Watch This Beautiful Mini Doc “Class Clown” on How Comedians Like Billy Bonnell Take Their Tragic Childhoods and Make It Part of Their Comedy

The best art doesn’t hit you over the head. It taps your temple with metaphor, allusion and maybe an oblique tease. Standup is so immediate, so direct in its relationship between the comic and the audience, that there's a temptation to just be blunt, to tie up and underline your points with a punchline that calls back to an earlier one.

[Much of comedy is surprise]..."to make yourself laugh, you have to have your brain sneak up on your brain!"

And, frankly, it’s OCD. Comedy is OCD. If you’re not OCD about the language that you’re using, comedy may not be your thing.

[I]t can be, sometimes, a torture for everyone that, in contrast to the soul that moves and changes, our body should be fixed forever in unchanging features.