apothegm

The humorist S. J. Perelman, asked years ago in an interview for The Paris Review if he felt distrusting the first thing that comes to mind is important in writing humor, replied: “In writing anything, sweetie. The old apothegm that easy writing makes hard reading is as succinct as ever.”

The fact that it was the manipulative monster Chairman Mao who said, “All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience,” does not make the apothegm less true.

Others invite a specific needle drop: Kazan’s expression of surprise when she receives a marriage proposal; her awkward conversations with Bill Heck; her utterly natural delivery of the word “apothegm”; Waits stealing eggs from an owl’s nest and then putting all but one of them back.

These go by other names too: maxim, apothegm, dictum, epigram, gnome, and sentence.

His most famous apothegm—“What you see is what you see”—is no help, if seeing is supposed to imply comprehending.