Shun them

A quote from Milan Kundera's The Curtain. (There's a review here.)

There are people whose intelligence I admire, whose decency I respect, but with whom I feel ill at ease: I censor my remarks to avoid being misunderstood, to avoid seeming cynical, to avoid wounding them by some frivolous word. They do not live at peace with the comical... I give them a wide berth.