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"Nothing is funnier than unhappiness"

Nell makes this statement (in Part two) when she criticizes Nagg for laughing at Hamm's misery. Beckett has called it the most important quote in the play, as it defines the essence of his absurd tragicomedy. Beckett peppers his generally somber, philosophical plays with an astounding amount of low comedy; after seeing one production of Endgame, he was outraged that Clov's pants did not fall all the way down to his ankles at a specific moment. The example says much about Beckett's view of theater. He wants it to be a naked experience that reveals the grotesqueness and comic nature of his characters. Beckett is by no means a make-lemonade-out-of-lemons writer—he does not force comedy onto a tragedy to make it more bearable—but he sees humor wedded to our pathetic nature. Whether it does one any good to see life this way is up to the audience.

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