India, Feb. 5 -- What do you love about comedy as a form of entertainment?

I just love comedy for what it does. I don't mean to be hokey but, in a world as polarized as ours, we still have some sacred things like food, sports and comedy that we can enjoy together. My benchmark for whether I did well is if somebody can laugh at something that I said even if we disagree on everything else. Comedy can bring people together.

What is the hardest thing about making people laugh?

Well, comedy is subjective, right? The way I do it is just trial and error. For instance, I am here to talk about my book You Can't Be Serious at a very serious literature festival, so I was wondering whether some of my dumber jokes would really make people laugh.

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