Freud believes that the witty remark offers us the euphoria of spontaneous laughter that we lost with adulthood, while as children we disregarded the comic, were unable to produce witticisms, and did not need humor to feel happy in life.

The Witty Remark and its relationship with the unconscious is one of Freud's most densely packed and multi-dimensional texts, a characteristic example of his masterful writing. Freud drew his material from Jewish witticisms for Jews. He also uses many examples from primarily German-speaking literature, as well as witticisms set against the political and social life of Vienna in the early 20th century.

It begins with an exploration of the techniques and purposes of the witty remark, where similarities with the work of dreams are identified, continues with the analysis of the pleasure mechanism, and then deals with the social dimension of creating the witty remark. For the analysis of the relationship of the witty remark with the unconscious, Freud uses as a tool the knowledge from the work of dreams, which he considers as his greatest advantage over those who had dealt with witticisms and laughter up to that point.

In the last chapter, he contrasts the witty remark with other forms of the comic, such as naivety, parody, and humor. This edition is complemented by Humor. According to Freud, humor signifies not only the triumph of the Ego but also the triumph of the pleasure principle, which can be imposed against the difficulties of life. It belongs to a series of inventions of human psychological life to escape the compulsion of suffering, which begins with neurosis and peaks with paranoia, including intoxication, self-absorption, and ecstasy.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]