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Sense of humor   /sɛns əv hjˈumər/   Listen
Sense of humor

noun
1.
The trait of appreciating (and being able to express) the humorous.  Synonyms: humor, humour, sense of humour.  "You can't survive in the army without a sense of humor"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Sense of humor" Quotes from Famous Books



... expression that cut me, at least, to the quick. "Young gentlemen," he said, "I did not expect you to be so unkind." I longed to explain, but did not find words at the moment, and we went on with our lesson. The fact was that Testa had not the least sense of humor in his composition, and so he could not understand what had happened. A humorous man, acquainted with the nature of boys, would have understood the attack of fou rire, and forgiven it; but then a humorous man would have thought twice before appealing ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... light when the bandage was taken off he might not have been able to see for a little while, but the darkness was tender and soothing. Gradually he was able to see all the warriors at work making a camp, and Heraka, as if the captive's command had appealed to his sense of humor, had one man bring him an abundance of water in a gourd, and then, when a fire was lighted and deer and buffalo meat were broiled, he ate with the rest as much ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler

... impossible for anyone to teach you how to write a really funny point or a gag. But, if you have a well-developed sense of humor, you can, with the help of the suggestions for form given here and the examples of humor printed in the appendix, and those you will find in the funny papers and hear along the street or on the stage, teach ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... vere, quod narrare possis, quod tamen, est mendaciunculis aspergendum, sive fingas." Either invent a story, or if you have an old one, add on something so as to make it really funny. Is there a parson, a bishop, an archbishop, who, if he have any sense of humor about him, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... many of their time-saving machines and tunnels. I offer this suggestion to the great American nation for what it is worth, and I know they will receive it in the spirit in which it is made, for they have the saving sense of humor. ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... protect the Princess from the machinations of Gabriel, that knave of purgatory. Lorry, at last recognizing the hopelessness of his suit, was ready to throw down his arms and abandon the field to superior odds. His presumption in aspiring for the hand of a Princess began to touch his sense of humor, and he laughed, not very merrily, it is true, but long and loudly, at his folly. At first he cursed the world and every one in it, giving up in despair, but later he cursed only himself. Yet, as he despaired and scoffed, ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... passages which appeal most strongly to your sense of humor. Read them in such manner as to make their humorous quality thoroughly appreciable to those who ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... ones, more scientific but not so entertaining. The Indians who have turned guides are unexcelled when it comes to following trails that are dim, or in tracking down runaway horses. Indians have a subtle sense of humor, even during the most serious situations. "Injun not lost, trail lost," one said when ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills

... ruefully. "I've no family, captain. At the same time, I suppose ... a sense of humor? ... kept me from sublimating it into a Cause of any kind." Counterattacking: "Why do you care what we ...
— The Burning Bridge • Poul William Anderson

... Kit," Mrs. Ellis was wont to say to her, cheerily. "Good works and an abiding faith yoked up with a sense of humor will carry any one ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester

... an inimitable sense of humor, full of impassioned vitality,—this was the real Elizabeth Barrett, whose characteristics were in no wise changed during her ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting

... though she were the wife of an honored friend. If he talked either loosely or coarsely to his wife he might fall in love with any woman to whom he showed greater respect. He would, beside, proclaim his folly, for woman has small sense of humor. ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern

... fault that I could find with the way things had gone so far was that Sally had a disgusting headache that marred her pleasure and her sense of humor. She hadn't said very much, and had laughed with only a half-heart at things that had seemed to me excruciatingly funny. For instance, when Billoo was seized with the cramps she had barely smiled, and once or twice when I had been doing the talking she had ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... "Besides, she has no sense of humor. I wouldn't dream of asking her to laugh at my jokes as I do you. She wouldn't see them, and then I shouldn't like to show her the improper ones. They're not suitable for ladies, and the improper ones are the best. I sometimes think you can't have a really good ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome

... used to take Ned's genius for granted, and think nothing of it. Now I have found out in a single fortnight that we saw all of Sholto that there was to be seen. His reserves of talent existed only in our imagination. He has absolutely no sense of humor; and he is always grumbling. Neither the servants, nor the food, nor the rooms, nor the wine, satisfy him. Imagine how this comes home to me, who, from not having heard grumbling for two years, had forgotten that men ever were guilty of it. I flirted ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... sense of humor is one of the surest exponents of advanced civilization. Certainly a grim sullenness and fierceness have been the leading traits of the Rebellion for Slavery; while Freedom, like a Brave at the stake, has gone through her long agony with a smile and a jest ever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various

... weigh the matter, and his sense of humor conquered. He roared with mirth, which was joined in more sedately by the unknown girl. "That settles it. You couldn't start on your campaign in a better way. You shall be the Lady of Mystery in this story! I will not breathe a hint of your identity to Shirley, and no one else knows, of course. ...
— The Voice on the Wire • Eustace Hale Ball

... an impolite name for a woman, dear. You have no sense of humor, Frank, or you would call ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... the first to notice the omission. This seemed to deprive the young clergyman of his dignity. He looked confused, blushed, and turning to the housekeeper told her to fetch the Bible. This seemed to appeal to the housekeeper's sense of humor. She burst out laughing and said something about looking for a needle in a haystack. Sanderson turned on her furiously, and she left the room, looking sour, and muttering indignantly. She returned, after what seemed an interminable ...
— 'Way Down East - A Romance of New England Life • Joseph R. Grismer

... and candid belligerency, untempered by any human weakness, he had been actively engaged as survivor in two or three blood feuds in Kentucky, and some desultory dueling, only to succumb, through the irony of fate, to an attack of fever and ague in San Francisco. Gifted with a fine sense of humor, he is said, in his last moments, to have called the simple-minded clergyman to his bedside to assist him in putting on his boots. The kindly divine, although pointing out to him that he was too weak to rise, much less walk, could not resist the request of a dying man. When it was fulfilled, ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... will yer, and send one of your men around for the house surgeon." The sergeant leaned forward comfortably on his elbows, with his hands under his chin so that the gold lace on his cuffs shone effectively in the gaslight. He believed he had a sense of humor and he chose this unfortunate moment ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... rendering of the gauzy kerchief veiling her neck, but it is far less wonderful than the delicate interpretation of her expression. The fine sensitiveness of her nature, her lively fancy and sense of humor, her playfulness, her coquetry, her impulsiveness, her volatile temperament—all this we read in the shining eyes and the smiling mouth, though no one can say how they were made to tell so much. The signs of her birth and breeding are in every line, ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... that comes to my mind, candidly, is this, that we must give Bishop Chuff credit for a quality we never imagined him to possess. That quality, gentlemen, is a sense of humor. I hear some dissent; and yet it seems to me to be somewhat humorous that this gathering, composed of men who were accustomed, in the good old days, to carry their liquor like gentlemen, should now, when they have been cold sober ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... shook my head and passed on, a presentiment of approaching disaster took possession of me—so that the recollection of the speaker's prophecies of evil regarding our cook did not come back with that keen sense of humor one would have expected. ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... Even Billy's sense of humor was unstirred by the half-cynical sympathy of the night-clerk's gaze; Billy didn't feel a laugh anywhere within him. He was balked. The dancer had vanished with her story, and that story was essential to the consul. Like a fool he ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... laughed!" cried Lupin, jumping for joy. "You see, baby, what you fall short in is the power of smiling; you're a trifle serious for your age. You're a very likeable boy, you have a charming candor and simplicity—but you have no sense of humor." He placed himself in front of him. "Look here, bet you I make you cry! Do you know how I was able to follow up all your inquiry, how I knew of the letter Massiban wrote you and his appointment to meet you this morning ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... Algonquin mythology a part only inferior to that of Glooskap, whom he in every way resembles. Both are benevolent, both make war on wicked sorcerers and evil wild beasts, and both, finally, are much like Gargantua and Pantagruel in their sense of humor. They are sometimes made the heroes of the same adventure in different stories. The true origin of the name, according to Mr. Rand, is as follows: "After a cow moose or caribou has been killed, her calf is sometimes taken out alive, ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... her out of the corners of his eyes. Her latest conversational effort tickled his sense of humor—it was so wholly inadequate. He laughed outright. "That's better; the high spirits will soon be coming back—— Thousands of Braithwaites! My dear Terry, there must be hundreds of thousands." Then in a graver voice, "But though ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... free spirit, loving honesty and courage—which glowed like a flame behind her beauty. Best of all, perhaps, was a touch of quaintness, a slightly comic twist to her lips, an imperceptible alertness of manner, which revealed to the initiated that she had a sense of humor in excellent running order. ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger

... entirely. The complete phrase is: "The proof [or 'the rest'] is left as an exercise for the reader." This comment *has* occasionally been attached to unsolved research problems by authors possessed of either an evil sense of humor or a vast faith in ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... companion that it is possible to conceive. His manners are as genial and as winning as those of his father and grandfather, both of whom he surpasses in brilliancy of intellect, and in quickness of repartee, as well as in a keen sense of humor. He gives one the impression of possessing a heart full of the most generous impulses,—aye, of a generosity carried even to excess, and this, together with a species of indescribable magnetism which appears to radiate from him in these moments, contributes to render him ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... at the foot of our peak and watching there three or four days, waiting all the time for us to die of hunger and thirst, and we far to the south. At least he'll see that the mountain doesn't get away, and Tandakora, I take it, has small sense of humor. When he penetrates the full measure of the joke he'll love us none the less. Perhaps, though, De Galissonniere will not mourn, because he knows that if we were taken after a siege he could not save us from ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... in my more Quixotic days," replied the other, sadly; "and perhaps some day I may find myself in a kind of high life where royal sincerity is understood. But in this world even an idealist has to keep a sense of humor, unless he happens to be dowered ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... Cascades is quite harmless, and its cubs, like kittens, seem to have a sense of humor unusual among animals. For a white child to see a cub is to desire it to tame for a pet, and Mrs. Woods felt the same childish instincts when she caught up the little creature, which seemed to have no fear of anything, and ran away with it ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth

... walls and oil-cloth-covered tables with tin cups and plates and wooden benches, and, by way of decoration, that one illuminated text, "The Lord Will Provide"! The trustee who added that last touch must possess a grim sense of humor. ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster

... rough wit and mockery, of that kind, on many occasions; not without geniality in its Brobdignag exaggeration and simplicity. Like a wild bear of the woods taking his sport; with some sense of humor in the rough skin of him. Very capable of seeing through sumptuous costumes; and respectful of realities alone. Not in French sumptuosity, but in native German thrift, does this King see his salvation; so as Nature constructed him: and the world which has ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... a distant relative in this city, an old gentleman who belongs to clubs and is what is known as a "man of the world." He has quite a sense of humor—is famous for good stories. He told me that he was interested in me—that he would be glad to find a place for me in life, if I would only get over my youthful follies. It has been years since I saw him, but I can ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair

... madam—you will see him in his quiet moments. He amuses himself by making hats, baskets, and table-mats, out of his straw. Very neatly put together, I assure you. One of our visiting physicians, a man with a most remarkable sense of humor, gave him his nickname from his work. Shall ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins

... than "Combien?" and little more of Italian than "Troppo caro." Why none of these qualities of mind came to The Boy by direct descent he does not know. He only knows that he did inherit from his parent, in an intellectual way, a sense of humor, a love for books—as books—and a certain respect for the men by whom ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton

... Merridew, his sense of humor immensely tickled at the sound of this fine word, that rolled off with such an assumption of dignity from those rosy young lips, burst into a great laugh. Yet then and there he said to himself, "That Jackanapes of a boy, to fill her head with this treasonable stuff! But we'll see, ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... bring Fosdick, who was believed to be his pet abomination, into a conversation. Even in Hastings he found a kind of joy; the presence of a retired Hamlet among the foliage of the family tree was funny now that he had got used to it; and Amzi had a sense of humor. This little company expected him to explode and he must not disappoint them. The color mounted to his bald dome and his ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... ridicule. But you who read these lines are worthy of better things; that's why you are reading this book. If, in my audience there are those who have the ridicule habit, I want to arouse you to a better sense of humor than you can get by the employment of ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter

... So did Miss Batchelor, to whom she also told the story (in strict confidence). So did everybody whom Miss Batchelor may or may not have confided in. And when the thing became public property, Sir Peter wished he had restrained his sense of humor. ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair

... "I am willing to segregate the somewhat crude expression of your sense of humor from the solicitude that your business investments undoubtedly have conferred upon you. But I must ask you to cease your jibes and derogatory comments upon the South and the Southern people. They, sir, will not be tolerated in the office of The Rose of Dixie for ...
— Options • O. Henry

... else that distressed her too, although the paradox of parting from a person she had never met ought to have appealed to her sense of humor. But she did not think of that; never, since she had been postmistress in Nauvoo, had she spoken one word to James Helm, nor had he ever spoken to her. He had a key to his letter-box; he always ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers

... You have a sense of humor, my dear Sonnsfeld. It is all well enough for my brother to make plans and send out emissaries, when he is safe in Rheinsberg. He knows that the path to the freedom he has won led past the very foot of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various

... airing his abortive sense of humor overmuch, and he was a sound judge of horse and man. If he was right—but the major had to laugh at such a possibility. Garrison to ride like that! He who had confessed he had never thrown a leg over a horse before! By a freak ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson

... Interrupted Communications. Some Difficulties of the Spirits. Difficulties Overcome. The Psychic Triangle. Harmonious Relationship. The Discord Note. Antagonistic Elements. The Open Mind. Spirits and the Sense of Humor. Rhythmic Harmony. Retarding Factors. Reasonable Demands of Spirits. Harmonious Conditions. The Channel of Communication. The Role of the Spirits. Difficulties Among Spirits. Disturbing elements. Impersonation Mediumship. True Purpose of Mediumship. Gradual Development. Public Seances. Home Circle ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... No sense of humor dropped its oil On the hard ways his purpose went; Small play of fancy lightened toil; He spake alone the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... been hurt, though one might say that the evening left her sense of humor rather sore. At that moment she was dallying with the temptation to describe the whole scene in a letter to a valued friend in Philadelphia, who would have appreciated it with mirth. In the end she did not write. It would ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... jealous whin he finds out what a foine ride I have had," he added, his old sense of humor coming back; "but all he has to do is to catch a buffalo bull and git on his back: but I don't think he'll forgit the ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis

... misanthrope of Moliere; but for both of them life would have been easier had they known how to laugh. Cervantes himself, and Moliere also, found relief in laughter for their melancholy; and it was the sense of humor which kept them tolerantly interested in the spectacle of humanity, altho life had prest hardly on them both. On Mark Twain also life has left its scars; but he has bound up his wounds and battled forward ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... around. Cushing of Boston, a very nice chap and awfully handsome, is there, too. The same morning I went out to photograph the soldiers, and Lord William Frederick, who is their colonel, charged them after me whenever I appeared. It seems he has a sense of humor and liked the idea of making an American run on the Fourth of July from Red-coats. I doubt if the five hundred men who were not on horseback thought it as funny. They chased me till I thought I would ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... would go to one of the Arab theatres. The plays were generally burlesques, for the Arab has a keen sense of humor and greatly appreciates a joke. Most of the puns were too involved for me to follow, but there was always a certain amount of slap-stick comedy that could be readily understood. Then there was dancing—as a whole ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... something in her manner so reminiscent of the school teacher reprimanding a recalcitrant pupil that Mr. Snyder's sense of humor came to his rescue. "We do our best, Mrs. Pickett," he said. "But you mustn't forget that we are only human and ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse

... is a useless or a dangerous character in situations where it is essential to discriminate the immediate and important bearings of facts. We cannot select an expert accountant on the basis of a pleasant smile, nor a chauffeur for his sense of humor. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... started out to teach Nipper tricks, but it was soon discovered that he knew a good deal more than most of us. He had a keen sense of humor, and after some one would spend hours trying to teach him to sit up, all of which time he would pretend he could not understand what he was wanted to do, with a sly look he would suddenly go through a whole repertoire of tricks, not merely sitting up, but tumbling over backward, generally ending ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett

... sound knowledge and devoid of the ballast of principle, he was tossed and driven hither and thither like a wreck on the ocean. Mr. Melville Stone, the veteran American journalist, gave his countrymen his impression of the first British delegate. "Mr. Lloyd George," he said, "has a very keen sense of humor and a great power over the multitude, but with this he displays a startling indifference to, if not ignorance of, the larger affairs of nations." In the course of a walk Mr. Lloyd George expressed surprise when informed ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... the scene of the explosion. Her movements were so clumsy and slow, in proportion to the great exertion she was making, that at any other time the sight would have been ludicrous. Now it was inevitable that such a sight should first appeal to Tommy's sense of humor, and thoughtlessly the boys started ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... Carol—she—why, you know when I think of it, Carol wouldn't be half bad for a minister's wife. She has a sense of humor, that is very important. She's generous, she's patient, she's unselfish, a good mixer,—some of the ladies might think her complexion wasn't real, but—Grace, ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston

... head, and in another moment he, too, was gone. Dr. Meredith and General Fergus stood beside her. The General had a keen sense of humor, and as he said good-night to this unlawful hostess, whose plight he understood no more than his own, his mouth twitched with repressed laughter. But Dr. Meredith did not laugh. He pressed Julie's hand in both of ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Blossom's face with an amused look, as if he had already heard the colloquy between her and his superior officer, and had appreciated that which neither of the earnest actors in the scene had themselves felt,—a certain sense of humor in the situation. ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte

... the piece." Lesser writers of the time are also sympathetically characterized,—Shadwell, for instance, whom he thought to be commonly underestimated.[152] The heroic play Scott discussed vivaciously in more than one connection, for, as we should expect, his sense of humor found its absurdities tempting.[153] On the rant in the Conquest of Granada he remarked, "Dryden's apology for these extravagances seems to be that Almanzor is in a passion. But although talking nonsense is a common effect of passion, it seems hardly one of those consequences ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... of need in order to get "Doc's" family in the West to send on wedding presents that could be pawned. As his wedding present, the Uncle insists that "Doc" and Mary accompany him to Bermuda. The situation is tense, but Mary has a sense of humor, and saves the day. ...
— The Ghost of Jerry Bundler • W. W. Jacobs and Charles Rock

... sense of humor tempered Miss Carrington's seriousness, and Geoffrey Ormond joined in her merry laugh. In spite of his love of ease and frivolous badinage, he was, as I was to learn some day, considerably less of a good-natured fool than it occasionally ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... depths of humiliation there are than those to which he voluntarily descended. But I wished to spare him; I let him see the uselessness of his mission. He looked at me in silence—the look of hate that can come only from a creature weak as well as wicked. I think it was all his keen sense of humor could do to save him from a melodramatic outbreak. He slipped into his habitual pose, rose and withdrew without another word. All this fright and groveling and treachery for plunder, the loss of which would not impair ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... to the extreme edge of the stone sill, stretches herself at full length, peers down smilingly at the frenzied dog, dangles one paw enticingly in the air, and exerts herself with quiet malice to drive him to desperation. Her sense of humor is awakened by his frantic efforts and by her own absolute security; and not until he is spent with exertion, and lies panting and exhausted on the bricks, does she arch her graceful back, stretch her limbs lazily in the sun, and with one light bound spring from ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... promise to be good," returned Herb. "But I still think that was a pretty fine joke, only you fellows haven't got enough sense of humor to appreciate it." ...
— The Radio Boys' First Wireless - Or Winning the Ferberton Prize • Allen Chapman

... be truth in that," Mrs. Ravenel admitted, a fine sense of humor marked by the grudging tone in which she spoke. "I remember that only yesterday I was in a rage because the roses were not further open ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane

... the lieutenant! He had lost one of his riding-leggings, and for half a day he paced the shore in search of it. He offered rewards to any native who should rescue it. Lacking a saving sense of humor, he bemoaned his fate, and when he did give up the search, he discontinued it reluctantly. And two years afterwards, when I next met him, he inquired if I had seen his legging washed up on the beach. ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... learned more from his own temperament than from political expediency. It was bound up in his love of efficiency and also in his sense of humor. During this same hot conservation controversy he writes to an old friend, "I have no intention of saying anything in reply to Pinchot. He wrote me thirty pages to prove that I was a liar, and rather than read that again I will admit ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... we find them," observed Hood judicially, "but you're entirely too tragic about this whole business. If it isn't comedy, it's nothing. I'll wager the girl who skipped with your stolen boodle has a sense of humor. The key-note to her character is in this novel she grabbed as she hastily packed her bag—'The Madness of May.' That's one of the drollest books ever written. A story like that is a boon to mankind; it kept me chuckling all night. Haven't read it? Well, the heroine ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson

... way," commented the philosophical Bragdon, "When you lose your heart your sense of humor goes too. Engaged couples couldn't do such ridiculous stunts if they had the least particle of ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... made an error involving a few murders—and a few thousand years. He was entitled to a sense of humor, though, even in ...
— The Ultroom Error • Gerald Allan Sohl

... Arabella Clinker had a sense of humor, and she adored her mother and wished to give her a comfortable old age. Mrs. Cricklander's terms for this unique position were according to her ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn

... shoulder at us four hopefuls sitting up against the wall as lively as wooden Indians, and then she would bury her face in her handkerchief again and shake her shoulders and writhe with grief—or maybe it was something else. Martha always did have a pretty keen sense of humor. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... peculiar: he is never more than one jump from home. Make a dive at him anywhere and in he goes. He knows where the hole is, even when it is covered up with leaves. There is no doubt, also, that he has his own sense of humor and fun, as what squirrel has not? I have watched two red squirrels for a half hour coursing through the large trees by the roadside where branches interlocked, and engaged in a game of tag as obviously as two boys. As soon as the pursuer had ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs

... personages have been involved in its unworthy frivolities? But no one looked jocular—Tembarom's jaw was set in its hard line, and the duke, taking up the broad ribbon of his rimless monocle to fix the glass in his eye, wore the expression of a man whose sense of humor was temporarily ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... my sense of humor and my faith in things in spite of anything that comes to me," she promised herself, "even if they do have to give me boneset tea to jerk me up a bit!" She laughed at Millie's faith in the boneset tea. "I hope it also takes the meanness and hate ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... soberly made reply as he tenderly flirted with a raw shin. "It's the mescal. I'm going to slip some of that stuff into Pete's cayuse some of these days," he promised, happy with a new idea. Pete Wilson had no sense of humor. ...
— Bar-20 Days • Clarence E. Mulford

... I know He isn't natty, trim, or trig; His eyes are rather small, and, oh, I fear his ears are far too big! But there's a well-attested rumor That he has quite a sense of humor; So crack a joke whene'er you meet An ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... a strong sense of humor; yet, so to speak, he was not, in the strict sense of the term, a humorist. His comic fancy lurked in the outermost and most unlooked-for images of association,—which, indeed, maybe said to be the components of humor; ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... would have pricked Virginia's sense of humor to see Baroness von Lyndal's almost shocked surprise at discovering her to be the daughter of that Lady Mowbray whom she was asked to meet. (Luckily all the letters of introduction had reached their destination, it merely remaining, according to etiquette ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... often very fine, but even this could not have given Hawthorne much entertainment. His own library, as he states himself somewhere, was of a miscellaneous character, and contained the works of scarcely any author of repute except Shakespeare. Alcott's sense of humor and keen knowledge of human nature may have been a sort of common ground ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... quite all right—in our normal senses," returned the Senator, icily. "I believe there are persons who gibber and giggle at mishaps to others—but I also believe that such a peculiar sense of humor is confined largely to institutions for the refuge of ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... truly is "praise our fructifying sun," Lydia bloomed into a hundred hitherto unsuspected graces of mind and heart and speech. A sly sense of humor woke into life, and a positive talent for conversation, latent hitherto because she had never known any one who cared to drop a plummet into the crystal springs of her consciousness. When the violin was laid away, she would sit in the twilight, by Davy's sofa, his thin hand in ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... you got no sense of humor?' atter I'd let out somethin' between a groan and a squeal. 'I had,' I says, ''till I was shot in the head.' 'Shot in the head! Why didn't it kill you?' 'The bullet struck a bolt, ma'am, and glanced off.' ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... Theater, of which Mr. Buckstone was still the manager and Sothern the great attraction. I had played Gertrude Howard in "The Little Treasure" during the stock season at Bristol, and when Mr. Buckstone wanted to do the piece at the Haymarket, he was told about me. I was fifteen at this time, and my sense of humor was as yet ill-developed. I was fond of "larking" and merry enough, but I hated being laughed at! At any rate, I could see no humor in Mr. Sothern's jokes at my expense. He played my lover in "The ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... had hitherto seen, the form of Jehovah, for it appears that Jehovah was so pleased with this murderer, charlatan, and wizard that he allowed him to glimpse His hind quarters. At least, Jehovah had a sense of humor! ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks

... me to erect a honeycomb on his nose?" exclaimed Puck. "You have no sense of humor, dear girl. What ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels

... Carolyn June snapped, then laughed as the absurdity of the situation dawned upon her and her sense of humor overcame the moment of anger and indignation. "I have it—I've got it! We will Vamp' them in dead earnest! We'll fix the 'fixers,' ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman

... great sense of humor. Ran rather to silly practical jokes, but still. Can't say I care for that hot-foot and belly-laugh stuff myself, but ...
— Accidental Death • Peter Baily

... she was a good-looking young person, and he liked her smile, for it betokened a sense of humor, and that pleased him. 'How much?' he repeated. 'A vehicle, a ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... as though the expression of my face appealed to her sense of humor. Evidently the lady was no longer afraid of me, nor greatly distressed over ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... that seriously—folk at hame, in the main. They've an idea, in America, that English folk and Scots ha' no got a great sense of humor. It's not that we've no got one; it's just that Americans ha' a humor of a different sort. They've a verra keen sense o' the ridiculous, and they're as fond of a joke that's turned against themselves as of one they ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... Dr. Hickling, attached to the psychopathic ward in the District Jail, with more threats and suggestions, if the hunger strike continued. Finally they departed, and I was left to wonder what would happen next. Doubtless my sense of humor helped me, but I confess A was not without fear of this mysterious place ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... Across the surface of the water—now a sparkling, joyful blue—the air came free and full of life. This air was exhilarating. It inspired Father Burke to tell a funny anecdote, and he did it well. For not only did Father Burke possess a sense of humor, but his heavy, benevolent face, white hair, and deep voice gave unusual impressiveness to whatever he chose to utter. Even Mr. Appleton Marshall, a victim of acute Bostonia, eluded for a time his own self-consciousness. He soon went below, however, to revel, undisturbed, ...
— The Pines of Lory • John Ames Mitchell

... the wife, affectionately, "I wonder why Mr. Ravenel avoided mentioning that to you. He needn't have feared your sense of humor. Ah! if you only had ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable

... portraits of the mystic, one of them from an admirer in America. It was pleasant on leaving him to go away with his laugh ringing in my ears as a surety that the high seriousness of his purpose, and the higher seriousness with which some of his admirers take him, had not dulled his sense of humor. ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... and advised Migwan, above all things, with her talent for writing, to put the emphasis on literature and history. Migwan took a certain grim delight in telling Mrs. Bartlett what had happened to her ambition to go to college. She had a Homeric sense of humor that could see the point when the gods were playing pranks on helpless mortals. She told the story simply and frankly, without any "literary style," such as was usually present in her letters to a high degree; neither did she bewail her lot and seek sympathy, for Migwan ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... a mammy!" purred Elsie, her pretty upper lip curling in the smile her mother loved—with a reservation. Elsie had her father's sense of humor, and had caught his half-caressing way of indulging it at the "intense" ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... my idea." Young Mr. Thompson scowled at the floor. "It's worse than you think. I'm in a fix, a devil of a fix. Part of it I'm to blame for. I'm one of those guys with a sense of humor, you know. I'm the regular George Cohan kind, and between my practical jokes and some interfering ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... line uses the formal De and in another the familiar du, but the same inconsistency occurs again and again throughout the volume. In itself a trifle, it indicates clearly enough the careless, slipshod manner of work—and an utter lack of a sense of humor, for no one with a spark of humor would use the modern, essentially German De in a Norwegian translation of Shakespeare. If a formal form must be used it should, as a matter ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud

... small circle of Wilson's intimates attest the charm and magnetism of his personality. The breadth of his reading is reflected in his conversation, which is enlivened by anecdotes that illustrate his points effectively and illumined by a sense of humor which some of his friends regard as his most salient trait. His manner is marked by extreme courtesy and, in view of the fixity of his opinions, a surprising lack of abruptness or dogmatism. But he has never been able to capitalize such personal advantages in his political relations. ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour



Words linked to "Sense of humor" :   playfulness, humor, fun



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