I laugh because I dare not cry. This is a crazy world and the only way to enjoy it is to treat it as a joke.

I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.

I am forced, as I have often said, to try to make myself laugh, that I may not cry: for one or other I must do.

I'm happy...I laugh as much as I can and cry when I have to, without apology. I think that’s happy.

I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
And my throat
Is deep with song,
You do not think
I suffer after
I have held my pain
So long?

Because my mouth
Is wide with laughter
You do not hear
My inner cry?
Because my feet
Are gay with dancing
You do not know
I die?

Gentlemen, why do you not laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me day and night, if I did not laugh, I should die.

The more tragic things get, the more I feel like laughing.

I still get laughed at but it doesn't bother me, I'm just so glad to hear laughter around me.

I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others — The only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad.

If I can laugh, I can live.

Now if there's a smile on my face,
It's only there tryin' to fool the public,
But when it comes down to foolin' you;
Now honey, that's quite a different subject.
But don't let my glad expression
Give you the wrong impression.
Really I'm sad.
I'm sadder than sad.
You're gone and I'm hurtin' so bad.
Like a clown I pretend to be glad.

I have noticed that when I am most serious people are apt to laugh at me, and indeed when after a lapse of time I have read passages that I wrote from the fullness of my heart I have been tempted to laugh at myself. It must be that there is something naturally absurd in a sincere emotion, though why there should be I cannot imagine, unless it is that man, the ephemeral inhabitant of an insignificant planet, with all his pain and all his striving is but a jest in an eternal mind.

I'm ridiculous to feel ridiculous when I'm not. You must be laughing at me for feeling you are laughing at me if you are not laughing at me.