Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully. – Max Eastman
There is something self-defeating in the too-conscious pursuit of pleasure. – Max Eastman

Humor is the instinct for taking pain playfully. – Max Eastman
There is something self-defeating in the too-conscious pursuit of pleasure. – 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
All of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its coming — a joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, translated from Frenc