A sense of humor is high on my list of virtues, in interplay with humility and compassion and a capacity to change when that is the right thing to do.
Krista Tippett
A Sense of Humor
Topic: Joy & Happiness
This book is for people who want to take up the great questions of our time with imagination and courage, to nurture new realities in the spaces we inhabit, and to do so expectantly and with joy. I have yet to meet a wise person who doesn’t know how to find some joy even in the midst of what is hard, and to smile and laugh easily, including at oneself. A sense of humor is high on my list of virtues, in interplay with humility and compassion and a capacity to change when that is the right thing to do. It’s one of those virtues that softens us for all the others. Desmond Tutu, whom I found impossible to doubt, says that God has a sense of humor.
Krista Tippett, born Krista Weedman on November 9, 1960, in the United States, is a journalist, author, and public thinker known for exploring faith, ethics, and human meaning. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in 1983 and studied at the University of Bonn in West Germany on a Fulbright scholarship. Her early career as a journalist took her to divided Berlin, where she worked for The New York Times, Newsweek, and other international outlets. She later served as a political aide to U.S. diplomats in West Berlin and West Germany, an experience that deepened her interest in the moral dimensions of power and shaped her future work in spirituality and public discourse.
Seeking a deeper understanding of these questions, Tippett earned a Master of Divinity from Yale University in 1994. While conducting an oral history project for the Collegeville Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, she developed the idea for On Being, a radio program exploring religious and philosophical questions with depth and openness. Launched as a monthly series in 2001 and expanded nationally in 2003, the show has featured conversations with scholars, artists, and religious thinkers. It earned a Peabody Award in 2008 for its episode "The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi." In 2013, Tippett founded Krista Tippett Public Productions, an independent nonprofit dedicated to fostering meaningful dialogue, and co-created the Civil Conversations Project to help address political and social divides.
Tippett is the author of Speaking of Faith (2008), Einstein’s God (2010), and Becoming Wise (2016), a New York Times bestseller. Her contributions to public thought have been widely recognized, including the National Humanities Medal, awarded by President Barack Obama in 2014. In 2019, she was named the Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at Stanford University, and in 2025, she was appointed a Chubb Fellow at Yale University. Through her writing and conversations, Tippett continues to engage the complexities of human experience, bridging faith, science, and philosophy in ways that invite reflection and understanding.
Becoming Wise
Tippett, Krista. Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living. Penguin Press, 2016, p. 13.
Krista Tippett
Theme: Humor
About This Krista Tippett Quotation [Commentary]
Krista Tippett places “a sense of humor” high among the virtues needed to navigate the complexities of life, emphasizing its connection with “humility and compassion and a capacity to change when that is the right thing to do.” Humor, in Tippett’s view, is not a distraction from seriousness but an essential quality that allows people to “smile and laugh easily, including at oneself,” even amid hardship. She sees humor as a softening force, one that prepares the ground for deeper virtues to take root and strengthens the human spirit without denying difficulty.
In speaking about humor, Krista Tippett encourages readers to approach the “great questions of our time” with “imagination and courage,” nurturing “new realities” with joy. She draws attention to the creative nature of humor, describing it as the brain’s way of “making unlikely connections and leaning into them with joy.” Tippett also invokes Desmond Tutu’s belief that “God has a sense of humor,” highlighting laughter as a quality not only of human resilience but of divine character. In this light, humor becomes a way of engaging the world with hope and openness rather than fear.
Tippett’s reflection shows that humor works “in interplay” with other virtues, supporting a way of being that values growth, kindness, and transformation. In a culture often marked by rigid certainty, she invites a posture of humility shaped by the ability to smile at life’s contradictions. A sense of humor, she suggests, softens the heart and keeps the imagination alive, making space for change and compassion to thrive.
Context Passage for this Krista Tippett Quotation [Excerpt]
But left of center, right of center, in the expansive middle and heart of our life together, most of us have some questions left alongside our answers, some curiosity alongside our convictions. This book is for people who want to take up the great questions of our time with imagination and courage, to nurture new realities in the spaces we inhabit, and to do so expectantly and with joy. I have yet to meet a wise person who doesn’t know how to find some joy even in the midst of what is hard, and to smile and laugh easily, including at oneself. A sense of humor is high on my list of virtues, in interplay with humility and compassion and a capacity to change when that is the right thing to do. It’s one of those virtues that softens us for all the others. Desmond Tutu, whom I found impossible to doubt, says that God has a sense of humor. There is a science helping us to see a sense of humor in the brain as an expression of creativity, making unlikely connections and leaning into them with joy. So I hope and trust that a smile in the voice may sometimes rise from these pages. And I do bring many voices along with me here, snatches of conversation completing and informing my thoughts, as they do all the time in my life and work.
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