About this quote

Laughter often starts when logic takes a sudden, absurd detour. We spend our lives trying to make sense of a chaotic world, forcing every event into neat boxes of cause and effect. True comedy breaks those boxes by taking our rational thoughts to their absolute, ridiculous extremes. It forces you to look at your rigid rules and realize how fragile they actually are. When you find yourself taking a stressful situation too seriously, pushing your worries to their most absurd conclusion can break the tension.

When to use it

• Your team has been arguing for two hours over the font size of a spreadsheet. You break the tension by suggesting you print the sheet on a billboard so the client can read it from space.
• Your partner gets furious because the kitchen towels are folded the wrong way. You joke about launching a federal investigation into towel symmetry to show how silly the fight is.
• After looking at your unexpectedly high electricity bill, you tell your roommate that you should both start living by candlelight and hunting for dinner in the backyard.
• You are cramming for a chemistry exam at 2 AM and nothing makes sense anymore. You look at your study partner and say that at this point, you will just tell the professor that the molecules chose to remain anonymous.