Dark jokes

`I mean,' she said, `that one can't help growing older.'
`One can't, perhaps,' said Humpty Dumpty, `but two can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven.'

-Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass

I had to re-read part of Through the Looking-Glass to understand what was funny about this quote (after I saw it in Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors). It comes from a conversation between Alice and Humpty Dumpty about death - just before this quote Alice tells him she is "seven years and six months" old. This is pretty dark stuff - it has to be the grimmest death joke in the book (and there are quite a few - apparently referring to the death of Alice's childhood).

I found an interesting essay here (I love Google :-)