On Humor

Extract

Comedy and its opposite lie in the same disposition of feeling, and they are inside the process which results from it. In its abnormality, this disposition is bitterly comical, the condition of a man who is always out of tune; of a man who is at the same time violin and bass; of a man for whom no thought can come to mind unless suddenly another one, its opposite and contrary, intervenes; of a man for whom any one reason for saying yes is at once joined by two or three others compelling him to say no, so that yes and no keep him suspended and perplexed for all his life; of a man who cannot let himself go in a feeling without suddenly realizing something inside which disturbs him, disarranges him, makes him angry….