Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious.
Interpretation
Comedy uses humor to address serious topics in a light-hearted manner.
This quote by Peter Ustinov suggests that comedy serves as a unique medium to convey deeper meanings and truths, often through the guise of humor. It highlights the idea that laughter can act as a coping mechanism or a vehicle for discussing serious issues, allowing people to engage with difficult subjects without the heaviness they might otherwise carry.
In practice
In a speech about overcoming adversity, one might quote this to emphasize resilience.
Marriage is like a three-speed gearbox - affection, friendship, love. It is not advisable to crash your gears and go right through to love straightaway. You need to ease your way through. The basis of love is respect, and that needs to be learned from affection and friendship.
I'm convinced there's a small room in the attic of the Foreign Office where future diplomats are taught to stammer.
I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.
Parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth.
Because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.
Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.
I must admit I am nervous about getting Alzheimer's. Once it hits, I might tell my best joke and never know it.
Somebody once asked me how I found Peter Jackson, and I said: 'Well, I parted his hair, and there he was.'
Comedy is learning to be funny, and you learn to be funny in small rooms with young audiences.
Alcohol is a very necessary article. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.
The trouble with law is lawyers.
That's what's great about standup comedy: the instant feedback. You get up on stage, you tell a joke, if it doesn't work, come back the next day with a better version of it.
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