The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so importan… — James Thurber

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.

James ThurberComedian · American · 1894 – 1961

More from James Thurber

Laughter is day, and sobriety is night; a smile is the twilight that hovers gently between both, more bewitching than either. — Henry Ward Beecher
There is plenty of competition in a Glasser Quality School in that there is winning but no losing. — William Glasser
Flaming enthusiasm, backed up by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success. — Dale Carnegie
The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess. — James Thurber
Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man. — James Thurber
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal. — James Thurber