The quote presents a sense of humour as more than a source of amusement. It suggests that humour helps a person retain perspective, emotional balance and a degree of independence from difficult circumstances. To lose that capacity entirely is, in this view, to lose an important means of judging events without becoming overwhelmed by them.

Within The Fountainhead, the remark fits the novel’s broader interest in character, self-possession and resistance to external pressures. Humour can create distance between an individual and a problem, making hardship or absurdity easier to assess without denying its seriousness. The statement is deliberately absolute in saying that one “loses everything”, but its underlying point is that humour can preserve proportion when circumstances become difficult. More generally, the quote can be applied to setbacks, conflict or periods of stress in which maintaining perspective may help prevent frustration or adversity from dominating a person’s outlook.