True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt its essence is love. It issues not in laughter but in still smiles which lie far deeper.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain comedy and tragedy humor and hurt.

Through humor you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter no matter how painful your situation might be you can survive it.

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything even poverty you can survive it.

I'm Method trained. How is this character like me? What does she think of her mother? What does her mother think of her? It's like construction and then yes you hope you're talented and that the universe aligns and captures the kind of laborer's work you've done and whatever else sprinkles down on you and it's all caught on film or onstage.

You learn timing on the road. You learn structure and how to read an audience. You learn so much about the business of laughter that you can't learn on a set because it's all on you. Sometimes you bomb and you know not to tell that joke again... You just hope people find the humor in the awkwardness.

One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it.

I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you and that you will work them water them with your blood and tears and you laughter till they bloom till you yourself burst into bloom.

When I think about the world I would like to leave to my daughter and the grandchildren I hope to have it is a world that moves away from unequal unstable unsustainable interdependence to integrated communities - locally nationally and globally - that share the characteristics of all successful communities.

What greater aspiration and challenge are there for a mother than the hope of raising a great son or daughter?

My wife is the boss at home and my daughters are the bosses. I am just the worker. We are a very warm family and very happy.

I practice yoga at home to a TV show called 'Inhale ' taught by Steve Ross. I figured that if the people on the show could stretch that deep then I could too. I ended up pulling my hip flexor. But that's how I met my husband. Paul was the physical therapist my coach called to meet with me after hours.

My grandmother always taught me 'If you don't have a home family and church you don't have anything.'

I was taught a lot of Bible at home and had a voracious appetite for reading the Bible.

I have a five year-old son and a three year-old daughter. I want my son to have a choice to contribute fully in the workforce or at home. And I want my daughter to have the choice to not just succeed but to be liked for her accomplishments.

Most fathers don't see the war within the daughter her struggles with conflicting images of the idealized and flawed father her temptation both to retreat to Daddy's lap and protection and to push out of his embrace to that of beau and the world beyond home.

The appreciative smile the chuckle the soundless mirth so important to the success of comedy cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.

General Howard informed me in a haughty spirit that he would give my people 30 days to go back home collect all their stock and move onto the reservation.

When I come home my daughter will run to the door and give me a big hug and everything that's happened that day just melts away.

And I come here as a daughter raised on the South Side of Chicago - by a father who was a blue-collar city worker and a mother who stayed at home with my brother and me.

To me luxury is to be at home with my daughter and the occasional massage doesn't hurt.

The only way I'd be caught without makeup is if my radio fell in the bathtub while I was taking a bath and electrocuted me and I was in between makeup at home. I hope my husband would slap a little lipstick on me before he took me to the morgue.

With copious evidence ranging from Plato's haughtiness to Beethoven's tirades we may conclude that the most brilliant people of history tend to be a prickly lot.

There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their own history. A whole range of stuff has been placed off limits.