A joke is not a thing but a process, a trick you play on the listener's mind. You start him off toward a plausible goal, and then by a sudden twist you land him nowhere at all or just where he didn't expect to go.
Max Eastman

A liberal mind is a mind that is able to imagine itself believing anything.
Max Eastman

A poet in history is divine, but a poet in the next room is a joke.
Max Eastman

A smile is the universal welcome.
Max Eastman

Classic art was the art of necessity: modern romantic art bears the stamp of caprice and chance.
Max Eastman

Dogs laugh, but they laugh with their tails.
Max Eastman

Emotion is the surest arbiter of a poetic choice, and it is the priest of all supreme unions in the mind.
Max Eastman

Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully.
Max Eastman

I don't know why it is we are in such a hurry to get up when we fall down. You might think we would lie there and rest for a while.
Max Eastman

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.
Max Eastman


It is the ability to take a joke, not make one, that proves you have a sense of humor.
Max Eastman

Laughter is, after speech, the chief thing that holds society together.
Max Eastman

People who demand neutrality in any situation are usually not neutral but in favor of the status quo.
Max Eastman

Robert Benchley has a style that is weak and lies down frequently to rest.
Max Eastman

The defining function of the artist is to cherish consciousness.
Max Eastman

The worst enemy of human hope is not brute facts, but men of brains who will not face them.
Max Eastman