My mom was a ventriloquist and she always was throwing her voice.

The words of Wendy Liebman, “My mom was a ventriloquist and she always was throwing her voice. For ten years I thought the dog was telling me to kill my father,” may first strike the ear as jest — a sharp flash of humor, absurd and dark. Yet beneath that laughter, as in much of ancient wisdom, lies a deeper truth about perception, illusion, and the strange inheritance of human misunderstanding. Through wit and exaggeration, Liebman speaks not only of comedy, but of the fragile thread that separates what we believe from what is real. Her words, though playful, become a parable about the power of voice — how it can shape, deceive, and even command the hearts of those who hear it.

To the ancients, humor was not mere entertainment; it was a mirror held up to truth. The philosopher Aristotle himself said that wit was a form of wisdom — “the lightning of the mind.” In Wendy Liebman’s quote, this lightning strikes twice: first in laughter, and then in revelation. For beneath the surface of her joke lies the wisdom of experience — that the world we grow up in, especially the world shaped by our parents, teaches us how to interpret the unseen. Her mother, a ventriloquist, is both artist and illusionist — one who manipulates perception, teaching her child, perhaps unknowingly, that voices are not always what they seem.

The dog’s voice, as Wendy imagined it, becomes a symbol of the false convictions that haunt the human mind. From childhood onward, we hear many “voices” — the opinions of family, the expectations of society, the inner whispers of fear and desire. Some are kind, some cruel, and many, like the ventriloquist’s act, are not our own. The humor in her words reveals the tragedy of human error: how easily we can mistake an echo for truth. For ten years, she believed in an illusion — a lesson that mirrors the way many live entire lives guided by illusions of identity, power, or righteousness.

The ancients told similar tales of deception. Consider the myth of Echo and Narcissus: the nymph cursed to repeat the words of others, her voice no longer her own. Narcissus, hearing her, believed the sound of love came from within himself — and thus was trapped by his own reflection. So too does Wendy’s story, though wrapped in jest, warn us of the same danger: to mistake borrowed voices for our own, to live in the noise of others without hearing the quiet truth that lies beneath.

There is also in her story a deeper portrait of family and inheritance. The mother’s ventriloquism, her art of throwing her voice, becomes a metaphor for the ways parents imprint themselves upon their children — not always through words, but through tone, gesture, and unseen influence. What the mother intends as art, the child may receive as command; what one generation means in jest, the next may take to heart. Thus, Wendy’s humor carries the echo of recognition — that every child must one day learn to discern which voices belong to their parents, and which belong to their own spirit.

Her quote also reminds us of the healing power of laughter. For while her words reveal the strange confusions of childhood, they also transform them through comedy. Laughter, to the wise, is not denial — it is transformation. It turns pain into perspective, chaos into story. The ancients often used jest as a vessel for truth: the fools of kings, the tricksters of myth, all taught wisdom through absurdity. So too does Wendy Liebman. Her humor, though sharp, invites understanding — it reminds us that life, in all its confusion, is survivable when met with grace and laughter.

The lesson, then, is this: do not believe every voice you hear — even those that sound like your own. Learn to listen with discernment, to question illusion, to laugh at confusion without being consumed by it. Whether the voice comes from the world, your past, or your own fear, ask yourself: “Is this truth, or merely an echo?” And when you find the truth — your truth — speak it clearly, without disguise, without ventriloquism.

So, my children of tomorrow, remember this teaching: humor is not the enemy of wisdom — it is its secret ally. The laughter that arises from insight is the sound of understanding being born. Like Wendy Liebman’s tale of her mother and the dog’s voice, let your laughter reveal, not conceal; let it heal, not harm. For though the world is full of thrown voices and deceiving echoes, the one voice that matters — your own — is the one you must never let be silenced.