"It's a laser-like sense of truth"

Jon Stewart interviews Laura Linney, star of The Big C, and asks her, "How do you make a comic show about cancer?" Her answer:

When time is running out and you know that it's running out. With fear and anxiety and if you're threatened, for me, I immediately go to humor. It's a way to survive. It's a way to make sense...

There's something about the voice of comedy that clarifies things. It's a laser-like sense of truth, if it's true. If you touch truth, it will inevitably be so either refreshing or astounding, people will start to laugh.

Stewart's response: "That may be the most eloquent description of the use of comedy as an expression of catharsis or feeling that I have ever heard." And then he points out that strippers are the only ones below comedians on the professional ladder.