“God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.”

— Voltaire

"Creator — A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh." — H.L. Mencken, A Book of Burlesques‎ (1920), p. 203. and A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949), Ch. 30
Misattributed

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Voltaire 167

French writer, historian, and philosopher 1694–1778

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Context: You know, the Cathars believed that the world was not created by God but by a demon who had stolen a few technological secrets from Him and made this world — which is why it doesn’t work. I don’t share this heresy. I’m too afraid! But I put it in a play called This Extraordinary Brothel, in which the protagonist doesn’t talk at all. There is a revolution, everybody kills everybody else, and he doesn’t understand. But at the very end, he speaks for the first time. He points his finger towards the sky and shakes it at God, saying, “You rogue! You little rogue!” and he bursts out laughing. He understands that the world is an enormous farce, a canular played by God against man, and that he has to play God’s game and laugh about it.