Humor & Life Quote by Julian Clary

Aging, in Julian Clary's hands, becomes less a tragedy than a sly demotion from the exhausting job of being desirable. The line sets up “the good thing” like a wellness slogan, then promptly undercuts it with a confession that’s half vanity, half relief: if attractiveness drops, the appetite to “go out and conquer” drops with it. The joke works because it treats libido and ego as status-seeking behaviors with a commute, a dress code, and quotas to meet. Youth is framed not as freedom but as a high-maintenance campaign.

“Conquer” is doing sharp work here. It’s grandiose, slightly predatory, deliberately over-the-top - a word that lampoons the performative, competitive side of sexual attention. Clary isn’t just poking fun at aging; he’s puncturing the cultural script that says you must keep proving yourself, collecting validation like trophies, treating a night out as a referendum on your worth. By tying desire to perceived attractiveness, he also acknowledges an uncomfortable social truth: wanting is often entangled with being wanted, and the marketplace decides who gets to feel bold.

Context matters: Clary’s public persona has long traded in camp candor and weaponized self-deprecation. As a gay comedian coming up in Britain after the AIDS crisis, he’s attuned to how desire can feel both urgent and surveilled, glamorous and exhausting. The punchline isn’t “getting old is funny”; it’s that aging can be a loophole - a quieter life where your body stops auditioning, and you finally get to clock out.