“Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit.”

— Tom Lehrer

Quotes from interviews, Sydney Morning Herald interview (2003)
Variant: Irreverence is easy — what's hard is wit.
Context: One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness … Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack.

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Tom Lehrer 60

American singer-songwriter and mathematician 1928

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“Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit.”

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