Life & Mortality Quote by Groucho Marx

The line wears Groucho’s grin like a disguise: a breezy pep talk that’s also a quiet act of defiance. On the surface, it’s pure agency porn - happiness as a switch you flip, mood as a matter of taste. But coming from Groucho Marx, the patron saint of wisecracks and side-eye, it lands less like self-help and more like a heckle aimed at fate itself. Life will do what it does; his move is to refuse it the last word.

The subtext is classic Marx: control is mostly an illusion, so seize the one kind you can plausibly claim - your interpretation. “Events” is a catchall for the endless parade of indignities, bad news, broken plans, and other people’s foolishness that his comedy spent a career puncturing. The joke is that the grand philosophical stance is delivered with the blunt certainty of a punchline. Yesterday is “dead,” tomorrow “hasn’t arrived,” and suddenly time isn’t a mystical river; it’s a tight little set-up that corners you into the only viable stage: today.

Context matters: Groucho worked in an era shaped by economic collapse, war, and mass media’s churn, when optimism could feel like either a luxury or a con. His comedy thrived on turning pressure into timing. This quote does the same: it reframes happiness not as denial, but as a daily choice to keep your dignity intact - even if the world insists on playing the straight man.