Otto > Otto's Quotes

“Your life depends on a random stranger who could kill you, will probably disrespect you, and will most likely pay you much less than you deserve. But even those prospects are better than the ones you used to have. This is the life of los jornaleros – the day laborers.”
― Gustavo Arellano, Ask a Mexican

“I made a single change in the Bahktin quote on laughter: "Laughter has the remarkable power of pulling a man up close where he can be groped intimately from all sides, turned upside-down, inside out, studied from above and below, cracked open and gutted, examined to his very center, probing him, taking him apart, dismembering him, laying him bare and exposed to examine freely and be experimented on. Laughter destroys fear and pity about the man, making him a familiar object to the world and thus clearing the ground for an absolutely free investigation. Laughter is a vital prerequisite for fearlessness without which it would be impossible to approach the world realistically.”
― Mikhail Bakhtin

“Laughter has the remarkable power of making an object come up close, of drawing it into a zone of crude contact where one can finger it familiarly on all sides, turn it upside down, inside out, peer at it from above and below, break open its external shell, look into its center, doubt it, take it apart, dismember it, lay it bare and expose it, examine it freely and experiment with it. Laughter demolishes fear and piety before an object, before a world, making of it an object of familiar contact and thus clearing the ground for an absolutely free investigation of it. Laughter is a vital factor in laying down that prerequisite for fearlessness without which it would be impossible to approach the world realistically.”
― Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays