The pun exists in a social and political void, caring nothing for the issues of its day, content merely to display itself in its small cleverness.
If cleverness has often been a sign of decadence throughout history, the attempt to be too clever by half is an even more reliable marker of cultural decline.
People used to expect literary novels to deepen the experience of living; now they are happy with any sustained display of writerly cleverness.
A blunder at the right moment is better than cleverness at the wrong time.
The more you know about somebody's back story, the deeper you can delve into that well, and the more your comedic choices resonate full-body instead of just being quick, quippy one-liners that are just like a bunch of people trying to be clever. Because after a while, cleverness is just really obnoxious!
I kept bugging them about making it more upscale, because I felt Abby, through her cleverness and business sense, was a character who would move up. And that's what she did.
The great thing about Twitter is, you get a lot back, and I read through a lot, and I want my fans to know that I do read a lot, and it's why I do respond or retweet clever posts, and I'm constantly amazed by the cleverness of people on Twitter.
Cleverness is not wisdom.
The bold are helpless without cleverness.
Clever people will recognize and tolerate nothing but cleverness.
