Happiness Quote by Kate Clinton

Comedy, for Kate Clinton, is seduction with a punchline: get them laughing, then keep them just lucid enough to notice what they’re laughing at. The opening insistence on laughter as “the better feeling” reads like a crowd-pleaser, but it’s also a tactic. Laughter disarms. It lowers the defenses that usually rise when a comedian veers into politics, identity, or critique. Clinton frames joy as the entry point, not the end goal.

Then she slips in the second clause like a dare: “I don’t mind if people think, either.” It’s a sly reversal of the old suspicion that thinking ruins fun. The subtext is a refusal of the dumbed-down bargain audiences sometimes expect from entertainment, especially from women comics who get policed into being “relatable” rather than incisive. Clinton’s “either” implies thinking is treated as an unwanted side effect; she treats it as an added thrill.

The kicker - “the brain is a very sexy organ” - works because it’s both joke and manifesto. She borrows the language of desire to argue for intelligence as attraction, not punishment. It’s a little camp, a little flirtatious, and quietly insurgent: if the brain is sexy, then wit, skepticism, and critique become not just permissible but alluring. In the context of Clinton’s era and audience - queer comedy shaped by activism and cultural backlash - the line doubles as an invitation: come for the laughs, stay for the ideas, and don’t pretend the two can’t turn you on.