The three-week run was a permanent calvary; for the first time, I truly experienced those notorious, atrocious tears of the clown; for the first time, I truly understood mankind. I had dismantled the cogs in the machine, and I knew how to make it work, whenever I wanted. Every evening, before going on stage, I swallowed an entire sheet of Xanax. Every time the audience laughed (and I could predict it, I knew how to dose my effects, I was a consummate professional), I was obliged to turn away so as not to see those hideous faces those, hundreds of faces moved by convulsions, agitated by hate.

- The Possibility of an Island - Michel Houellebecq