Love Quote by Delta Burke

Comedy is framed here less as a flex than as caretaking: Burke’s “I love comedy” immediately turns outward into “you want to make them happy.” The switch from “I” to “you” is the tell. She’s describing an instinct that performers recognize but rarely admit so plainly: the joke isn’t primarily about the comic; it’s about audience management. Laughter becomes a kind of public service, a fast-acting mood stabilizer delivered from a stage, a set, a living room TV.

The phrasing is almost disarmingly simple, and that’s why it lands. “Make them happy, make them laugh” uses repetition like a rhythm section. It’s not a theory of humor; it’s a mission statement. Burke avoids the edgier, ego-forward mythology around comedy (the tortured truth-teller, the provocateur) and replaces it with an ethic of connection. The subtext is that comedy, at least the kind she’s aligned with, is relational: timing, warmth, and a willingness to be the pressure valve in the room.

Context matters: Burke came up in an era of big network sitcoms and studio audiences, where success was measured in audible response and a performer’s job was to keep the communal atmosphere buoyant. In that world, laughter isn’t just validation; it’s a contract. If people are stressed, bored, lonely, or exhausted, the comic’s responsibility is to move the emotional weather a few degrees toward relief. Burke’s line understands that the most powerful punchline is often the one that makes strangers feel, briefly, like they’re okay together.