A couple more memorable observations from The Dyer’s Hand:
A sense of humor develops in a society to the degree that its members are simultaneously conscious of being each a unique person and of being all in common subjection to unalterable laws.
We enjoy caricatures of our friends because we do not want to think of their changing, above all, of their dying; we enjoy caricatures of our enemies because we do not want to consider the possibility of their having a change of heart so that we would have to forgive them.
On a related note, I find Auden’s Marginalia laugh-out-loud funny in places.
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