Kevin Stilley

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Woody Allen – select quotes

Can we actually know the universe? My goodness, it is hard enough finding your way around in Chinatown.

I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
~ in Without Feathers

His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.

I’m astounded by people who want to ‘know’ the universe when it’s hard enough to find your way around Chinatown.

I’m not afraid of death. It’s just that I don’t want to be there when it happens.

My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.

The lion and the lamb will lie down together, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.

The universe is merely a fleeting idea in God’s mind–a pretty uncomfortable thought, particularly if you just made a down payment on a house.

To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness. I hope you’re getting this down.

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Woody Allen

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Laughter and Metaphysics

In A Students Guided to Liberal Learning James V. Schall writes, “Aristotle said that , because both depend on seeing relations, the ability to laugh is very close to metaphysics.” Thus, he recommends the following three books of humor;

1) The Wodehouse Clergy (P.G. Wodehouse)

2) My Life and Hard Times (James Thurber)

3) The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash (Ogden Nash)

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Henny Youngman – select quotes

I’ve got two wonderful children — and two out of five isn’t too bad.

Some people ask the secret of our long marriage. We take time to go to a restaurant two times a week. A little candlelight, dinner, soft music and dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

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Jonathan Winters – Select Quotes

I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.

Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.

Now the freaks are on television, the freaks are in the movies. And it’s no longer the sideshow, it’s the whole show. The colorful circus and the clowns and the elephants, for all intents and purposes, are gone, and we’re dealing only with the freaks.

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Will Rogers – select quotes

A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

Even if you’re on the right road, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

I don’t make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts.

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.

There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.

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Almost Miss USA

Is honesty the best policy? That is the question that is being hotly debated following the dissing of Carrie Prejean, Miss California. Both Donald Trump and Perez Hilton admitted that Miss Prejean’s chances of winning the Miss USA Pageant were nullified when she honestly shared her religious and political convictions when asked to do so during the Interview portion of the pageant.

In an interesting twist, her future prospects may be better served by having lost the event than had she gone on to victory. She has been on the media circuit twenty-four hours a day and more people know her name than that of pageant winner Kristen Dalton. Numerous opportunities have already been made available to Prejean with more in the wings.

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genie

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I recently spent a few days reading the book of a former Miss America contestant, Jeanne Swanner Robertson.

Jeanne was the contestant from North Carolina in 1963. She did not win the pageant, but did take home the award for Miss Congenialty. As Jeanne tells it, Miss Congeniality is the person whom the other contestants believe to be the least likely to actually win the title of Miss America. Standing 6’2″ in her stocking feet, she is also recognized as the tallest contestant to ever participate in the Miss America Pageant. (When not in her stocking feet she wears size 11B shoes.)

Following her attempt at the crown, Jeanne Robertson coached basketball and taught physical education for nine years, before turning her hand to speaking as a profession. As a humorist she has traveled the nation, and abroad, as a speaker for all kinds of events. In this book, Humor: The Magic of Genie, she shares what she has learned from all those hours spent at the speakers platform, in airplanes and taxis, and interacting with people of all kinds.

Humor: The Magic of Genie is not a “how-to” book for aspiring comedians. It is a guide for anyone who sees the value in developing a sense of humor. She organizes her book around seven “potions”.

1. Laugh at yourself.

2. Look for the humor in everyday situations.

3. Create your own humor.

4. Associate with people who have a sense of humor.

5. Influence others to develop a sense of humor.

6. See the humor in stressful, awkward, or unpleasant situations.

7. Take humor breaks/collect humor cues.

And, in the course of encouraging her reader to a more fulfilling life that embraces humor not as a mode for dealing with life, but as part of life itself, Jeanne shares plenty of her favorite stories.

Humor: The Magic of Genie was a welcome break from my textbooks and hopefully I benefited from it in that I am now better equipped to laugh at with my students, family, friends, and colleagues.

Now, can someone help me find the humor in this year’s Miss USA stupidity?

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Video: Miss California, Carrie Prejean, on the Good Morning America television program.

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