Random Joseph Epstein Quotes
"In my youth one could go into a drugstore and confidently ask for a package of Luckies and nervously whisper one's request for condoms; now things are precisely reversed." In a Cardboard Belt!
"The first condition of humor is its un-universality. If music be a universal language, humor is a quite particular one." Once More Around the Block. (If you doubt Epstein on this, recall the polar opposite reactions to Napoleon Dynamite.)
"Comedy, as Santayana put it, 'is life caught in the act'; to which I would add, it is especially people caught in the act, which is why pretension is always such a fine target for humor." Once More Around the Block.
"Subtle creative abuse is better than blatant abuse. An excellent example is Sydney Smith's remark about Macaulay, who was a famous nonstop talker: 'He has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.'" Once More Around the Block.
"One of the things that make pornography so damnable, in my view, is its humorlessness." Once More Around the Block.
