Humor & Life Quote by David Brenner

Brenner’s line works because it flatters the listener’s worst instincts while pretending to confess his own. The setup is a familiar, grubby little slice of nightlife realism: a bar as a place for impulse, not enlightenment. The punch is the hyper-specific “capital of Maine,” a trivia fact so harmless and schoolmarmish it becomes comic shorthand for “credentialed intelligence.” He doesn’t say “smart” or “educated” because those are contestable; he picks a fact that’s indisputably knowable, then mocks the idea that knowability should matter in that context.

The intent isn’t really to dunk on women or on learning in the abstract. It’s to get a laugh from the mismatch between what we say we value (brains, depth, curiosity) and what we often shop for in public, performative spaces. Brenner is doing a classic comedian’s trick: making a socially unacceptable motive sound like common sense by stripping it of romance. A bar, in this framing, is transactional and sensory; bringing “Augusta” to the party is like bringing a résumé to a speed date.

Subtext: American masculinity, especially in mid-to-late 20th century stand-up, often treated intelligence in women as either threatening or beside the point unless it could be eroticized. The joke counts on that bias, but it also exposes it. The laugh comes partly from recognition: we’ve all seen people demand “no drama” while courting chaos. Brenner turns that hypocrisy into a one-liner you can’t unhear.