when all this started, I asked myself, 'Am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?'I decided I'm going to live---or at least try to live---the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.

“What I wanted was to explore various different levels of the comfort-crisis aspect of the nation. It's like Greek tragedy; [Bush and Stewart] are feminine and masculine versions of us. There's humor in it, but I think their transgressions are most important -- are their attempts to organize their pathologies: for George, the psychotic, and for Martha, the neurotic.”

“He has this ability to connect with you, to create rapport with people, ... He's very warm and very friendly he has a good sense of humor, laughs very easily. Obviously, when you see somebody like that you can feel this happiness, and you want some of it yourself.”

But if I could just get som ehint, some sign..." Conchita smiles, without humor, but with great affection. "That's the point behind faith," she says. "It's not something you can prove....I know you hate to hear this, but you either have it, or you don't.

We grow up opposing our parents only to become like them enough to oppose our children who behave as we once did—a reminder of how dreadful we were toward those now vindicated grandparents. And you thought God had no sense of humor.

Everything about you fascinates me, Sophie. The smell of your skin. The sound of your voice. Your long legs. Your sense of humor. Your personality. You don’t seem to need me, and if you don’t need me, it is much more gratifying that you want me.

I have great respect for my parents. I got such beautiful things from both of them. It doesn't mean that we didn't have our rough times, but they were remarkable people who were open-minded, creative and hard-working, and had great senses of humor.

I was a product of a divorced family and I used humor as a weapon to combat sadness. I used comedy to make my mother laugh in light of the darkness that she faced, and to me it became a very powerful tool at a very young age, at six. I saw how therapeutic it could be.

I've been encouraging documentary filmmakers to use more and more humor, and they're loath to do that because they think if it's a documentary it has to be deadly serious - it has to be like medicine that you're supposed to take. And I think it's what keeps the mass audience from going to documentaries.

I'm still trying to figure out how to write about cancer and my family's experience with it. If I had been able to write 'The Pura Principle' back in those days, I'm positive it would have had no humor in it. Which means the story would have been false.