“I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown,” said Dill.
Jem and I stopped in our tracks.
“Yes, sir, a clown…There ain’t one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I’m gonna join the circus and laugh my head off.”
“You got it backwards, Dill,” said Jem. “Clowns are sad, it’s folks that laugh at them.”
“Well, I’m gonna be a new kind of clown. I’m gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks.”
– Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 22. Dill is upset and traumatized after witnessing racial injustice firsthand as Tom Robinson is wrongly convicted of assaulting and raping Mayella Ewell. He decides that he is going to be a clown when he grows up, a non-traditional one who laughs at people.