Defuse Quotes

For so long afterward (9/11), whenever I heard anyone talk about Muslims, it was in association with terrorism. But I thought, what could I do in a teeny way - and believe me, it`s a teeny way - to defuse this? There had to be some way to separate the 1.5 billion people who don`t want to kill us from the 100,000 or so who do. I thought if I could get five Muslims and six Hindus and maybe 3 Jews to laugh for 90 minutes, then I`ve accomplished something. (on Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World)

Through laughter, a lot of the time you can defuse the tension that would usually be there.

Knowing some Greek helped defuse forbidding words - not that I counted much on using them. You`ll find only trace elements of this language in the poem.