I hasten to laugh at everything, for fear of being obliged to weep.

I make myself laugh at everything, in case I should have to weep

In a cruel land, you either learned to laugh at cruelty or spent your life weeping.

But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep yourself to death.

As long as I don't write about the government, religion, politics, and other institutions, I am free to print anything.

It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.