It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of human kind.

An odd outlook on life is the beginning of good comedic writing.

At the risk of appearing disingenuous, I don’t really think of myself as "writing humor." I’m simply reporting on the world I observe, which is frequently hilarious. Here’s the thing. Most of what we witness in life is too complex to take in whole. Because of this we unconsciously edit what we see, select what to really record and what to ignore, which is why people who look at the same thing don’t necessarily see the same thing...Comic writers don’t so much invent funny things as strip away the distractions, the impediments to laughter.

When we peek behind the grinning mask of comic cynicism, we find a frustrated idealist. The comic sensibility wants the world to be perfect, but when it looks around, it finds greed, corruption, lunacy. The result is an angry and depressed artist. If you doubt that, ask one over for dinner. Every host in Hollywood has made that mistake: “Let’s invite some comedy writers to the party! That’ll brighten things up.” Sure… till the paramedics arrive. These angry idealists, however, know that if they lecture the world about what a rotten place it is, no one will listen. But if they trivialize the exalted, pull the trousers down on snobbery, if they expose society for its tyranny, folly, and greed, and get people to laugh, then maybe things will change. Or balance. So God bless comedy writers. What would life be like without them?

If you understand comedy, you understand life. Drama, death, tragedy – everybody has these. But with humour you've got all these, and the antidote. You have found the answer. It doesn't follow that because you are a good comedy writer, you're a happy fellow. I've got one of the most miserable faces in the world. I am only happy when I am working. If I'm not working, I get screwed up because my time is going, my life is slipping by.

En ce sens, on pourrait dire que la nature obtient souvent elle-même des succès de caricaturiste. Dans le mouvement par lequel elle a fendu cette bouche, rétréci ce menton, gonflé cette joue, il semble qu'elle ait réussi à aller jusqu'au bout de sa grimace, trompant la surveillance modératrice d'une force plus raisonnable. Nous rions alors d'un visage qui est à lui-même pour ainsi dire, sa propre caricature.

The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible.

If reason be judge, no writer has produced such inconsistent characters as nature herself has. It must call for no small sagacity in a reader unerringly to discriminate in a novel between the inconsistencies of conception and those of life. As elsewhere, experience is the only guide here; but as no one man’s experience can be coextensive with what is, it may be unwise in every case to rest upon it.

The dramatist is fascinated by the inner life, the passions and sins, madness and dreams of the human heart. But not the comedy writer. He fixes on the social life - the idiocy, arrogance, and brutality in society. The comedy writer singles out a particular institution that he feels has become encrusted with hypocrisy and folly, then goes on the attack. Often we can spot the social institution under assault by noting the film's title.

The author had not followed the precedents of any other artist, nor has he been able to copy Nature itself.. ..He who departs from Nature will surely merits high esteem, since he has to put before thee yes of the public forms and poses which have existed previously in the darkness and confusion of an irrational mind..

Thus nature gets credit which should in truth be reserved for ourselves: the rose for its scent: the nightingale for his song: the sun for its radiance. The poets are entirely mistaken. They should address their lyrics to themselves, and should turn them into odes of self-congratulation on the excellency of the human mind. Nature is a dull affair, soundless, scentless, colourless...

Admitting you are a nature poet, nowadays, may make you seem something of a fool!

Everything is funny; the greatest earnestness is funny; even tragedy is funny. And I think what I try and do in my [writing] is to get this recognizable reality of the absurdity of what we do and how we behave and how we speak.

I think Flannery O'Connor was absolutely and literally right in what she says: that the fact that something is comic does not detract from its seriousness, because the comic and the serious are not opposites. You might as well say satire is not serious, and it's probably the most deadly serious of any form of writing, even though it makes you laugh. No, I think comedy is able to tackle the most serious matters that there are.