My parents split up when I was young, and I was living with my mom for a little while, then I was kind of just on my own really young. It wasn't some kind of global tragedy, it was just never really a very close-knit family. So there was support in the sense that they didn't stand in my way.

I love John Irving's stuff. It's that marriage of comedy and tragedy. It's really terrific.

I did know Ted Hughes and I partly wrote the book to explain to myself and others the complexities of a marriage that was for six years wonderfully productive of poetry and then ended in tragedy.

We want our marriage to be a triumph, not a tragedy.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.

I often wonder if I should adopt a cause to call my own or start tweeting inspirational messages. And when tragedy strikes and the world takes to social media, is it now my responsibility to respond with #RIPs and #prayfors?

'The White Woman on the Green Bicycle' is a love story mapped onto an unfolding political tragedy: that of the failure of the Independence era in Trinidad.

I'm sure there are people who survive tragedy without humor, but I've never met any of them. Nor would I be particularly interested in writing about them if I did meet them.

Humor is not a sign of weakness. In fact, humor can be your greatest asset in the face of tragedy.

Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn.

I don't think it's possible to have a sense of tragedy without having a sense of humor.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways - either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way.

One of the greatest things drama can do, at it's best, is to redefine the words we use every day such as love, home, family, loyalty and envy. Tragedy need not be a downer.

My heart goes out to victims and survivors of the Hurricane Katrina tragedy and to their families. This disaster will go down in history books as one of the largest natural disasters in U.S. history.

We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.

It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, 'What are we going to do?' but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that's nothing.

Vegas means comedy, tragedy, happiness and sadness all at the same time.

I just try to write what I think would really happen, and with grief and tragedy, there are these naturally occurring moments of levity and humor and absurdity. I think that's what life is really like. Sadness gets interrupted, and happiness gets interrupted.

Fables should be taught as fables, myths as myths, and miracles as poetic fantasies. To teach superstitions as truths is a most terrible thing. The child mind accepts and believes them, and only through great pain and perhaps tragedy can he be in after years relieved of them.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

I've always thought the word cow was funny. And cows are sort of tragic figures. Cows blur the line between tragedy and humor.