Life is made up of small pleasures. Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don't collect all these tiny successes, the big ones don't really mean anything.
Norman LearRead
It crossed our minds early on that the more an audience cared - we were working before, on average, 240, live people. If you could get them caring - the more they cared, the harder they laughed.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Audience engagement significantly enhances the enjoyment of a performance.
Norman Lear highlights the relationship between audience engagement and humor in performances. He suggests that when an audience cares about the content and the performers, their laughter and overall enjoyment increase, emphasizing the importance of connection in entertainment.
Themes
AudienceHumorEngagementLaughterPerformance
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about the importance of engaging with customers, you might say, 'As Norman Lear once observed, the more an audience cares, the harder they laugh.'
More from Norman Lear
All quotes βIt seems to me that any full grown, mature adult would have a desire to be responsible, to help where he can in a world that needs so very much, that threatens us so very much.
Norman LearRead
Life is about having a good time, and it was a good time. We did some things well and some things poorly, but that was always the case.
Norman LearRead
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I realized that comedians of the day were operating on jokes and punch lines. The moment you say the punch line, the audience either laughs sincerely or they laugh automatically or they don't laugh. The thing that bothered me was that automatic laugh. I said, that's not real laughter.
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I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.
E. B. WhiteRead