Wit & Attitude Quote by Neil Gaiman

There is a sly authority in outsourcing courage to the “fool.” Gaiman’s line borrows an old courtly logic: the jester survives by being “harmless,” granted a license to say what everyone else is thinking and no one else can afford to voice. Calling it a “prerogative” turns truth-telling into a peculiar privilege, not a moral badge. The sting is that honesty is framed less as virtue than as a social role we tolerate only when it’s safely costumed.

The subtext is about power and permission. In most rooms - workplaces, families, fandoms, politics - truth is not primarily a question of accuracy; it’s a question of risk. The person who “will speak” is often the person who can absorb the blowback. The fool can do it because they’re already discounted, already seen as unserious. Paradoxically, that dismissal becomes armor: if you’re not taken as a threat, you can puncture the story the powerful are telling. It’s an indictment of the rest of us, too: we prefer the truth delivered with a wink, so we can nod along without having to act.

Contextually, it sits neatly in Gaiman’s larger fascination with myths and masks - the way stories smuggle contraband ideas past gatekeepers. He’s pointing at a cultural pattern: satire and fantasy become truth’s underground railway. When reality gets policed, the “fool” becomes the last honest job left.