“Joker, making clowns no longer objects to laugh at.”

— Titon Rahmawan

Last update Aug. 23, 2023. History

Angela Carter book Nights at the Circus

Source: Nights at the Circus

“The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.”

Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright

Die Verschwörung des Fiesco (The Conspiracy of Fiesco), Act I, sc. vii (1783)

“Be a clown, be a clown,
All the world loves a clown.
Act the fool, play the calf,
And you'll always have the last laugh.”

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter

"Be A Clown" (written in 1946)
The Pirate (1948)

“No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable.”

Terry Pratchett book Men at Arms

Source: Men at Arms

“The child's laughter is pure until he first laughs at a clown.”

Angela Carter book Nights at the Circus

Source: Nights at the Circus

“Of course, they're not clowning aroundto make me laugh. They're doing their best to live verylives, and they just happen to fall down sometimes. I think that's cool.”

Haruki Murakami book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Source: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

“I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 2, ch. 22
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Context: "I think I'll be a clown when I get grown," said Dill. "Yes, sir, a clown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off."
"You got it backwards, Dill," said Jem. "Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them."
"Well, I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks."

“If I had not become a painter,
I would surely have become a clown..
.. because I make people laugh..
.. Faces deformed
by suffering, humour or work.
Often crazy. They then became imaginary,
when I adorned them with movements
free colours depending on the head. The
colour too become clown-like”

Karel Appel (1921–2006) Dutch painter, sculptor, and poet

AF, 73; p. 161
Karel Appel, a gesture of colour' (1992/2009)

“Bill Finger and I created the Joker. Bill was the writer. Jerry Robinson came to me with a playing card of the Joker. That's the way I sum it up. [The Joker] looks like Conrad Veidt — you know, the actor in The Man Who Laughs, [the 1928 movie based on the novel] by Victor Hugo. … Bill Finger had a book with a photograph of Conrad Veidt and showed it to me and said, 'Here's the Joker'. Jerry Robinson had absolutely nothing to do with it. But he'll always say he created it till he dies. He brought in a playing card, which we used for a couple of issues for him [the Joker] to use as his playing card".”

Bob Kane (1915–1998) American comic book artist, the creator of Batman

Entertainment Weekly writer Frank Lovece official site: Web Exclusives — Bob Kane interview http://franklovece.com/webexclusives.html (1994-05-17)

“Damn everything but the circus!… The average 'painter' 'sculptor' 'poet' 'composer' 'playwright' is a person who cannot leap through a hoop from the back of a galloping horse, make people laugh with a clown's mouth, orchestrate twenty lions.”

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

“Joker, making clowns no longer objects to laugh at.”

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