ComedyBooks about Comedy Click this icon to engrave the quote on mugs, bookmarks, t-shirts and much more
The only honest art form is laughter, comedy. You can’t fake it ... try to fake three laughs in an hour—ha ha ha ha ha—they’ll take you away, man. You can’t.
-Lenny Bruce, “Performing and the Art of Comedy,” The Essential Lenny Bruce, ed. John Cohen (1967)
A pleasant comedy, which paints the manners of the age, and exposes a faithful picture of nature, is a durable work, and is transmitted to the latest posterity. But a system, whether physical or metaphysical, commonly owes its success to its novelty; and is no sooner canvassed with impartiality than its weakness is discovered.
-David Hume, The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, vol. 6, p. 153, Indianapolis (1983)
Life doesn't make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy's job is to point out that it doesn't make sense, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.
At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.
Books about Comedy
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