Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
Being a humorist is not a voluntary thing. You can tell this because in a situation where saying a funny thing will cause a lot of trouble, a humorist will still say the funny thing. No matter how inappropriate.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Humorists are compelled to be funny, often regardless of the consequences.
This quote by P. J. O'Rourke highlights the intrinsic nature of humorists, suggesting that their urge to make people laugh is so profound that it overrides their awareness of appropriateness or potential repercussions. It implies that for humorists, humor is not just a choice but a necessity that can lead to both joy and trouble in social situations.
Themes
HumorComedyInappropriateCompulsionLaugh
In practice
Example use cases
In a stand-up comedy show to illustrate the nature of humorists.
More from P. J. O'Rourke
All quotes →Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
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Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
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I spend my days kneeling in the muck of language, feeling around for gooey verbs, nouns, and modifiers that I can squash together to make a blob of a sentence that bears some likeness to reason and sense.
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Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
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The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around.
P. J. O'RourkeRead
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