Michael: "March here, march there, present arms, where's your cap?" — you've no idea, the whole Army's obsessed with playing at soldiers. - Tom Stoppard

Audiences know what to expect, and that is all that they are prepared to believe in.

It could have been — it didn't have to be obscene.... It could have been — a bird out of season, dropping bright-feathered on my shoulder.... It could have been a tongueless dwarf standing by the road to point the way.... I was prepared. But it's this, is it? No enigma, no dignity, nothing classical, portentous, only this — a comic pornographer and a rabble of prostitutes....

When Harold Pinter was lobbying to have London's Comedy Theatre renamed the Pinter Theatre, Stoppard wrote back: "Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?"