“It wasn't that funny, but I laughed. There wouldn't be much laughter in the world if people didn't like each other, because there sure as shit aren't that many good jokes.”

“Laughter, Susannah would later reflect, is like a hurricane: once it reaches a certain point, it becomes self-feeding, self-supporting. You laugh not because the jokes are funny but because your own condition is funny.”

“Jokes are funny only in context. There is no such thing as abstract clever word play. Words have meaning in the world in which we live, not in the abstract. Take away the politics, and there is no joke. The joke wouldn't make any sense. if the joke is funny, it's funny precisely because it's racist and sexist.”

“They laughed much harder than the memory was funny because it felt good to laugh.”

“She'd stood by that creed. No softness, because the world wasn't soft; lots of laughter, because if you were in on the joke, the joke couldn't be on you; And no wanting what you couldn't take, because the world never gave.Or so she'd thought.”

“... on the whole I thought I liked having everything very tidy and calm all around me, and not being bothered to do things, and laughing at the kind of joke other people didn't think at all funny, and going for country walks, and not being asked to express opinions about things (like love, and isn't so-and-so peculiar?)”