Quotes by Humorists - Page 16

The best of all lost arts is honesty
Mark Twain
My confessions did nothing to alter this situation, but for the first time in my life I felt that somebody actually knew me. Three somebodies, to be exact. Two were roaming the highway in a Cadillac, doing God knows what with a CB radio, but the other was as close to me as my own skin, and I could now feel the undiluted pleasure of her company.
David Sedaris
Honesty: The best of all the lost arts.
Mark Twain
There's one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he's crooked.
Mark Twain
Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others. But for the Civil War, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan would not have been discovered, nor have risen into notice.
Mark Twain
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Mark Twain
At a time when she was engaged to Stilton Cheesewright, I remember recording in the archives that she was tall and willowy with a terrific profile and luxuriant platinum blond-hair, the sort of girl who might, as far as looks were concerned, have been the star unit of the harem of one of the better-class sultans.
P.G. Wodehouse
Zoo: An excellent lace to study the habits of human beings
Evan Esar
I said it was a brutal thing."No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of that word; they have not deserved it,
Mark Twain
That’s just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don’t want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain’t no disgrace.
Mark Twain
One ought always to lie, when one can do good by it;
Mark Twain
Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one reasons all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.
Mark Twain
Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.
Mark Twain
I hate computers. My hatred is entrenched, and I nourish it daily. I’m comfortable with it, and no community outreach program will change my mind. I hate computers for getting their own section in the New York Times and for lengthening commercials with the mention of a Web site address. Who really wants to find out more about Procter & Gamble? Just buy the toothpaste or laundry detergent, and get on with it. I hate them for creating the word org and I hate them for e-mail, which isn’t real mail but a variation of the pointless notes people used to pass in class. I hate computers for replacing the card catalog in the New York Public Library and I hate the way they’ve invaded the movies. I’m not talking about their contribution to the world of special effects. I have nothing against a well-defined mutant or full-scale alien invasion — that’s good technology. I’m talking about their actual presence in any given movie. They’ve become like horses in a western — they may not be the main focus, but everybody seems to have one.
David Sedaris
Thought is everything. Pain is something. Hence where there is no thought there can be no pain. Wherefore if you have a pain it is evident that you have a thought. To be rid of the pain stop thinking.
John Kendrick Bangs
A woman's intuition is better than a man's. Nobody knows anything, really, you know, and a woman can guess a good deal nearer than a man.
Mark Twain
I followed the other Experiment around, yesterday afternoon, at a distance, to see what it might be for, if I could. But I was not able to make [it] out. I think it is a man. I had never seen a man, but it looked like one, and I feel sure that that is what it is. I realize that I feel more curiosity about it than about any of the other reptiles. If it is a reptile, and I suppose it is; for it has frowzy hair and blue eyes, and looks like a reptile. It has no hips; it tapers like a carrot; when it stands, it spreads itself apart like a derrick; so I think it is a reptile, though it may be architecture.
Mark Twain
It isn't often that Aunt Dahlia lets her angry passions rise, but when she does, strong men climb trees and pull them up after them.
P.G. Wodehouse
A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.
David Sedaris
When angry, count four. When very angry, swear.
Mark Twain
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
Mark Twain
I set down in a chair by the window and tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead.
Mark Twain
between the disfigurement and the muzzle, it's nearly impossible to catch what she's saying. Always, though, while tripping and stumbling to the music, she looks out into her audience and tells the story about her mother. Most people laugh and yell for her to lift her skirts, but every so often she'll spot someone weeping and swear they can understand her every word.
David Sedaris
Loose and forbear!
Mark Twain
This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.
Mark Twain
Back in New York I took full advantage of my status as a native speaker. I ran my mouth to shop clerks and listened in on private conversations, realising I’d gone an entire month without hearing anyone complaint that they were “stressed out”.
David Sedaris
I know grammar by ear only, not by note, not by the rules.
Mark Twain
The Hawaiian language is quite unusual because when the original Polynesians came in their canoes, most of their consonants were washed overboard in a storm, and they arrived here with almost nothing but vowels. All the streets have names like Kal'ia'iou'amaa'aaa'eiou, and many street signs spontaneously generate new syllables during the night.
Dave Barry
A dog is der Hund the dog; a women is die Frau the wom[an]; a horse is das Pferd, the horse; now you put that dog in the Genitive case, & is he the same dog he was before? No sir; he is das Hundes; put him in the Dative case & what is he? Why, he is dem Hund. Now you snatch him into the accusative case & how is it with him? Why he is den Hunden? ... Read moreBut suppose he happens to be twins & you have to pluralize him – what then? Why sir they’ll swap that twin dog around thro’ the four cases till he’ll think he’s an entire International Dog Show all in his own person. I don’t like dogs, but I wouldn’t treat a dog like that. I wouldn’t even treat a borrowed dog that way.
Mark Twain
What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I'll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for a week or two, it will eventually grow a beard.
David Sedaris
On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use. From the dog owners I learned "Lie down," "Shut up," and "Who shit on this carpet?" The couple across the road taught me to ask questions correctly, and the grocer taught me to count. Things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. "Is thems the thoughts of cows?" I'd ask the butcher, pointing to the calves' brains displayed in the front window. "I want me some lamb chop with handles on 'em.
David Sedaris
You see, the catch about portrait painting—I've looked into the thing a bit— is that you can't startpainting portraits till people come along and ask you to, andthey won't come and ask you to until you've painted a lot first.This makes it kind of difficult for a chappie.
P.G. Wodehouse
No sun—no moon! No morn—no noon—No dawn— No sky—no earthly view— No distance looking blue—No road—no street—no "t'other side the way"— No end to any Row— No indications where the Crescents go— No top to any steeple—No recognitions of familiar people— No courtesies for showing 'em— No knowing 'em!No traveling at all—no locomotion,No inkling of the way—no notion— "No go"—by land or ocean— No mail—no post— No news from any foreign coast—No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility— No company—no nobility—No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member—No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, November!
Thomas Hood
At last the bottom fell out.No more water in the pail.No more moon in the water.
John Gould
America is a leap of the imagination. From its beginning, people had only a persistent idea of what a good country should be. The idea involved freedom, equality, justice, and the pursuit of happiness; nowadays most of us probably could not describe it a lot more clearly than that. The truth is, it always has been a bit of a guess. No one has ever known for sure whether a country based on such an idea is really possible, but again and again, we have leaped toward the idea and hoped. What SuAnne Big Crow demonstrated in the Lead high school gym is that making the leap is the whole point. The idea does not truly live unless it is expressed by an act; the country does not live unless we make the leap from our tribe or focus group or gated community or demographic, and land on the shaky platform of that idea of a good country which all kinds of different people share.This leap is made in public, and it's made for free. It's not a product or a service that anyone will pay you for. You do it for reasons unexplainable by economics--for ambition, out of conviction, for the heck of it, in playfulness, for love. It's done in public spaces, face-to-face, where anyone is free to go. It's not done on television, on the Internet, or over the telephone; our electronic systems can only tell us if the leap made elsewhere has succeeded or failed. The places you'll see it are high school gyms, city sidewalks, the subway, bus stations, public parks, parking lots, and wherever people gather during natural disasters. In those places and others like them, the leaps that continue to invent and knit the country continue to be made. When the leap fails, it looks like the L.A. riots, or Sherman's March through Georgia. When it succeeds, it looks like the New York City Bicentennial Celebration in July 1976 or the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963. On that scale, whether it succeeds or fails, it's always something to see. The leap requires physical presence and physical risk. But the payoff--in terms of dreams realized, of understanding, of people getting along--can be so glorious as to make the risk seem minuscule.
Ian Frazier
3. When making your dramatic exit, crawl along one of the web strands that extend outward from the center. Avoid the webbing that runs in concentric circles, as it's the stickiest. 4. Once you've escaped, say something snarky to the queen, like "Sorry I couldn't stick around.
Andrew Shaffer
Don't needlessly draw attention to yourself. If you're twerking on the beach, a circling pteracuda could mistake you for a wounded animal.
Andrew Shaffer
And verily, a woman need know but one man well, in order to understand all men; whereas a man may know all women and understand not one of them.
Helen Rowland
The mind that becomes soiled in youth can never again be washed clean. I know this by my own experience, & to this day I cherish an unappeased bitterness against the unfaithful guardians of my young life, who not only permitted but compelled me to read an unexpurgated Bible through before I was 15 years old. None can do that and ever draw a clean sweet breath again on this side of the grave.
Mark Twain
I said it was a brutal thing."No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of that word; they have not deserved it.
Mark Twain
I spent the afternoon musing on Life. If you come to think of it, what a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see what I mean. At any moment you may be strolling peacefully along, and all the time Life's waiting around the corner to fetch you one. You can't tell when you may be going to get it. It's all dashed puzzling. Here was poor old George, as well-meaning a fellow as every stepped, getting swatted all over the ring by the hand of Fate. Why? That's what I asked myself. Just Life, don't you know. That's all there was about it.
P.G. Wodehouse
I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare—or, if not, it’s some equally brainy lad—who says that it’s always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.
P.G. Wodehouse
I am a Christian because of God's grace. I find it in no other faith system. The Christian gospel is rather simple. I love the way Tim Keller puts it: "I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me." The result is that I neither swagger nor snivel; I live with thanksgiving, overwhelmed and overjoyed by grace. This path seems to lead us to a place of needing to be noticed less often, and being less concerned with how we're thought of.
Phil Callaway
If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.
Mark Twain
Tout les jours you are coming some fresh game or other on me, mais vous ne pouvez pas play this savon dodge on me twice!
Mark Twain
The ideal adventurer needs... the quality of not being content to mind his own affairs...
P.G. Wodehouse
Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.
Mark Twain
A writer’s brain is full of little gifts, like a piñata at a birthday party. It’s also full of demons, like a piñata at a birthday party in a mental hospital. The truth is, it’s demons that keep a tortured writer’s spirit alive, not Tootsie Rolls. Sure they’ll give you a tiny burst of energy, but they won’t do squat for your writing. So treat your demons with the respect they deserve, and with enough prescriptions to keep you wearing pants.
Colin Nissan
The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
Leo. C Rosten
An author is a person who can never take innocent pleasure in visiting a bookstore again. Say you go in and discover that there are no copies of your book on the shelves. You resent all the other books - I don't care if they are Great Expectations, Life on the Mississippi and the King James Bible that are on the shelves.
Roy Blount Jr.
Every author really wants to have letters printed in the paper. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels.
P.G. Wodehouse
I suppose half the time Shakespeare just shoved down anything that came into his head.
P.G. Wodehouse
Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.
Jerome K. Jerome
And then I sez—‘How is anybody a-goin’ to live pattern lives, when they are a-starvin' to death? And how is anybody a-goin’ to enjoy religion when they are a-chokin’?
Marietta Holley
Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was deep, and dark, and awful; the hour, the circumstances, the surroundings, were in keeping with it.
Mark Twain
Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.
Mark Twain
But instead I am applying for a job as an elf. Even worse than applying is the very real possibility that I will not be hired, that I couldn't even find work as an elf. That's when you know you're a failure.
David Sedaris
You can't do much for the poor, as they are not in with the right people.
Will Cuppy
Diligence and attention soon gave him the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer feels who has discovered a new planet—no doubt, as far as strong, deep, unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the astronomer.
Mark Twain
He told us that it had been a fine day to-day, and we told him that it had been a fine day yesterday, and then we all told each other that we thought it would be a fine day to-morrow; and George said the crops seemed to be coming up nicely.
Jerome K. Jerome