The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is America’s foremost award for humor, and has been awarded by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts annually since 1998. It is named after the 19th century novelist, essayist and humorist Mark Twain and is presented annually to an individual who has made a significant contribution to American humor. The prize is presented and show is taped in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall in Washington DC, during which the honoree is celebrated by his or her peers.
Read more about Mark Twain Prize For American Humor: Award History, Recipients of The Mark Twain Prize
Famous quotes containing the words mark twain, mark, twain, prize, american and/or humor:
“But that’s always the way; it don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.... It takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and yet ain’t no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer thinks the same.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The ideal college is Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and a student on the other.”
—James A. Garfield (1831–1881)
“It was only just words, words,—they meant nothing in the world to him, I might just as well have whistled. Words realize nothing, vivify nothing to you, unless you have suffered in your own person the thing which the words try to describe.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“There can be no more ancient and traditional American value than ignorance. English-only speakers brought it with them to this country three centuries ago, and they quickly imposed it on the Africans—who were not allowed to learn to read and write—and on the Native Americans, who were simply not allowed.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“When humor can be made to alternate with melancholy, one has a success, but when the same things are funny and melancholic at the same time, it’s just wonderful.”
—François Truffaut (1932–1984)