Life & Wisdom Quote by George Murray

Humour, here, isn’t the main course; it’s the pinch of chilli that wakes up everything else on the plate. Coming from a poet, that culinary metaphor quietly argues against the modern pressure to be likable, meme-ready, or perpetually wry. Murray frames humour as an ingredient with power and risk: too much and you numb the palate, flattening feeling into a single easy note. Used “sparingly,” it becomes contrast - a flash of brightness that makes grief sharper, tenderness more earned, anger more precise.

The subtext is a defense of seriousness without self-importance. Comedy in poetry can look like a permission slip: laugh here, so we don’t have to stay with the difficult thing. Murray suggests the opposite. A well-placed joke doesn’t let the reader escape; it keeps them present. It can disarm the reader’s suspicion, then slip the knife in. It can puncture sentimentality, undercut a grand claim, or expose the speaker’s own vanity in time to salvage emotional honesty.

There’s also craft talk hidden in the modest “for me.” He’s not legislating taste so much as naming a discipline: restraint as an aesthetic ethic. In a culture that rewards the quick punchline and the shareable bit, the poet’s version of humour is less stand-up and more seasoning - a technique for controlling tone, pacing, and aftertaste. The laugh is brief; the meaning lingers.