Quotes #8: Humour(lessness)

But then, the defining characteristic of self-styled “voices of the people” is their total and utter humourlessness, which has its roots in a terror of being undermined.
Marina Hyde in the Guardian, writing about lowest-common-denominator populism

During the civil war people complained about Lincoln's funny stories. Perhaps he sensed that strict seriousness was far more dangerous than any joke.
Ravelstein, Saul Bellow