You can't buy love, but you can pay heavily for it.

Henny Youngman was a one-liner comedian whose stage persona relied on rapid, punchy jokes about marriage, money, and everyday frustrations. This quip belongs to that nightclub-and-television stand‑up milieu in which “love” is treated as an ideal people claim to value, while relationships in practice often involve financial sacrifice, obligation, or costly mistakes. The line plays on the language of commerce (“buy,” “pay”) to deliver a cynical punchline about romance and marriage—typical of mid‑20th‑century American comedy that mined domestic life for humor and social commentary.

The joke hinges on a paradox: love is supposedly priceless and cannot be purchased, yet pursuing or maintaining it can be expensive. “Pay heavily” suggests both literal costs (courtship, gifts, supporting a household) and the financial consequences of failed love (divorce settlements, legal fees), while also hinting at emotional “payment” in sacrifice and compromise. Youngman’s comic effect comes from deflating sentimental language with a hard-nosed economic metaphor, turning romance into a transaction and exposing how money and intimacy often intertwine despite cultural insistence that they should not.