have the choice.

To be honest, I haven't seen much serious budget planning since the Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 elections and grabbed onto the Senate filibuster. It's not the White House's fault that John Boehner couldn't deliver on a bigger deal.

There are times I go out and meet people and flirt, but it's not really appropriate to have anything serious.

The Project Angel Food Program's mission is to nourish the body and spirit of men, women and children affected by HIV/AIDS and other serious illness. The Project Angel Food Program delivers free and nutritious meals prepared with love. We act out of a sense of urgency because hunger and illness cannot wait.

Most women file for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious medical problem, a job loss, or a family break up. It is hard to protect against those.

There might be some serious fun in politics.

It is a truth universally acknowledged on Wall Street that original research is on life support. Serious research can be bad for business, as well as expensive.

To think of shadows is a serious thing.

The trouble with Nixon is that he's a serious politics junkie. He's totally hooked and like any other junkie, he's a bummer to have around, especially as President.

Keep your eyes peeled: Honor's the label to watch. It's quickly becoming a serious celebrity favorite - just ask fans Kirsten Dunst and Kelly Osbourne.

Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.

I never outgrew my conversion to atheism at 13, but at various times was a serious cultural Jew.

Once I realized that right thinking is vital to victorious living, I got more serious about thinking about what I was thinking about, and choosing my thoughts carefully.

I do have this reputation for being a serious person.

Creating whole departments of ethnic, gender, and other 'studies' was part of the price of academic peace. All too often, these 'studies' are about propaganda rather than serious education.

Fashion shows used to be more crazy. Now they've become a bit too serious.

If you are serious about American culture and you are serious about Afro-American culture, you are in a lot of pain. You are not - you are not smiling about it.

My reaction to a lot of the current situation that we're in is based in part on a serious concern that the present administration's course ignores reality.

I don't think I've ever seen a person having a serious conversation on a cellphone. It's like a kiddie thing, a complete time waster.

Elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery.

I really feel free and not as serious as I have been in the past.

Sure I do a lot of jokes about Anne Frank. But when you do those jokes, it makes people remember what happened to her. That process of bringing her story back doesn't have to be a serious one. What I say is all nonsense, but it helps to keep her memory alive.

'Discworld' is taking something that you know is ridiculous and treating it as if it is serious, to see if something interesting happens when you do so.

If you're serious, you really understand that it's important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you're the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you're funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.

The industry has to have the audience in order to make these films. So it's a serious thing - how do you get people to leave their houses and go to the theater?

If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.

Rolf Ekeus, his appearance can deceive. He looks somewhere between an international diplomat and a mad professor. He's got that sort of shock of white hair and a slightly absent-minded way of speaking. But he's extremely sharp and very serious about power relationships.

If we are serious about moving toward energy independence in a cost-effective way, we should invest in solar energy. If we are serious about cutting air and water pollution and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we should invest in solar energy.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

My discovery that black holes emit radiation raised serious problems of consistency with the rest of physics. I have now resolved these problems, but the answer turned out to be not what I expected.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.

I read serious books, but every now and then, I read just for fun.

Politics is - once in a while - a forum for serious debate about political philosophy.

The other reason is the concept of attitude. I didn't want to appear angry, but it's okay to appear serious or to not smile.

The possibility we'll have another Chavez acolyte in Peru represents a serious challenge to the economic model and a threat to democracy.

The possibility of preventative detention raises serious concern that such detention may be tantamount to derogation of the country's human rights obligations under international law.

The positive tone has more to do with the economic data that showed some signs of life in the economy. We've got through the Enron debacle and some selling that represented investors looking to lock in profits earlier on. Now we're starting to get a serious picture of what next year looks like, and it's probably the first serious step toward an upward move in the market.

We are properly placing kids so they can be challenged but not so challenged they shut down. Students should know going into this that it's serious business.

We believe that the appointment of a federal monitor, or any serious involvement of the U.S. attorney's office in the school's financial affairs, raises considerable uncertainty.

There are dangers that social difficulties can arise when you mix 11-year-olds with 15-year-olds. For example, if a 15-year-old was sent down to work with 11-year-olds that could lead to a serious loss of self-esteem and would be seen by peers as a sign of failure.

There are certainly human rights concerns. Very serious human rights concerns that I would like to have fully clarified,

There are board members who do not acknowledge the serious problems going on, and I do not know why,

We're in a world that faces serious problems with political stability in several key regions. People want to hold more supplies closer to home, and that's going to keep demand high for purchasing imported barrels.

We're in a war. We've got serious business to be doing,

Where the credit is really due is in the early part of Greenspan's tenure: being faced with the aftershocks of the Wall Street crash in 1987 and dealing with that quite well. He confronted some very serious potential crises and got us to a point where we avoided them and are better off than we might have been otherwise.

Where is the president when such serious events are taking place?

When you think commerce clause, don't think technical and meaningless. Think in what ways can the elected representatives of the people provide protection against serious harm.

When you start to build a serious wardrobe, the navy blazer is the very first piece you should choose. It can be a building block for an entire work and casual wardrobe.

There is no question Doug was a time bomb. More than anything, I'm glad we found this before anything serious happened on the field.

There is no other place that we have where we can use live fire as we do in Vieques. That would put a serious hole in our ability to conduct training to protect our troops, ... CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports.

Until we receive your commitment to follow through on their rhetorical offerings, we shall not treat these overtures as serious and will continue our efforts to force action on the daily floor proceedings until such time as we secure your personal confirmation on a fair and timely consideration on this important matter.

Until we know what they're dealing with, we don't know what it may cause, ... there are certain things which quite clearly would cause serious concern to the United States.

Until then, I wasn't really serious that it could happen. It worked out.

Until last year, Congress was just a club; we are trying to make it more serious and more influential for the student body. We are looking to reform our committees to make ourselves more respected and more advertised. We are trying to become more visible in the community as well as make Congress more visible on campus though we know we still have a long way to go.

We believe that economic development subsidies for job creation -- if they are serious about reducing poverty -- must be better integrated with public transit. These projects demonstrate many ways that localities are making that connection.

We believe that at this time it is probably in the best interest of the borough to give serious consideration now. I owe it to my mother in town.

We've always maintained that the whole premise of her candidacy has been silly. Ms. McFarland is not a serious candidate and once again she's proved it.

Tom said people in our country should not live like this. We filed law suits in Dona Ana County and it worked for two reasons. The developers knew they would be held accountable and there was some serious reform of the New Mexico Subdivision Act.

We respectfully object to the committee's broad request for all information concerning all persons who have contributed or pledged more than $5,000 to the foundation. There are serious and substantial legal, precedential and public policy issues raised by this catch-all request.

We respect and defend the right of the Church to address questions of values, but it is very serious to receive only one of the candidates for prime minister just ahead of the ballot.

We respect and appreciate the bipartisan agreement established by this Senate, ... We intend to use the time we have been provided to present a compelling case on the serious charges pending against the President.

We're going to take the president's submission as a serious proposal, and we're going to see where we can go and how we can work with the White House and the Democrats,

What we're seeing now with eBay is an end to the monopoly. The company faces a serious challenge over the next 10 years.

We find kids that have serious dental problems, then encourage their parents to call and make an appointment. Not necessarily with us. It could be with anyone.

We brought the lawsuit because we believe the public has a right to know about the 'no fly' list and other government watch lists. And we succeeded in doing so by making public hundreds of pages of documents that not only confirmed the existence of the 'no fly' list, but exposed many of the serious problems with the secret list. Only by informed public debate can we make our government accountable and our country safer.

We believe this young man has committed a serious crime deserving of punishment, but not the loss of his life.

We believe this represents a fundamental shift for the company and, at a minimum, indicates management is serious about considering all options for profitable growth.

What little data I've seen suggests that only about 25 percent of businesses have taken deliberate, serious action. And certainly the larger corporations would be the ones that would begin the process. Let's face it, a small company probably would not have the capability of taking very dramatic action.

What's most tragic is that this denial of basic education leads to over 1 million unnecessary child and maternal deaths a year. Moreover, children who have never seen the inside of a classroom are precisely those that face the most acute poverty, and should be the prime target of the international community if it is at all serious about realizing the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals of halving extreme poverty by 2015.

We're going to have fun even with the serious topic. We invite all young people and adults. We not only want them there, it's necessary they be there.

Unless the US stock market enters a serious downtrend for some reason, the domestic stock market should continue its bull run going forward.

Unless the situation is reversed, at some point these budget trends will cause serious economic disruptions,

Unless there is serious reform there, the euro won't regain investor confidence.

Unless serious concessions are made by all sides ... the Doha round of trade talks will fail and the people who will suffer the most are the world's poor.

Universities have been around for a long time. It's not unusual to have blips like this. I think it becomes serious when you have four or five presidents in a row who only last two or three years.