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 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
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
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.