Humor & Life Quote by Wanda Sykes

A comedian measuring success by the absence of flying objects is funny because it’s brutally pragmatic. Wanda Sykes isn’t chasing applause in this line; she’s grading the room on basic public safety. The joke lands in the gap between what performers are supposed to want (adoration, validation, standing ovations) and what they sometimes settle for in real life: not getting pelted.

The intent is a sideways flex. By lowering the bar to “no one is attacking me,” Sykes implies she’s been in rooms where hostility wasn’t hypothetical. That’s not just a touring-war-story punchline. It points to the unique volatility of live comedy, where the audience isn’t quietly consuming a product; they’re co-present, reactive, and sometimes entitled. Comedy invites judgment, and certain crowds respond to being challenged the way they respond to being disrespected.

The subtext carries sharper edges. Sykes, a Black queer woman, has historically walked onto stages where “neutral” isn’t guaranteed and where heckling can turn personal fast. The line becomes a wry commentary on what it means to be visible while delivering material that can poke at politics, race, gender, and power. It’s also a small rebuke to the romantic myth of show business: even at the level of a household-name comic, performing can be less glamorous than it looks, closer to crowd control than communion.

Her dryness is the engine. She doesn’t dramatize danger; she shrugs at it. That shrug is the punchline, and the critique.