Keillor's humor involves the incongruities found in the everyday lives of ordinary people. The basis of this humor is a slightly skewed perception, which focuses upon the absurdities most people overlook. The Mark Twain influence is seen in Keillor's consistent use of understatement; also reminiscent of Twain is the indirectness of his humor, the rambling passages filled with minute details, which initially appear to be digressions but prove to be the essential elements of his stories.