“Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people.”
Source: Wise Children (1991), ch. 5 (p.213).
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Angela Carter 43
English novelist 1940–1992Related quotes
“Farce may often border on tragedy; indeed, farce is nearer tragedy in its essence than comedy is.”
20 August 1833
Table Talk (1821–1834)
The 2,000 Year Old Man (and sequels)
Variant: Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.
“It's so laughable that it's somewhere beyond comedy and right into tragedy again.”
“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.”
“Life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.”
Letter to Anne, Countess of Ossory, (16 August 1776)
A favourite saying of Walpole's, it is repeated in other of his letters, and might be derived from a similar statement attributed to Jean de La Bruyère, though unsourced: "Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think". An earlier form occurs in another published letter:
I have often said, and oftener think, that this world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel — a solution of why Democritus laughed and Heraclitus wept.
Letter to Sir Horace Mann (31 December 1769)
Variant: The world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel.
“Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.”
As quoted in his obituary in The Guardian (28 December 1977)
“Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.”
Source: I Have Chosen to Stay and Fight
“Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”
“Life is a tragedy to those who feel and a comedy to those who think.”