No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable
Interpretation
Clowns are seen as funny due to the nervousness they provoke, making life appear more enjoyable afterwards.
This quote by Terry Pratchett reflects on the nature of clowns and humor. It suggests that clowns evoke laughter not because they are genuinely funny, but because their absurdity creates a sense of discomfort or nervousness in the audience. Consequently, their presence makes ordinary experiences seem more enjoyable in contrast, highlighting a deeper, sometimes uncomfortable truth about human reactions to humor and lifeβs complexities.
In practice
In a speech about the complexities of humor, one might use this quote to illustrate how discomfort can lead to enjoyment.
And then Jack chopped down what was the world's last beanstalk, adding murder and ecological terrorism to the theft, enticement, and trespass charges already mentioned, and all the giant's children didn't have a daddy anymore. But he got away with it and lived happily ever after, without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done...which proves that you can be excused for just about anything if you are a hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions.
They've got something they do it with, I think it's called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man ... one vet. ... Everyone has ... the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It's a very enlightened civilization.
Geography is just physics slowed down, with a couple of trees stuck in it.
You can't trample infidels when you're a tortoise. I mean, all you could do is give them a meaningful look.
Any fool could be a witch with a runic knife, but it took skill to be one with an apple corer.
People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.
He's the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of.
Turgenev was a very serious fellow but he could make me laugh because a truth first encountered can be very funny. When someone else's truth is the same as your truth, and he seems to be saying it just for you, that's great.
I shouldn't be saying this, high treason really, but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren't fooled by our accent into detecting a brilliance that may not really be there.
Don't use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.
Someone called all the newspapers in New York and told them I'd died. I've been told by almost everyone it was an ex-wife - I've had a few so it's hard to pinpoint which one - but who knows for sure?
It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that whatever you say to them, they always purr.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.