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Jester Quotes

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Jester Quotes

“You have the inspiration of a jester, the soul of a backpacker and the heart of a warrior, and you’ve already done much better than you appreciate. You’re supported more than you realise. You’re in spitting distance now, just around the corner Each and every one of you is a work of art. Not everyone’s going to accept you, but the ones who do will never forget you. Come on, admit it, you’re not like the others, are you? And that’s not just okay, it’s fucking beautiful! Always remember, when you’re stuck between two planets, the only thing you can do is try something absurd. ….. And you may just hear a river start.”

“April's Fool by Stewart Stafford The fool of April enters bowing, Ritual humiliation's shameful call, A harsh harlequin's wooden stocks, Butchering "wit" to wound and maul. A victimless crime full of victims, Spring showers weep a jester's cheek, Reputations pilloried in estocada— Merciful gods spared us a week. By noon, the branding is over, The faux superior blunder on. Jokers think they're oh-so-clever, Booed offstage to oblivion gone. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.”

“The King’s Wit was not a silly court fool such as one might find in other kingdoms. He was a sword, a tool maintained by the king. Insulting others was beneath the dignity of the king, so just as one used gloves when forced to handle something vile, the king retained a Wit so he didn’t have to debase himself to the level of rudeness or offensiveness.”

“«Та який він почтальйон! — заперечив тому менший. - Дурак він, папа казав. — Потім знову повернувся до прибульця і підозріливо обміряв його. - А ти... справжній дурак?» «Е, ні! - похитав головою Валушка і підвівся. - Ніякий я не дурак, можеш сам переконатися, якщо глянеш». «Жалко, — скопилив губу малий. — Я хотів би бути дураком і добряче вилаятися королю, що його країна — відстій».”

“As I drifted along with my bodiless invisibility, I felt myself more and more becoming an empty, floating shape, seeing without being seen and walking without the interference of those grosser creatures who shared my world. It was not an experience completely without interest or even pleasure. The clown's shibboleth of "here we are again" took on a new meaning for me as I felt myself a novitiate of a more rarified order of harlequinry. ("The Last Feast Of The Harlequin")”

“The principle of laughter and the carnival spirit on which the grotesque is based destroys this limited seriousness and all pretense of an extratemporal meaning and unconditional value of necessity. It frees human consciousness, thought, and imagination for new potentialities. For this reason, great changes, even in the field of science, are always preceded by a certain carnival consciousness that prepares the way.”

“...which was the real Antoine: the one who would stand mesmerised in front of the window on rainy afternoons watching the drops racing across the glass, or the one who turned the attic upside down and then suddenly appeared disguised as a buccaneer or an explorer shouting ridiculous phrases in order to amuse his sisters and cousins. He asks himself that very question. Who am I? The court jester who shakes his bells when he’s with others, or the silent introvert I am when I’m on my own?”

“Few, as I have said, are the humorists who can induce this state. To master and dissolve us, to give us the joy of being worn down and tired out with laughter, is a success to be won by no man save in virtue of a rare staying-power. Laughter becomes extreme only if it be consecutive. There must be no pauses for recovery. Touch-and-go humour, however happy, is not enough. The jester must be able to grapple his theme and hang on to it, twisting it this way and that, and making it yield magically all manner of strange and precious things.”

“There comes, even to kings, the time of great weariness. Then the gold of the throne is brass, the silk of the palace becomes drab. The gems in the diadem and upon the fingers of the women sparkle drearily like the ice of white seas; the speech of men is as the empty rattle of a jester's bell and the feel comes of things unreal; even the sun is copper in the sky and the breath of the green ocean is no longer fresh.”

“In the name of God!" said Gurth, "how came they prisoners? and to whom?" "Our master was too ready to fight," said the Jester, "and Athelstane was not ready enough, and no other person was ready at all.”