Comedy

"The logical figure of the absurd, which presents as stringent the contradictory opposite of stringency, negates all the meaningfulness logic seems to provide in order to convict logic of its own absurdity: to convict it of using subject, predicate, and copula to lay out the nonidentical as though it were identical, as though it could be accommodated with forms."

"Absurdity, n. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion."

"The absurd is born of the confrontation between the human call and the unreasonable silence of the world."

"Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful."

"The realization that life is absurd and cannot be an end, but only a beginning. This is a truth nearly all great minds have taken as their starting point. It is not this discovery that is interesting, but the consequences and rules of action drawn from it."

"It is not funny that anything else should fall down, only that a man should fall down … Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified."

"In a world where everything is ridiculous, nothing can be ridiculed. You cannot unmask a mask."

"There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light."

"Let us not commit ourselves to the absurd and senseless dogma that the color of the skin shall be the basis of suffrage, the talisman of liberty."

"Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it or simply avoid it."

"There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world."

"Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity."

"The privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject but man only."

"We live in a time which has created the art of the absurd. It is our art."

"A prophet or an achiever must never mind an occasional absurdity; it is an occupational risk."

"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."

"I very much like your love of pleasure, and your humour and malice: it is so delightful to live in a world that is full of pictures, and incident divertissements, and amiable absurdities. Why shouldn't things be largely absurd, futile, and transitory? They are so, and we are so, and they and we go very well together."

"Jesus never said anything about absurdity, and he never indicated for one flash of time that he was aware of the preposterousness of his theory about himself. And he didn't even try to make the theory understandable in terms of the reality and experience of the rest of us. For if everybody else is also not what Jesus said he was, what good is what he said?"

"The more absurd life is, the more unsupportable death is."

"When I was in my teens, I invented a term to describe them. I call it 'holiday consciousness' . . . because I often experienced this sense of optimism and wide-awakeness when setting out on a journey or a holiday. It was always the feeling that the world is self-evidently complex and beautiful, and that life is so obviously good that man's boredom and defeat is an absurdity . . . And then I used to ask: Why do men forget this so easily? And the answer seemed obvious: because the human will is so flabby and weak. Instead of being self-controlled, self-driven creatures, most men are little more than leaves on a stream, they drift along hoping for the best. I once wrote that men are like grandfather clocks driven by watchsprings."

"[Francisco at his post. Enter to him Bernardo.] Bernardo: Who's there? Francisco: Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself."

"People hunger for love, and clowning is a trick to get love close. As a clown I can do things that people are too frightened of Love to allow you to do."

"With both lined up four abreast, she read me the cards. Poor drunkard of the tale. Two fortune-tellers dead. And a room full of bottles. The clown is drunk. And the cards of death wait on him. His snout is blue, and he looks like a bear. And the rag doll of death, with the clown flinging him by the arm, can't be loved by you, madness. Because he is drunk and has no river, or breakdown. Because they cork him in, unable to love him. Because stars no longer love him."

"Take a look at those clowns And the tricks that they play In the circus of life Life is bitter and gay'There are clowns in the night Clowns everywhere See how they run Run from despair …"

"There was Mark, whom I frightened into disguising himself in a clown's suit, so that nobody might suspect him to be a maker of literature: indeed, I frightened him so that he hid away the greater part of what he had made until after he was dead, and I could not get at him. That was a disgusting trick to play on me, I consider."

"I remain just one thing, and one thing only — and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician."

"The Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army is looking for fools and rebels, radicals and rascals, tricksters and traitors, mutineers and malcontents to join its ranks. You could be part of a fighting force armed with ruthless love and fully trained in the ancient art of clowning and non-violent direct action. You could learn ingeniously stupid tactics that baffle the powerful. You could uncover your inner clown and discover the subversive freedom of fooling. You don't need to like clowns or soldiers, you just need to love life and laughter as much as rebellion."

"CIRCA aims to make clowning dangerous again, to bring it back to the street, restore its disobedience and give it back the social function it once had: its ability to disrupt, critique and heal society. Since the beginning of time tricksters (the mythological origin or all clowns) have embraced life's paradoxes, creating coherence through confusion — adding disorder to the world in order to expose its lies and speak the truth."

"Though the clown is often deadpan, he is a connoisseur of laughter."

"You know lots of criticism is written by characters who are very academic and think it is a sign you are worthless if you make jokes or kid or even clown. I wouldn't kid Our Lord if he was on the cross. But I would attempt a joke with him if I ran into him chasing the money changers out of the temple."

"I'm a big goofball. In Australia we call it a dag. … It's quite an affectionate term, but it means your basically a big goofball. I just love making a fool out of myself. I made my living as a clown at kids' parties for about three years."

"A clown's makeup and character, that's all he has to sell. He loves and believes in that character."

"Be a clown, be a clown, All the world loves a clown. Act the fool, play the calf, And you'll always have the last laugh."

"I don't want to be called "the greatest" or "one of the greatest". Let other guys claim to be the best. I just want to be known as a clown because to me, that's the height of my profession. It means you can do everything — sing, dance and, above all, make people laugh."

"Isn't it rich? Are we a pair? Me here at last on the ground, You in mid-air. Send in the clowns."

"Don't you love farce? My fault I fear. I thought that you'd want what I want. Sorry, my dear. But where are the clowns? Quick, send in the clowns. Don't bother, they're here."

"You gotta believe me, Mandy! The clowns are nothing but ultimate evil! They want to be the dominant species on the planet and they’ll destroy us all to make it happen! Destroy us all! Destroy us all!"

"False Humour differs from the True as a monkey does from a man.... I have here only pointed at the whole species of false humorists; but, as one of my principal designs in this paper is to beat down that malignant spirit which discovers itself in the writings of the present age, I shall not scruple, for the future, to single out any of the small wits that infest the world with such compositions as are ill-natured, immoral, and absurd."

"Jesting and levity lead a man to lewdness."

"I use humor as a way to cope with that and to let our community know that we’re not invisible, at least not to us."

"A good comedian can say things funny and other guys just say funny things."

"Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations."

"I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things — because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself. But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy."

"Schizophrenics aren't clever or wise or witty — they may make some very odd remarks but that's because they're mad, and there's nothing to be got out of what they say. When they laugh at things the rest of us don't think are funny, like the death of a parent, they're not being penetrating, and on other occasions they're not wryly amused at the simplicity and stupidity of the psychiatrist, however well justified that might be in many cases. They're laughing because they're mad, too mad to be able to tell what's funny any more.The rewards for being sane may not be very many but knowing what's funny is one of them."

"What we eventually run up against are the forces of humourlessness, and let me assure you that the humourless as a bunch don't just not know what's funny, they don't know what's serious. They have no common sense, either, and shouldn't be trusted with anything."

"By calling him humourless I mean to impugn his seriousness, categorically: such a man must rig up his probity ex nihilo."

"Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God."

"Humor is often born out of pain, misery, or anger. ..Humor for people like me functions as a way to maintain our sanity. It also serves to sweeten the bitter pill of truth that I try to administer to readers who are sometimes reluctant to be challenged in their political beliefs. First you read, then you catch yourself wondering why this is funny, and then realize that the joke actually makes a good point that you may not have thought of. Humor is there to disarm and deconstruct conventional wisdom and preconceived ideas."

"Humor tells you where the trouble is."

"JESTER, n. An officer formerly attached to a king's household, whose business it was to amuse the court by ludicrous actions and utterances, the absurdity being attested by his motley costume. The king himself being attired with dignity, it took the world some centuries to discover that his own conduct and decrees were sufficiently ridiculous for the amusement not only of his court but of all mankind. The jester was commonly called a fool, but the poets and romancers have ever delighted to represent him as a singularly wise and witty person. In the circus of to-day the melancholy ghost of the court fool effects the dejection of humbler audiences with the same jests wherewith in life he gloomed the marble hall, panged the patrician sense of humor and tapped the tank of royal tears."

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

"Comedy is a weird but very beautiful thing. Even though it seems foolish and silly and crazy, comedy has the most to say about the human condition. Because if you can laugh, you can get by. You can survive when things are bad when you have a sense of humor."

"It is the duty of the humor of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they cannot die before they are killed."

"Comedy is tragedy plus time."

"Humor is properly the exponent of low things; that which first renders them poetical to the mind. The man of Humor sees common life, even mean life, under the new light of sportfulness and love; whatever has existence has a charm for him. Humor has justly been regarded as the finest perfection of poetic genius. He who wants it, be his other gifts what they may, has only half a mind; an eye for what is above him, not for what is about him or below him."

"Imagine if you could actually be that happy? That would be powerful, man. People would be tunneling under the street to avoid you. They'd go "Oh, man — is that happy guy still out there?""

"The most difficult character in comedy is that of the fool, and he must be no simpleton that plays the part."

"The literature of joy is infinitely more difficult, more rare, and more triumphant than the black and white literature of pain."

"It is not funny that anything else should fall down, only that a man should fall down … Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified."

"Don't you know Sunday? Don't you know that his jokes are always so big and simple that one has never thought of them?"

"A joke's a very serious thing."

"If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And, if I can persuade you to laugh at a particular point that I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge it as true."

"Erasmus dramatizes a well-established political position: that of the fool who claims license to criticize all and sundry without reprisal, since his madness defines him as not fully a person and therefore not a political being with political desires and ambitions. The Praise of Folly, therefore sketches the possibility of a position for the critic of the scene of political rivalry, a position not simply impartial between the rivals but also, by self-definition, off the stage of rivalry altogether."

"Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time — of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid."

"I don't perceive my role as a newsman at all. I'm a comedian from stem to stern. You can cut me open and count the rings of jokes. If people learn something about the news by watching the show, that is incidental to my goal."

"Men will confess to treason, murder, arson, false teeth, or a wig. How many of them will own up to a lack of humour?"

"Imagine a spherical cow in a vacuum. That's the joke."

"Try to tell anyone that he hasn’t a sense of humor and you are in for a fight."

"Humor, to me, is a crucial part of life in general. It’s such an incredibly subtle and passionate way of relating to people. Your sense of humor communicates what you are, your approach to life. You’re very vulnerable when you make a joke. Not when you’re telling a joke so much, but when you’re joking around. To me, it’s just an instinctive, natural part of character development—showing what a character is. Also, you do it (I do it), when you’re under pressure, it’s a way of dealing with impossible situations. Untenable situations can only be dealt with through humor, if not despair and resignation. So, I prefer the humor. That’s how I like to use it in a horror film. But it’s not any different in how I would use it in any other film."

"People are queer. It’s easy to make them laugh after you have pried the first laugh loose. Human beings go around with their faces frozen and set; they don’t know how to laugh, and it takes a jolt to get that first laugh, but once that is broken, the laugh comes fairly easy."

"I think you are absolutely right about everything, except I think humor springs from rage, hay fever, overdue rent and miscellaneous hell."

"Sometimes comedy is really the only way forward through tragedy. Tonight I'm going to do what I've always done in the face of tragedy, and that's try to be funny."

"I detest jokes – when somebody tells me one I feel my IQ dropping; the brain cells start to disappear. But something is funny when the person delivering the line doesn’t know it’s funny or doesn’t treat it as a joke. Maybe it comes from a place of truth, or it’s a sort of rage against society."

"Comedy is in act superior to tragedy and humourous reasoning superior to grandiloquent reasoning."

"Thou canst not joke an Enemy into a Friend; but thou may'st a Friend into an Enemy."

"Comedy is an escape, not from the truth but from despair; a narrow escape into faith."

"Jest not with the two-edged sword of God's word."

"He that will lose his friend for a jest, deserves to die a beggar by the bargain."

"No time to break jests when the heartstrings are about to be broken."

"I believe, as Langston Hughes did, that satire and humor can often make dents where sawed-off billiard sticks can't."

"There are no exact guidelines. There are probably no guidelines at all. The only thing I can recommend at this stage is a sense of humor, an ability to see things in their ridiculous and absurd dimensions, to laugh at others and at ourselves, a sense of irony regarding everything that calls out for parody in this world."

"The difference between British comedy and Russian drama is pacing."

"Less at thine own things laugh; lest in the jest Thy person share, and the conceit advance, Make not thy sport abuses: for the fly That feeds on dung is colored thereby."

"You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time. It consists, I don't mind telling you in confidence, in putting too high a value on time. I, too, once put too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time, you see. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke."

"Humor, if we are to be serious about it, arises from the ineluctable fact that we are all born into a losing struggle. Those who risk agony and death to bring children into this fiasco simply can’t afford to be too frivolous. (And there just aren’t that many episiotomy jokes, even in the male repertoire.) I am certain that this is also partly why, in all cultures, it is females who are the rank-and-file mainstay of religion, which in turn is the official enemy of all humor."

"I never dare to write As funny as I can."

"I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member."

"People that make puns are like wanton boys that put coppers on the railroad tracks."

"Quamquam ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? ut pueris olim dant crustula blandi doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima."

"While rape jokes may not directly condone rape, they can desensitize their audience to it. Manuela Thomae and Viki Tendayi, who conducted a study on a related issue of the correlation between rape proclivity and sexist jokes, argue: If a person holds hostile sexist attitudes, then exposure to sexist jokes may create a situation which not only enhances tolerance of discrimination against women, but also appears to elevate the propensity to commit rape. These results sound a note of caution towards the use of sexist jokes in social settings."

"The effect of jokes that mock victims of assault seems to be fairly consistent among audiences, which is why comedians like to use them: rape jokes evoke an emotional response. They are used by comedians and the media to cheaply shock the audience into awkward “did-they-really-just-say-that?” laughter. When audiences allow this sort of humor, it desensitizes them to the horrors of sexual assault; eventually, audiences associate the use of rape in a joke with laughter and consider sexual assault legitimate comedic material. This effect of rape humor is deeply disturbing—it seeks to make sexual assault funny. I imagine that three possible events occur in audience members’ heads after hearing a rape joke: laughter due to shock/discomfort; mindless laughter; or the terrifying, literal image of a rape occurring. It takes courage to speak up when someone tells a joke that crosses the line from comedic wit into tasteless, knee-jerkreaction laughter—especially considering that women most commonly attempt to combat these jokes, and often become disregarded as sensitive and humorless."

"A sense of humor is the ability to see yourself when you are not looking in the mirror."

"I can't even really tell a joke. I find being funny very hard work. I am always asked about it and I feel guilty saying that, but it's the truth. I love my work but it ain't easy."

"Humor empowers the disempowered"

"The more one suffers, the more, I believe, has one a sense for the comic. It is only by the deepest suffering that one acquires true authority in the use of the comic, an authority which by one word transforms as by magic the reasonable creature one calls man into a caricature."

"The law of levity is allowed to supersede the law of gravity."

"Who could be on a stage, crowing about their victory and ridiculing those less fortunate than them without any sense of irony, shame or self-knowledge? That’s not a stand-up comedian. That’s just a cunt."

"That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously, because I think our opposition, whoever they may be, in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humor. You know, and we are humorous, we are, what are they, Laurel and Hardy. That's John and Yoko, and we stand a better chance under that guise, because all the serious people, like Martin Luther King, and Kennedy, and Gandhi, got shot."

"Dictatorship... is devoid of humor. The basic reason why Americans will never endure a dictator is... their sense of humor."

"As examples from history show, when jokes start circulating about a powerful leader, cracks in political legitimacy begin to appear."

"Creator — A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh."

"If we can't have sanity, we can fake it with humor. Humor gives you the same distance from the situation, the same metaview, only laughing is easier than sanity and possibly more fun."

"Humor is the contemplation of the finite from the point of view of the infinite."

"Humor is perhaps a sense of intellectual perspective: an awareness that some things are really important, others not; and that the two kinds are most oddly jumbled in everyday affairs."

"As soon as you realize everything's a joke, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense."

"The test of a real comedian is whether you laugh at him before he opens his mouth."

"Since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."

"I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realize it's a comedy."

"I'd like to make you laugh for about ten minutes. Though I'm gonna be on for an hour."

"Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it."

"Every Gag I tell must be based on truth. No matter how much I may exaggerate it, it must have a certain amount of Truth. ... Now Rumor travels Faster, but it don't stay put as long as Truth."

"I certainly know that [A] comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious and I don't want either of those to happen to me til I am dead (if then)."

"There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole Government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don't even have to exaggerate."

"Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that Humour excites in those who lack it."

"Moria and stultitia are both rendered nowadays as 'folly', but both have far stronger senses than folly has now. They imply derangement of mind, madness, mania. Such are the defects attributed to Christians by the worldly-wise. And vice-versa. ... Although the mutual laughter may seem six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, it is not. The Christian is profoundly mad merely by the standards of the world. To the world the wicked seem wise, but are mad in the sight of God. The Christian is touched by the Infinite and will not only have the last laugh at the end of time: even now he laughs more insanely than the worldlings."

"Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."

"Jesters do often prove prophets."

"A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Of him that makes it."

"A dry jest, sir…. I have them at my fingers' end."

"If tragedy is an experience of hyperinvolvement, comedy is an experience of underinvolvement, of detachment."

"Humor cannot bring Heaven to earth, but it can keep it from becoming a hell."

"If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time. But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy."

"Asperæ facetiæ, ubi nimis ex vero traxere, Acram sui memoriam relinquunt."

"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."

"A tragedy can never suffer by delay: a comedy may, because the allusions or the manners represented in it maybe temporary."

"The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel."

"The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortunes. That is what I am called upon to do every day."

"Comedy can be a cathartic way to deal with personal trauma."

"A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes."

"Comedy only works when it comes from an honest place and the relief that I’d miscarried twins was real!"

"The self-righteously bitter cartoons that appear in sectarian magazines are fine if all you want to do is preach to the choir, but I believe you can reach a lot more people with humor."

"Unconscious humour."

"A man who could make so vile a pun would not scruple to pick a pocket."

"And however our Dennises take offence, A double meaning shows double sense; And if proverbs tell truth, A double tooth Is wisdom's adopted dwelling."

"Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart."

"La moquerie est souvent une indigence d'esprit."

"Joking decides great things, Stronger and better oft than earnest can."

"That's a good joke but we do it much better in England."

"Diseur de bon mots, mauvais caractère."

"Si quid dictum est per jocum, Non æquum est id te serio prævortier."

"Omissis jocis."

"Der Spass verliert Alles, wenn der Spassmacher selber lacht."

"Now I perceive the devil understands Welsh; And 'tis no marvel he is so humorous."

"There's the humour of it."

"A college joke to cure the dumps."

"If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter."

"Cio ch'io vedeva mi sembrava un riso Dell' universo."

"Without laughter life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter to us that humanity highly rewards members of one of the most unusual professions on earth, those who make a living by inducing laughter in others. This is very strange if you stop to think of it: that otherwise sane and responsible citizens should devote their professional energies to causing others to make sharp, explosive barking-like exhalations."

"I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things — because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself. But the truth of the matter is that existence in general is very very tragic, very very sad, very brutal and very unhappy."

"All schizophrenia patients are mad, and none are sane. Their behaviour is incomprehensible. It tells us nothing about what they do in the rest of their lives, gives no insight into the human condition and has no lesson for sane people except how sane they are. There's nothing profound about it. Schizophrenics aren't clever or wise or witty — they may make some very odd remarks but that's because they're mad, and there's nothing to be got out of what they say. When they laugh at things the rest of us don't think are funny, like the death of a parent, they're not being penetrating, and on other occasions they're not wryly amused at at the simplicity and stupidity of the psychiatrist, however well justified that might be in many cases. They're laughing because they're mad, too mad to be able to tell what's funny any more. The rewards for being sane may not be very many but knowing what's funny is one of them. And that's an end of the matter."

"Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God."

"You grow up the first day you have your first good laugh — at yourself."

"Je me hâte de me moquer de tous, de peur d'être obligé d'en pleurer."

"Mirth is God's medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it."

"LAUGHTER, n. An interior convulsion, producing a distortion of the features and accompanied by inarticulate noises. It is infectious and, though intermittent, incurable. Liability to attacks of laughter is one of the characteristics distinguishing man from the animals -- these being not only inaccessible to the provocation of his example, but impregnable to the microbes having original jurisdiction in bestowal of the disease. Whether laughter could be imparted to animals by inoculation from the human patient is a question that has not been answered by experimentation. Dr. Meir Witchell holds that the infection character of laughter is due to the instantaneous fermentation of sputa diffused in a spray. From this peculiarity he names the disorder Convulsio spargens."

"When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it."

"Thanks to globalization, new technologies and social networks, we know that what makes us laugh or saddens us, causes exactly the same reaction on the other side of the world."

"That so much time was wasted in this pain. Ten thousand years ago he might have let off down To not return again! A dreadful laugh at last escapes his lips; The laughter sets him free. A Fool lives in the Universe! he cries. The Fool is me! And with one final shake of laughter Breaks his bonds. The nails fall skittering to marble floors. And Christ, knelt at the rail, sees miracle As Man steps down in amiable wisdom To give himself what no one else can give: His liberty."

"I am the dreamer and the doer I the hearer and the knower I the giver and the taker I the sword and the wound of sword. If this be true, then let sword fall free from hand. I embrace myself. I laugh until I weep And weep until I smile"

"We fired our laughs like cannons at its heart!"

"Tragedy is all about losing. And humor is all about gaining perspective. Humour returns our gladness. And with gladness comes generosity. Humor returns us to the light and makes us light—it kills grudges, buries bodies–buries revenge—buries blame and guilt—fear and dread. Laughter, like hiccups and sneezes and farts and burps, relieves us of severity."

"Truth's sacred fort th' exploded laugh shall win, And coxcombs vanquish Berkeley with a grin."

"It is the duty of the humor of any given nation in time of high crisis to attack the catastrophe that faces it in such a manner as to cause the people to laugh at it in such a way that they cannot die before they are killed."

"The landlord's laugh was ready chorus."

"And if I laugh at any mortal thing, 'Tis that I may not weep."

"No man who has once heartily and wholly laughed can be altogether irreclaimably bad."

"How much lies in Laughter: the cipher-key, wherewith we decipher the whole man."

"Nam risu inepto res ineptior nulla est."

"La plus perdue de toutes les journées est celle où l'on n'a pas rit."

"It is not funny that anything else should fall down, only that a man should fall down … Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified."

"The vulgar only laugh, but never smile; whereas well-bred people often smile, but seldom laugh."

"Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things; for true wit or good sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world."

"A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh."

"So much of "normal, civilized" life is bull that you can't imagine. … What frightens you, doesn't frighten me, what frightens me, you'd laugh at."

"I'm struck by how laughter connects you with people. It's almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you're just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy."

"If I can get you to laugh with me, you like me better, which makes you more open to my ideas. And, if I can persuade you to laugh at a particular point that I make, by laughing at it you acknowledge it as true."

"Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time — of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid."

"He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him."

"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

"It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."

"For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity."

"Ce n'est pas être bien aisé que de rire."

"Maybe they [women who were executed by the Taliban] were guilty of the worst of all crimes: to laugh. Yes. Laughing. I said laughter. Didn't you know that with the Taliban in Afghanistan women can't laugh, that they are even forbidden to laugh?"

"It’s no use crying over spilt evils. It’s better to mop them up laughing."

"The highest forms of understanding we can achieve are laughter and human compassion."

"I have known sorrow—therefore I May laugh with you, O friend, more merrily Than those who never sorrowed upon earth And know not laughter's worth. I have known laughter—therefore I May sorrow with you far more tenderly Than those who never guess how sad a thing Seems merriment to one heart's suffering."

"In a dream I saw Jesus and My God Pan sitting together in the heart of the forest. They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long."

"I am the laughter of the new-born child On whose soft-breathing sleep an angel smiled."

"Your laugh is of the sardonic kind."

"Poets have imagined no utterance of fiends or hobgoblins so fearfully appropriate as a laugh. And even the obtuse lime-burner felt his nerves shaken, as this strange man looked inward at his own heart, and burst into laughter that rolled away into the night, and was indistinctly reverberated among the hills."

"Low gurgling laughter, as sweet As the swallow's song i' the South, And a ripple of dimples that, dancing, meet By the curves of a perfect mouth."

"Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not."

"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be."

"Laugh not too much; the witty man laughs least: For wit is news only to ignorance. Lesse at thine own things laugh; lest in the jest Thy person share, and the conceit advance."

"Malcolm listened to her laughter, and for the first time in his life he knew that everything was going to be all right. Niceness, he realized, it was not enough, and Love was only part of the rest. You had to have laughter, too. Laughter would make everything come out right in the end, or if it didn’t nobody would notice."

"And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the skies."

"Discit enim citius, meminitque libentius ilud Quod quis deridet, quam quod probat et veneratur."

"For a man learns more quickly and remembers more easily that which he laughs at, than that which he approves and reveres."

"Laugh, and be fat, sir, your penance is known. They that love mirth, let them heartily drink, 'Tis the only receipt to make sorrow sink."

"All our best men are laughed at in this nightmare land."

"You have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy."

"I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away — yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth's orbit ——————————— and wanted to shoot myself."

"We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all."

"Laughter is the climax in the tragedy of seeing, hearing and smelling self-consciously."

"Scholars of the highest class, when they hear about the Tao, take it and practice it earnestly. Scholars of the middle class, when they hear of it, take it half earnestly. Scholars of the lowest class, when they hear of it, laugh at it. Without the laughter, there would be no Tao."

"You can tell By the laugh in the dark at the sound of the bell You can tell It's the nucleus burning inside of the cell…"

"Laughter is poison to fear."

"Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either."

"There are three things which are real: God, human folly, and laughter. Since the first two pass our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third."

"Creator. A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh."

"The sense of humor has other things to do than to make itself conspicuous in the act of laughter."

"Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides."

"That, in the midst of our daily struggle from birth to death, mankind should ever have conceived such things as laughter or beauty or goodness appears to me a far more marvellous thing than the finest supernatural miracle ever invented by all the mythologies."

"Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."

"She loves to laugh; she loves to sing. She does everything."

"Seventy-three men sailed in, from the San Francisco Bay, Rolled off of their ship and here's what they had to say. "We're calling everyone to ride along, to another shore. Where we can laugh our lives away and be free once more." But no one heard them calling, no one came at all, 'Cause they were too busy watching those old raindrops fall."

"To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity."

"Laugh at your friends, and if your friends are sore; So much the better, you may laugh the more."

"The man that loves and laughs must sure do well."

"To laugh were want of goodness and of grace; And to be grave, exceeds all pow'r of face."

"I'd like to make you laugh for about ten minutes. Though I'm gonna be on for an hour."

"Nimium risus pretium est, si probitatis impendio constat."

"One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span, Because to laugh is proper to the man."

"Put your prejudice aside, For, really, there's nothing here that's outrageous, Nothing sick, or bad — or contagious. Not that I sit here glowing with pride For my book: all you'll find is laughter: That's all the glory my heart is after, Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you. I'd rather write about laughing than crying, For laughter makes men human, and courageous."

"Tel qui rit vendredi, dimanche pleurera."

"Has he gone to the land of no laughter, The man who made mirth for us all?"

"Niemand wird tiefer traurig als wer zu viel lächelt."

"Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it."

"Castigat ridendo mores."

"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."

"I have always been a laugher, disturbing people who are not laughers, upsetting whole audiences at theatres... I laugh, that's all. I love to laugh. Laugher to me is being alive. I have had rotten times, and I have laughed through them. Even in the midst of the very worst times I have laughed."

"With his eyes in flood with laughter."

"O, you shall see him laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up."

"The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me."

"O, I am stabb'd with laughter."

"They laugh that win."

"Society and its ideal average, normal mediocrity with its pleasing, mannerly, commonplace platitudes may have its fling of jeering at genius for not conforming to social usage and for breaking away from the well-trodden paths of social ruts. Far more effective and deadly are the stones of ridicule cast by the hand of genius at the Philistine Goliath, strong in his brute social power, but dull of wits. Social laughter is momentary, soon burns itself out and passes away like the fire and smokes of straw, but genius shakes the very skies with its lasting, inextinguishable laughter."

"Laughter almost ever cometh of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature: delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling."

"In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred, as audible laughter."

"Laugh and be fat."

"Stupid people, who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited; that is, ungentle, uncharitable, unchristian."

"For still the World prevail'd, and its dread laugh, Which scarce the firm Philosopher can scorn."

"Fight Virtue's cause, stand up in Wit's defence, Win us from vice and laugh us into sense."

"Never laugh at live dragons."

"Your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug,—push it a little—crowd it a little—weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand."

"He laughs best who laughs last."

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; Weep, and you weep alone; For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, But has trouble enough of its own."

"There’s something out there and it’s laughing at us."

"I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience — and laughter."

"The man with the real sense of humor is the man who can put himself in the spectator's place and laugh at his own misfortunes. That is what I am called upon to do every day."

"Care to our coffin adds a nail, no doubt; And every Grin, so merry, draws one out."

"The house of laughter makes a house of woe."

"Nothing is capable to being well set to music that is not nonsense."

"...do not be impressed by the imprint of a famous publishing house or the volumes of an author's publications. Bear in mind that Einstein needed only seventeen pages for his contribution which revolutionized physics, while there are graphomanics in asylums who use up mounds of paper every day. Remember that publishers want to keep the printing presses busy and do not object to nonsense if it can be sold."

"Undergraduates owe their happiness chiefly to the consciousness that they are no longer at school. The nonsense which was knocked out of them at school is all put gently back at Oxford or Cambridge."

"Nonsense, n. The objections that are urged against this excellent dictionary."

"To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life."

"'T was brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe."

"The Red Queen shook her head, 'You may call it "nonsense" if you like,' she said, 'but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!'"

"There are two ways of dealing with nonsense in this world. One is to put nonsense in the right place; as when people put nonsense into nursery rhymes. The other is to put nonsense in the wrong place; as when they put it into educational addresses, psychological criticisms, and complaints against nursery rhymes or other normal amusements of mankind."

"If, therefore, nonsense is really to be the literature of the future, it must have its own version of the Cosmos to offer; the world must not only be tragic, romantic, and religious, it must be nonsensical also."

"Colourless green ideas sleep furiously."

"The nonsense that charms is close to sense."

"Nonsense is socially OK, but not stupidity."

"Nine–tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense."

"To die for faction is a common evil, But to be hanged for nonsense is the Devil."

"I've a great fancy to see my own funeral afore I die."

"Nonsense and beauty have close connections — closer connections than Art will allow."

"As Charms are nonsense, Nonsence is a Charm."

"Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense."

"It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled seas of thought."

"Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age."

"They beautifully illustrate the recipe for nonsense, which is: take something strange-looking, whose meaning is now forgotten, and liberally stir in imagination and superstition. In this respect the divinatory tarot is a paradigm of all superstitions and wonderfully illustrates humanity’s clever, ingenious, and intricate capacity for folly."

"For one of us was born a twin And not a soul knew which."

"Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable."

"Alban was silent. It was difficult to talk to a man who spoke obvious nonsense."

"No one is exempt from talking nonsense. The great misfortune is to do it solemnly."

"I don't hold with all this washing. This modern Behind-the-ears nonsense."

"If others examined themselves attentively, as I do, they would find themselves, as I do, full of inanity and nonsense. Get rid of it I cannot without getting rid of myself."

"The evolution of sense is, in a sense, the evolution of nonsense."

"Probably the best nonsense poetry is produced gradually and accidentally, by communities rather than by individuals."

"Any bit of nonsense can be computerized—astrology, biorhythms, the I Ching—but that doesn’t make the nonsense any more valid."

"Such a shuffleing, nonsensical paragraph was, I firmly believe, never put together since the invention of letters. That which I do not, and which, I think, no one can, understand. I shall not meddle with."

"A little nonsense now and then Is relished by the wisest men."

"A man talking sense to himself is no madder than a man talking nonsense not to himself."

"There is absolutely no common sense; it is common nonsense."

"A careless song, with a little nonsense in it now and then, does not misbecome a monarch."

"Whenever you come near the human race, there’s layers and layers of nonsense."

"My aim is: to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense."

"He killed the noble Mudjokivis. Of the skin he made him mittens, Made them with the fur side inside, Made them with the skin side outside. He, to get the warm side inside, Put the inside skin side outside; He, to get the cold side outside, Put the warm side fur side inside. That's why he put the fur side inside, Why he put the skin side outside, Why he turned them inside outside."

"When Bryan O'Lynn had no shirt to put on, He took him a sheep skin to make him a' one. "With the skinny side out, and the wooly side in, 'Twill be warm and convanient," said Bryan O'Lynn."

"For blocks are better cleft with wedges, Than tools of sharp or subtle edges, And dullest nonsense has been found By some to be the most profound."

"To varnish nonsense with the charms of sound."

"Conductor, when you receive a fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare. A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare!"

"Chorus Punch, brothers! punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare!"

"Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem: Dulce est desipere in loco."

"How pleasant to know Mr. Lear! Who has written such volumes of stuff! Some think him ill-tempered and queer, But a few think him pleasant enough."

"No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the misfortune is to do it solemnly."

"There's a skin without and a skin within, A covering skin and a lining skin, But the skin within is the skin without Doubled and carried complete throughout."

"From the Squirrel skin Marcosset Made some mittens for our hero. Mittens with the fur-side inside, With the fur side next his fingers So's to keep the hand warm inside."

"One bright day, in the middle of the night, two dead boys began to fight. Back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other. A deaf policemen heard the noise, and came to save the two dead boys. If you don't believe me, well it's true, ask the blind man: he saw it all too."

"In light of the recent veiled (ha!) threats aimed at the creators of the television show South Park … by bloggers on Revolution Muslim's website, we hereby deem May 20, 2010 as the first 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!' Do your part to both water down the pool of targets and, oh yeah, defend a little something our country is famous for (but maybe not for long? Comedy Central cooperated with terrorists and pulled the episode) the first amendment."

"Yeah, I want to water down the targets... as a cartoonist I just felt so much passion about what had happened I wanted to kind of counter Comedy Central's message they sent about feeling afraid."

"I make cartoons about current, cultural events. I made a cartoon of a 'poster' entitled "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!" with a nonexistent group's name -- Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor -- drawn on the cartoon also. I did not intend for my cartoon to go viral. I did not intend to be the focus of any 'group'."

"I practice the first amendment by drawing what I wish."

"This particular cartoon of a 'poster' seems to have struck a gigantic nerve, something I was totally unprepared for. I am going back to the drawing table now!"

"I said that I wanted to counter fear and then I got afraid."

"It's turned into something completely different, nothing I could've imagined it morphing into. I'm happy some people are talking, because obviously this needs to be addressed."

"As a cartoon, it was mildly amusing. As a campaign, it's crass and gratuitously offensive."

"Depictions of Muhammad offend millions of Muslims who are no part of the violent threats."

"Forget the South Park dust up; forget Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. If you want to see truly shocking anti-religious cartoons, you have to go back to the sixteenth century. Near the end of Luther’s life, his propaganda campaign against Rome grew increasingly vitriolic and his language grotesquely pungent."

"The debate over cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad is often framed as a clash between free speech and religious attitudes. But it is just as much a clash between conflicting religious attitudes, and the freedom at stake is not only freedom of expression but freedom of religion. For while Luther was surely engaging in offensive speech, he was also exercising a right of freedom of conscience, which included the right to dissent from Catholic orthodoxy."

"There is power in numbers, and if you're an artist, creator, cartoonist, or basically anyone who would like to exercise your right to free speech in a way that it is actively threatened, that would be the day to do it."

"No one has a right to an audience or even to a sympathetic hearing, much less an engaged audience. But no one should be beaten or killed or imprisoned simply for speaking their mind or praying to one god as opposed to the other or none at all or getting on with the small business of living their life in peaceful fashion. If we cannot or will not defend that principle with a full throat, then we deserve to choke on whatever jihadists of all stripes can force down our throats."

"Our Draw Mohammed contest is not a frivolous exercise of hip, ironic, hoolarious sacrilege toward a minority religion in the United States (though even that deserves all the protection that the most serioso political commentary commands). It's a defense of what is at the core of a society that is painfully incompetent at delivering on its promise of freedom, tolerance, and equal rights."

"The single most important element–and the thing that ties these selections together–is that each image forces the viewer to do two things. First, they consciously call into question the nature of representation, no small matter in fights over whether it is allowed under Islamic law to depict Mohammed … Second, each of the images forces the viewer to actively participate not simply in the creation of meaning but of actually constructing the image itself."

"There is a deeper lesson here: Connect the dots and discover that we all must be Spartacus on Everybody Draw Mohammad Day. And that in a free society, every day is Everybody Draw Mohammed Day."

"Theo van Gogh was murdered for making a movie critical of Islam. 'South Park' creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are threatened with the same fate. They deserve our solidarity, and I will stand with them by hosting images of Muhammad on my own website. Please stand with us."

"It is clear that some feel great satisfaction at what they see as 'sticking it to the Muslims'."

"Molly Norris proposed a 'let’s everyone draw Mohammed day' – then, apparently appalled by her own audacity, backed quickly away."

"While the suits at Comedy Central and Yale University Press have been cowed, people across the country have decided to speak up and thereby magnify the offense a thousandfold."

"Everybody Draw Mohammed Day is a chance to reinstate offense and sincerity to their proper place, freed from terror or silence."

"The proper (and, at the risk of looking jingoistic, American) way to combat bad speech is with better speech. To silence and be silenced are the refuge of cowards."

"I realize that in a free society, someone is always going to be doing or saying something that will offend somebody somewhere. I also realize that more free speech, not censorship, is the answer."

"The bottom line is that the First Amendment guarantees free speech including criticism of all peoples. We are an equal-opportunity offense country. To censor ourselves to avoid upsetting a certain group (in a cartoon no less) is un-American."

"In the South Park episode that started all this, Buddha does lines of coke and there was an episode where Cartman started a Christian rock band that sang very homo-erotic songs. Yet there is one religious figure we can't make fun of. The point of the episode that started the controversy is that celebrities wanted Muhammad's power not to be ridiculed. How come non-Muslims aren't allowed to make jokes?"

"These two camps – the Muhammad-knockers and the Muslim offence-takers – are locked in a deadly embrace. Islamic extremists need Western depictions of Muhammad as evidence that there is a new crusade against Islam, while the Muhammad-knockers need the flag-burning, street-stomping antics of the extremists as evidence that their defence of the Enlightenment is a risky, important business."

"Americans love their free speech and have had enough of those who think they can dictate the limits of that fundamental right. [...] Draw to any heart's discontent. It's a free country. For now."

"There’s something here that makes me twitch. I think it’s the 'everybody'. It’s the 'everybody' of a man at the back of a mob, trying to persuade other people to get lynching."

"If a cartoonist wants to satirise Islam by drawing Mohammed, I’m on his side all the way. But among the 13,000 pictures on the EDMD Facebook page, you have Mohammed as a dog in a veil, Mohammed as a pig and Mohammed as a monkey. That’s not resistance, but picking a fight."

"Issuing a death threat against somebody who drew a picture isn’t my thing, but this isn’t either."

"It is likely that institutions will apply more and more self-censorship. Fearing a possible threat, nothing is worse than the fear of fear."

"In a democratic society where free speech is vigilantly protected, it is perfectly reasonable to call out censorship, particularly when it springs from some form of tyrannical religious extremism."

"Whether this succeeds or not, and I have no personal interest in drawing Muhammad, I support the concept. We must join together to stop injustice."

"It defines those others—Muslims—as being outside of our culture, unworthy of the courtesy we readily accord to insiders."

"It attempts to battle religious zealotry with rudeness and sacrilege, and we can only wait to see what happens, but I fear it won’t be good."

"[A] blasphemous faux holiday … [which would] only serve to reinforce broader American misunderstandings of Islam and Muslims."

"Major combat operations have ended in Iraq."

"Nick, why does this Chicken of the Sea taste like tuna?"

"YYEEEAARRGHHHHH!!"

"It was a wardrobe malfunction."

"They never stop thinking of new ways to harm our country or our people, and neither do we."

"Can you handle my truth?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"Nooooooooooooo!"

"That's hot."

"My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this past week."

"No fruit loops!"

"They think work is a four-letter word."

"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."

"What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best."

"Peter, are you going to ask that question with shades on?"

"Wow! Brazil is big."

"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm's way."

"I personally believe that U. S. Americans are unable to [locate the U. S. on a world map] because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should—our education over here in the U. S. should help the U. S., uh, or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children."

"Childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured."

"Le soleil tourne autour de la terre."

"In Iran, we don't have homosexuals. In Iran, we don't have this phenomenon."

"I'm not taking the chance on some motherfucker. I don't care if she's a Mexican, a whore, whatever—it's not 'cause she's black. It’s because we use the word nigger sometimes here. I'm not going to take a chance ever in life for losing everything I've worked for for thirty years 'cause some fucking nigger heard us say nigger and turned us in to the Enquirer magazine. Our career is over. I'm not taking that chance at all, never in life. Never. Never."

"In recent years, a little ill-drawn circle called Polandball has gained world fame quasi-instantaneously."

"Polandball has its own brand of lolspeak, and only Anglophone countries speak with good English. Other countryballs speak a farcical rendition of their own language into English."

"Polandball speaks in an English that mimics Slavic grammar, and confuses the finer points of English usage."

"Polandball was born out of a strange cyber war that took place in August 2009. On Drawball.com, a website which allows users to draw on a huge circular canvas, a group of Polish Internet users somehow coordinated their efforts to take over the ball."

"The idea of ridiculing international stereotypes turned out to be so catchy that it soon resulted in the creation of hundreds of Polandball stories."

"Polandball is the story of one guy creating a worldwide phenomenon by making fun of another guy, creating a new format of expressing one’s views on nationality, race, language and recent history along the way."

"Why did it become so successful? Maybe because the basic rules that apply to Polandball offer every creator a good basis for developing a funny story, yet offering very few restrictions."

"Polandball memes function almost like some sort of cultural genes – they self-replicate, freely mutate, and respond to selective pressures."

"Is there anything Poland itself can learn from Polandball? Perhaps a lesson in having a sense of humour about our long-time grudges, if nothing else."

"Polandball, based on a ball in the colours of the Polish flag, has become a gathering point online for protesters against Russia's actions in Ukraine."

"Polandball is being portrayed as a hero in comics that exaggerate the nation's response to the crisis."

"One comic, in which Poland flies into space and stops Russia using Crimea as a means of ramming the United States, has shot to the top of the charts in the Polandball sub-forum on Reddit."

"In August 2009, Polandball artists took over the popular Drawball site, making its logo look like Polandball."

"There are clear rules defined by the community stating that country balls can not have limbs nor can they speak proper English, keeping in line with the original Polandball style."

"What is Polandball, exactly? No, it's not a Calvinball variant — it's a type of webcomic that has been steadily gaining attention on Reddit."

"Polandballs also generally speak mangled English ('Engrish') of a type supposedly common in whatever countries are being portrayed."

"Polandball presents a nice medium ground between single-panel political cartoons and longer-form political satire."

"What keeps the quality of these comics so high? Each and every submission to the Polandball subreddit is reviewed by a very diligent team of moderators who demand only the highest quality."

"They have even implemented a mechanism to keep jokes from getting overdone and ruined, the Joke Life Preserve, which limits the ability of submitters to use certain jokes that have become annoying memes. This is part of the genius of the success of Polandball."

"...these comics don't have a specific author. They're treated as public property. Anyone can make their own "Polandball" using the following recipe: you have to have something to say about history or international politics and translate it into a simple comic, in which balls symbolizing different countries (which is manifested by painting them in the colors of the national flag) talk to each other using internet slang."

"Polandball's jokey simplicity, its nerdy love of history, and its focus on current affairs have made the form well suited for the Ukraine crisis."

"Old St. Paul's was one of the largest churches in Europe... The church in the fourteenth century was not regarded only as a place for public worship. Masses and services of all kinds were going on all day long: the place was bright, not only with the sunlight streaming through the painted glass, but with wax tapers burning before many a shrine—at some, all day and all night. People came to the church to walk about, for rest, for conversation, for the transaction of business—to make or receive payments: to hire servants. The middle aisle of the church where all this was done was called Paul's Walk or Duke Humphrey's Walk. Here were tables where twelve licensed scribes sat writing letters for those who wanted their services. They would also prepare a lease, a deed, a conveyance—any legal document. The church was filled with tombs and monuments, some of these very ancient, some of the greatest interest. Here was one called the tomb of Duke Humphrey—, who was really buried at St. Alban's. On May Day the watermen used to come to St. Paul's in order to sprinkle water and strew herbs upon this tomb—I know not why. Those who were out of work and went dinnerless were said to dine with Duke Humphrey: and there was a proverb—'Trash and trumpery is the way to Duke Humphrey.' Trumpery being used in its original meaning—tromperie—deceit."

""—an' a dog's skin over be the table, an' the floor was painted brown about three fut all round the walls. There was pieces o' windy curtain over the backs o' the chairs; there was a big fern growin' in an ould drainpipe in the corner; there was an ould straw hat o' John's stuffed full o' flowers an' it hangin' on the wall, an' here an' there, all round it an' beside it were picters cut from the papers an' then tacked on the plaster. Ye could hardly see the mantelshelf, Jane allowed, for all the trumpery was piled on it, dinglum-danglums of glass an' chaney, an' shells from the say, an' a sampler stuck in a frame, an' in the middle of all a picter of Hannah herself got up in all her finery."

"Bring out a chair," he shouted, "bring out a basin. Tell them to come to me. It's bleedin' she wants." He took from his carpet-bag a brass handled fleam, opened a blade and tried its edge with his thumb. "Hurry, hurry," he shouted, dancing towards the Master. "Man alive, stir yourself... Is it have me lose the baste ye would? Bring a basin quick, I tell ye... Look at her. Don't let her down—for God's sake, don't let her down," shouted the man and, even as Spotty doubled her knees and sank moaning in the straw, rushed over and began pulling at her tail. "She mustn't lie," he shouted; "she mustn't lie. Gar up." He kicked brutally at her buttocks. "Gar up—gar up, ye divil!" Then the Master crossed, took him by the shoulders and sent him spinning against the wall. "Get back, you brute!" The Master was hoarse with anger, his eyes flashed red murder. "Get out o' my sight," he shouted, "you ignorant brute! You a cattle doctor—you a Christian! Get out, I say; get out o' my sight. Here, take your trumpery." Out went the carpet-bag, the coat, the fleam, into the yard; out came the Master raging and flaring. "You'd murder my beast—you'd kick her to death—you'd torture the life out of her! I'm sick of the sight of you. Get out; get out!"

"A concise sketch of the history of Perkinism, since its first introduction into this island, will render evident what has been the nature of the opposition to the Metallic Practice, inasmuch as it will show that it resolves itself into two heads, viz. Ridicule and Malicious Falsehood."

"TRUMPERY: ...also in forms thrumpery... thrumphry... thrumphery... trumphy ...1. adj. Worthless, insignificant; silly, capricious, used esp. of persons. ...2. Rubbish, trash; broken furniture. ...3. A worthless sort of person; a pretentious or disreputable woman. ...4. Weeds growing on cultivated ground. ...5. Odds and ends, miscellaneous articles or property; knick-knacks, trifles."

"TRUMPERY, adv. ...A corruption of 'temporary.' He was only took on trumpery."

"The laird was delighted to see the haste and heartiness with which the leddy was resolved to consummate the match; but he said— "Do as ye like, leddy—do as ye like; but I'll no coom [dirty] my fingers wi' meddling in ony sic project. The wark be a' your ain." Surely neither you nor that unreverend and misleart trumphy your wife, our Meg, would refuse to be present at the occasion?" 'Deed, leddy, I'm unco sweer't; I'll no deny that," replied Dirdumwhamle. "If it is to take place this day, and in this house, gudeman, I'm sure it will be ill put on blateness, on both your part and mine, no to be present," said Mrs Milrookit."

"Now as Abraham's example shews us there must be a meet burial-place provided for the dead; so in the second place, that it must be a Set and Designed Place; not at random... but appointed, and put apart for that use. ...Abraham ...settled... ground to this good and only purpose: which because it is a holy employment, in regard of the bodies of the saints that are there buried, it is locus sacer, "holy:" not for that the dust of it hath in itself any inherent quality of sanctity, but for that it is destined and set apart for this holy use. Hence these places were called of old χοιμητἠρια, "the sleeping places" of Christians: and even those High Priests and Elders, whose consciences would serve them to barter with Judas for the blood of his Master; yet would pretend so much charity, as with the redelivered silverings of Judas to buy a field for the burial-place of strangers, called thereupon, Άηελδαμἁ. Out of the consideration of the holy designation of these peculiar places, came both the title and practice of the consecration of Cemeteries; which, they say, is no less ancient than the days of Calixtus the first, who dedicated the first cemetery, about the year of our Lord two hundred and twenty: although these cemeteries, being then only the outer courts of the Churches, perhaps seemed not to need any new or several forms of consecration, but took part of the dedication with the holy structures; and indeed by the Council of Arles it was decreed, That if any Church were consecrated, the Churchyard of it should require no other hallowing than by simple conspersion. But superstition hath been idly lavish this way. The various and unnecessary ceremonies of which consecration whoso desires to see, let him consult with Hospinian in his Tract De Origine Dedicationum: where he shall have it fully recounted, out of the Pontifical of Albertus Castellanus, what a world of fopperies there are, of crosses, of candles, of holy water, and salt, and censings. Away with these trumperies. But, thus much let me say, that, laying aside all superstitious rites, it is both meet and necessary, that these kind of places should be set aside to this holy use, by a due and religious dedication, as we do this day."

"I give the story as I heard it, my lady, but be dazed if I believe in such trumpery behaviour of the folks in the sky, nor anything else that's said about 'em."

"The undertaking was soon in full progress and by degrees; and by degrees it became the talk of the hamlets round that Lady Constantine had given up melancholy for astronomy, to the great advantage of all who came in contact with her. One morning when Tabitha Lark had come as usual to read, Lady Constantine chanced to be in a quarter of the house to which she seldom wandered; and while here she heard her maid talking confidentially to Tabitha in the adjoining room on the curious and sudden interest which Lady Constantine had acquired in the moon and stars. "They do say all sorts of trumpery," observed the hand maid. "They say—though 'tis little better than mischief, to be sure—that it isn't the moon, and it isn't the stars, and it isn't the plannards, that my lady cares for, but for the pretty lad who draws 'em down from the sky to please her; and being a married example, and what with sin and shame knocking at every poor maid's door afore you can say, 'Hands off, my dear,' to the civilest young man, she ought to set a better pattern." Lady Constantine's face flamed up vividly."

"She'll blab your most secret plans and theories to every one of her acquaintance... and make them appear ridiculous by announcing them before they are matured. If you attempt to study with a woman, you'll lie ruled... to entertain fancies instead of theories, air-castles instead of intentions, qualms instead of opinions, sickly prepossessions instead of reasoned conclusions. Your wide heaven of study, young man, will soon reduce itself to the miserable narrow expanse of her face and your myriad of stars to her two trumpery eyes."

"We have seen that the n ideal of government and the American ideal cannot exist together in the world and that the Prussian ideal is of necessity vicious in its nature and degrading in its effects. ...We fight not to avenge the Lusitania, not to rebuild Louvain, not to exact reparation for murdered women and children. We fight to slay the government which taught its people to commit such damnable atrocities. We fight that never again may a great nation with cynical insolence throw in the face of the world the base assertions that treaties are scraps of paper, that necessity knows no law, that might is the right of the strongest, and that the State can do no wrong. We fight to hurl the Hohenzollern and his dangerous doctrine of divine right upon the scrap-heap of useless trumpery, and to set the German people in his place, that they may learn to rule themselves."

"But his masther didn t wait to hear the end of it till he was below himself... "What? What? What's this tarnation tomfoolery about?" sez he, "in my front parlour? or what do ye mane at all, at all? But the lad was whistlin' like a mavis on May-day, an' timin' himself makin' a new tin on the anvil, an' the sorra a answer he made him, but went on as unconsarned as iver. "I say, ye scoundhril ye," sez the landlord, kickin' one of the skillets clean out through the window, "get up out of that, an' clear out o' this yerself an' yer thrumpery in double quick time, afore I call in the polis, an' make them do their duty.""

"Presently he returned and pitched a small leathern bag of money upon the oak table by which George was sitting. ... 'Ha! ha! Count it again. I tell 'ee, count it again.' And his laugh sounded hard like the clinking of the counted coins. 'That's what 'tis.' ' 'Tis yours. I won't keep it vrom 'ee. It come to your mother by will by her mother's side. Fifty pound and the oddses be the duty; and I never touched it to this day. Goo an' make your way wi' it, if you be zo love-struck wi' a trumpery maid not wo'th her zalt. George pushed the money from him."

"Pro. Say again, where didst thou leave these varlets? Ari. I told you, Sir, they were red hot with drinking; So full of valour, that they smote the air For breathing in their faces; beat the ground For kissing of their feet; yet always bending Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor... There dancing up to th' chins, that the foul lake O'er-stunk their feet. Pro. This was well done, my bird; Thy shape invisible retain thou still; The trumpery in my house, go bring it hither, For stale to catch these thieves. Ari. I go. I go. [Exit. Pro. A devil, a born devil; on whose nature Nurture can never stick; on whom my pains, Humanely taken, all, all lost. quite lost; And, as with age, his body uglier grows, So his mind cankers; I will plague them all, Even to roaring: come, hang them on this line. [Prospero remains invisible."

"And if Cow and Swine-dung were thus incorporated together with Horse-dung, and kept under Cover, they would be Cent. per Cent. the better for it, in Comparison of their lying all abroad exposed to the Weather. But, in Case there are not Conveniencies for laying such Dung under Cover, then, as the Beast Dungs are made, they should be lain in one great Heap or Dunghill... and as the black Water drains from it, it ought to be carefully preserved, by causing it to run into such a Receptacle or Reservoir, as will give the Farmer an Opportunity to carry it out in a Tub or Barrel, for throwing it over the Dunghill, or to scatter it... For, if Stable or other Dungs were laid thinly over the Farm-yard, the Rains would easily wash through them, and the Sun dry them, and that much more than when such Dungs are laid in a thick Substance. But, before I quit this Subject, I must observe, that I have seen a great Farmer lay his Stable-dung under a Granary built high from the Ground on Purpose to be a Shelter or Cover for something: Here I should think it improper to lay Dung, because the Steam of Dung is most apt to breed a Mould, that is pernicious to every thing it settles, or gets to. When Fowls-dungs are kept by themselves, as often as we have Dust, offal Chaff, or other Trumpery, fanned out of the Corn, we mix them with such Fowls-dung which, in Time, will lie, heat, rot and become an excellent Manure, to be sown as I said, out of the Hand Seed-cott, and harrowed in with your Barley, or otherwise applied."

"Now Wheat, Barley, Oats, Beans, Pease, and other Grain, are neargot as dry, as they will be, in the Mow, in the Cock, and in the Barn; and, as the Field-work is by the Beginning of this Month for the most Part over, and the Weather commonly frosty and snowy, the Farmer in Course, for these, and other Reasons, is obliged to employ his Hands in trashing out and cleaning Corn for Market; a Work that requires a good Workman: For, though Corn is got in dry, yet, if theTasker cannot clean and free it of the Seeds of Weeds, and other Trumpery, the Master must consequently be a Loser."

"The next Thing to be done, is to further clean the Wheat, by the Wheat-ridder, which is a round, splintered Sieve, worked in a round Manner, by the Tasker's two Hands, and who, by the Art of working this Sieve, will cause those Corals, Seeds of Weeds, and other Trumpery, that escaped the throwing Labour, to gather on the Top of the Wheat in the Sieve for his throwing them out, to be kept in a particular Parcel by themselves, to be thrashed hereafter; and this we call Peggings being composed of those Corals that were swept off the Heap of Wheat, after Throwing; and those Corals, Seeds of Weeds, and other Trumpery the Ridder-Sieve thus discharges."

"When it is thrashed out and the Ails are beat and sufficiently broke, they pass the Corn through a large-holed Caving-Sieve, for taking away the short Straws and offal Trumpery, in order to prepare it for cleaning, by throwing; and, where there is Room enough, two Men may throw it well to clear it of its Chaff, the Seeds of Weeds, and the lightest Corns."

"Wheat, Barley, and Oats may be very expeditiously cleaned in great Perfection. When all the Barley is... screened, it is ready to put into Sacks for Market; but, in case some Seeds of Darnel should be left among the Barley, as if often happens, because these Seeds are so near the Bigness of a Barley-Corn, that they cannot be easily separated, it is not of great Importance or Damage to the Barley; for that this Seed is of such a Nature, as to add a Strength to the Liquor, and make the Beer or Ale, brewed from such Malt, the more potent. But the main Matter is to free it off its Ails and Tails; for, if these are left, in any Quantity, among the Barley, there will a lower Price be bid for it, than others that are free from such Trumpery. It is this that makes the Cleaners of Barley oftentimes walk on the thrashed Barley, to tread on and break oft these Ails; and sometimes neither Thrashing nor Treading will thoroughly break off these Ails enough to make the Parcel intirely clear of them. One Man will sometimes thrash and clean six or eight Bushels of Barley in one Day..."

"The Author of improving wet and barren Lands says, that, by burning the Ground two Inches thick, there will be two Hundred and sixty Loads of Ashes to an Acre; and, by burning it three Inches deep, there will be four Hundred Loads to an Acre. It is true such Burning will clear the Land of Weeds and all Manner of Trumpery; but Woe be to the Farmer after the Ashes have been spent, which will be, as he says, at three Years End; for then will come on as great a Barrenness as the Ashes caused Fertility; and this for I know not how long, because the richest Part of the Ground, which is the Turf or Surface, is gone."

"If dung lies near the corn-carting, and not carried out before harvest, so many sorts of corn be littered in it, which will not have time to rot, that you must expect a crop foul with trumpery."

"September 14th, 1699, I observed a close ploughing up in Leicestershire, and the corn sowing under furrow; the ground had been limed, and so strangely run to weeds, that I wondered at the boldness of the husbandman, and went up to him.—He was sowing his wheat steeped in lime; I observed the grain was plim and very large... (said he) here we choose a large seed, as supposing it has strength to shoot forth it's stalks through the clots and earth it lies under; for it now lies deeper, and the earth closer and heavier upon it than if it were sowed after the plough, and harrowed-in; besides, if very wet weather should fall upon it, so as thoroughly to wet the trumpery of weeds we turn in, a small grain would be sooner chilled than this large sort."

"Romance depends not just on desire and affection but also on isolation from the claims of everyday life. It is on this point that these romantic comedies come closest to fitting the usual definition of the prose romance—as distinguished from the novel—one of the features of which is a setting far removed from everyday life: the forest, the ocean, a desert island, and the like. And yet in the Hollywood comedies I am discussing, most of the action takes place well within everyday settings."

"Shakespeare, from his very first experiment in the genre, conceived of the love comedy—the romantic comedy—as of something typically Italian, and for this reason he favoured the choice of Italian names for the main characters and, at least in the earliest examples, of Italian locations for the action."

"Even though I enjoy Hollywood romantic comedies like Notting Hill, it’s like they wear galoshes compared to the sly wit of a movie like Autumn Tale. They stomp squishy-footed through their clockwork plots, while Rohmer elegantly seduces us with people who have all of the alarming unpredictability of life. There’s never a doubt that Julia Roberts will live happily ever after. But Magali, now: One wrong step, and she’s alone with her vines forever."

"Romantic comedy was reborn in the films of the 1930s and ’40s. The distinction between a romantic comedy and the modern sense of romance is apparent in a comparison of [Leo McCarey's Love Affair] (1939), which the director remade as An Affair to Remember (1957). Both of these films are unequivocally modern romances, while Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle (1993), a film that pays extensive homage to An Affair to Remember, is clearly a romantic comedy."

"I simply regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world. …. There is no difference between Ripley from Alien and any Katherine Heigl character."

"Today it’s no secret that movie studios release blockbuster action films to meet the higher energy levels of summer audiences, more intellectual fare for the winter months, and romantic comedies for spring. They don’t do it out of any sense of loyalty to our natural chronobiological rhythms, but because it’s good business."

"Nullumst iam dictum quod non sit dictum prius."

"In amore haec omnia insunt vitia: iniuriae, suspiciones, inimicitiae, indutiae, bellum, pax rursum: incerta haec si tu postules ratione certa facere, nihilo plus agas quam si des operam ut cum ratione insanias."

"Si istuc crederem sincere dici, quidvis possem perpeti."

"Di inmortales, homini homo quid praestat! stulto intellegens quid interest!"

"Omnia habeo neque quicquam habeo; nil quom est, nil defit tamen"

"Omnium rerum, heus, vicissitudost."

"Flos ipsus."

"Ego non flocci pendere."

"Pro Iuppiter, nunc est profecto, interfici quom perpeti me possum, ne hoc gaudium contaminet vita aegritudine aliqua."

"Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus."

"Novi ingenium mulierum: nolunt ubi velis, ubi nolis cupiunt ultro."

"Ego me in pedes quantum queo."

"Saepe ex huius modi re quapiam malo principio magna familiaritas."

"Utinam tibi conmitigari videam sandalio caput!"

"Sororem falso dictitatam Thaidis id ipsum ignorans miles advexit Thraso ipsique donat. erat haec civis Attica. eidem eunuchum, quem emerat, tradi iubet Thaidis amator Phaedria ac rus ipse abit Thrasoni oratus biduum ut concederet. ephebus frater Phaedriae puellulam cum deperiret dono missam Thaidi, ornatu eunuchi induitur—suadet Parmeno—: intro ut iit, vitiat virginem. sed Atticus civis repertus frater eius conlocat vitiatam ephebo; Phaedriam exorat Thraso."

"A certain citizen of Athens had a daughter named Pamphila, and a son called Chremes. The former was stolen while an infant, and sold to a Rhodian merchant, who having made a present of her to a Courtesan of Rhodes, she brought her up with her own daughter Thais, who was somewhat older. In the course of years, Thais following her mother's way of life, removes to Athens. Her mother dying, her property is put up for sale, and Pamphila is purchased as a slave by Thraso, an officer and an admirer of Thais, who happens just then to be visiting Rhodes. During the absence of Thraso, Thais becomes acquainted with Phasdria, an Athenian youth, the son of Laches; she also discovers from Chremes, who lives near Athens, that Pamphila, her former companion, is his sister. Thraso returns, intending to present to her the girl he has bought, but determines not to do so until she has discarded Phaedria. Finding that the girl is no other than Pamphila, Thais is at a loss what to do, as she both loves Phaedria, and is extremely anxious to recover Pamphila. At length, to please the Captain, she excludes Phaedria, but next day sends for him, and explains to him her reasons, at the same time begging of him to allow Thraso the sole right of admission to her house for the next two days, and assuring him that as soon as she shall have gained possession of the girl, she will entirely throw him off. Phaedria consents, and resolves to spend these two days in the country; at the same time he orders Parmeno to take to Thais a Eunuch and an Aethiopian girl, whom he has purchased for her. The Captain also sends Pamphila, who is accidentally seen by Chaerea, the younger brother of Phaedria; he, being smitten with her beauty, prevails upon Parmeno to introduce him into the house of Thais, in the Eunuch's dress. Being admitted there, in the absence of Thais, lie ravishes the damsel. Shortly afterward Thraso quarrels with Thais, and comes with all his attendants to her house to demand the return of Pamphila, but is disappointed. In conclusion, Pamphila is recognized by her brother Chremes, and is promised in marriage to Chaerea; while Thraso becomes reconciled to Phaedria, through the mediation of Gnatho, his Parasite."

"Nicholas Udall; John Higgins, Flovvres or eloquent phrases of the Latine speach, gathered ont [sic of al the sixe comœdies of Terence] (London: imprinted by Thomas Marshe, 1581)"

", The Comedies of Terence, Translated into Familiar Blank Verse (London: printed for T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt ..., W. Johnston ..., W. Flexney ..., R. Davis ..., T. Davies ..., 1765)"

"Henry Thomas Riley, The Comedies of Terence, and the Fables of Phædrus (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853)"

"John Benson Rose, Comedies of Publius Terentius Afer (London: Dorrell and Son, 1870)"

"John Sargeaunt, Terence I: The Lady of Andros · The Self-Tormentor · The Eunuch, LCL 22 (London: William Heinemann; New York: The Macmillan Co., 1912)"

"Christopher Kelk, "Eunuchus". Poetry in Translation (2023), Online"

"There is also Indonesian brain rot, notably Tung Tung Tung Sahur (“which is like a stick figure with a bat, telling people to wake up for a meal during Ramadan”) and Boneca Ambalabu (“a frog with a tyre for a body..."

"Yet its massive popularity with young people is worth at least attempting to wrap your head around as an indicator of the direction of travel of online culture."

"Despite, or because of, its weirdness, the meme became a staple in TikTok’s ever-growing catalog of “brainrot” content."

"By late January 2025, the “Tralalero Tralala” sound was unavoidable on TikTok. From Brat-font overlays to phonk remixes, users leveraged the audio to gain massive views. Notable creators used it in anime edits, soccer highlights, or skits dramatizing absurd betrayal scenarios."

"(translated) Many dismiss this nonsense as the creative low point of a youth that is already lost. Is that fair? If art students were to show similar paintings in class, people would discuss meaning, intention, and aesthetics."

"(translated) What at first glance appears to be stupidity actually has artistic potential for many observers. Is what's happening digital Dadaism? Some celebrate the movement as an ironic protest genre—a deliberately senseless response by the younger generation to an equally senseless world. While real wars rage outside and the climate is deteriorating, Gen Z responds to the absurdity of reality with even more absurdity."

"They do this democratic Disney thing that doesn’t belong to anybody."