To be comic is merely to be playful, but wit is a serious matter. To laugh at it is to confess that you do not understand. Ambrose Bierce
American literature had always considered writing a very serious matter. Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Someone earlier made a remark about losing 500 soldiers and 2,200 wounded in Iraq. Those soldiers were sent there by the vote of Sen. Lieberman, Sen. Edwards and Sen. Kerry. I think that is a serious matter. Howard Dean
They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. This is too much, even for a joke. But it is not a subject for levity; it is an exceedingly serious matter. Eugene V. Debs
In the end, the "model” that came into existence in the USSR was not socialist but totalitarian. This is a serious matter to be reflected on by all who seriously aspire to progress for the benefit of the human race. Mikhail Gorbachev
It is a little thing to starve to death; it is a serious matter to lose one's virtue. Chinese Proverb