“I certainly know that [A] comedian can only last till he either takes himself serious or his audience takes him serious and I don't want either of those to happen to me til I am dead”

— Will Rogers

if then
Daily Telegram #1538, The First Good News of the 1928 Campaign! Mr. Rogers Says He Will Not Run For Anything (28 June 1931) <ref name=telegram3>
Daily telegrams

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Will Rogers 121

American humorist and entertainer 1879–1935

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General Quotes

“In other words, you don’t want to be serious—
It takes two to be serious.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

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Context: Your poems are rather hard to understand, whereas your paintings are so easy.
Easy?
Of course—you paint flowers and girls and sunsets; things that everybody understands.
I never met him.
Who?
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Did you ever hear of nonrepresentational painting?
I am.
Pardon me?
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Not all painting.
No: housepainting is representational.
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In other words, you don’t want to be serious—
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I do not know either but I am trying.
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“I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters!”

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