"Club Secretary: "I say, Lawrence. You are a clown!"
T.E. Lawrence: "Ah, well, we can't all be lion tamers.

The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.

I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does not want to eat

better not bring up a lion inside your city,
But if you must, then humour all his moods.

Peter Parker: I mean, what I do sometimes requires violence, but I'm not a violent man, I'm really not. But I just — Mary Jane: You wanted to deck her.

Peter: Twice. And I hate feeling that way. Why is it that people feel the need to take whatever little authority they have and shove it down your throat? And the smaller the authority, the bigger the shove.

Aunt May: It offends you, doesn't it?
Peter: Yeah, it does.
Aunt May: Why?
Peter: I — What do you mean, why?
Aunt May: Why does it offend you?
Peter: Shouldn't it?

Aunt May: If a lion broke out of its cage at the zoo, and bit you, it would hurt, sure, and you'd be upset, of course. But would you be offended?

Peter: No, of course not.
Aunt May: Why?
Peter: Because that's the nature of a lion.

Aunt May: Some people by nature are kind and charitable. You could say that some people, including at least one person at this table, are by their nature heroes. Ben always reminded me that we each contain all the nobler and meaner aspects of humanity, but some get a bigger dose than others of one thing or another.
Some are petty, and mean, and uncharitable. That's their nature. You can hope for better, even try to lead them to be and you may even succeed. But when they behave badly, it's right to be upset by it, or hurt by it, but you can be no more offended by it than you can when a lion bites you.

A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can't play the part of a wise man.

The trick is not caring that it hurts.

Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy. He knows there's a painful side; he knows my thumb smarts and his girlfriend has a bruised breast and the doctor is losing his glasses, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

"...you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep in balance." [Chief Bromden]

It's funny the things that go through your mind when you're getting the shit kicked out of you. As Bruce Willis' fist came crashing into my face, I thought about that old Shakespeare quote Father Bernard used to throw around back at Holy Name. Something about you only play with a lion when he's a frisky young cub, not when he's an old one, dying. Bruce knew when he agreed to work with me that his career was just about over. He was a lion, once, but now he was just an old one, dying. And I was the only guy around to blame. And man did his fist make that point. Repeatedly.

Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy.

He knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance... He knows there's a painful side, but he won't let the pain blot out the humor no more'n he'll let the humor blot out the pain.

...you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy

Unlike the Jester and the Clown, who are at the bottom of a hierarchical pile and survive only by making the king laugh, the Trickster is free, a paradox, a breaker of boundaries who makes us laugh — and laughter lets the sacred in. In Native spiritualities, there is often a belief that we cannot pray unless we’ve laughed.