“The incarnation is "a kind of vast joke whereby the Creator of the ends of the earth comes among us in diapers... Until we too have taken the idea of the God-man seriously enough to be scandalized by it, we have not taken it as seriously as it demands to be taken.”

“The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.”

“The overriding reason why we should take other people's cultures seriously is because God has taken ours seriously.”

“Life is too important to be taken seriously.”

“You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time. It consists, I don't mind telling you in confidence, in putting too high a value on time. I, too, once put too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time, you see. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.”

“Some things are too important to be taken seriously.”