Wit & Attitude Quote by Judith Viorst

Viorst nails the double-life of the modern rational person: we mock superstition as intellectual junk food, then quietly keep a stash in the pantry. The line works because it doesn’t argue with superstition on its own terms; it treats it as a consumer choice. “Foolish, childish, primitive and irrational” reads like a righteous checklist from the Enlightenment, the kind of scolding we perform to signal we’re above magical thinking. Then she punctures that performance with a single, devastating question about cost.

The subtext is behavioral economics with a wink. Knocking on wood is a micro-ritual: nearly free, socially legible, and psychologically soothing. Viorst frames it like a tiny insurance premium against chaos. You don’t believe in the policy; you just like the feeling of having one. That’s why the punchline lands: it exposes how “rationality” often functions as branding, while our real operating system is anxiety management.

Context matters. Viorst is best known for observing emotional life with a light but surgical touch; she’s interested in the small accommodations we make to get through the day. In a culture that celebrates skepticism yet still runs on talismans (lucky socks, “manifesting,” algorithmic omens), the quote reads as a compact portrait of modernity: we’ve traded gods for gestures, certainty for habits. The joke isn’t that superstition is true. It’s that, when life won’t promise outcomes, even smart people will pay a penny for the illusion of influence.