Quotes by Humorists - Page 25

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
Mark Twain
This nation is like all the others that have been spewed upon the earth--ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its vanity or fill its pocket. What a hell of a heaven it will be when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!- Letter to J. H. Twichell, 1/29/1901
Mark Twain
If a cat sits on a hot stove, that cat won't sit on a hot stove again. That cat won't sit on a cold stove either. That cat just don't like stoves.
Mark Twain
the squeeky wheel gets the grease.
Josh Billings
When ill luck begins, it does not come in sprinkles, but in showers.
Mark Twain
Herodotus says, "Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all: the conscientious historian will correct these defects.
Mark Twain
All I do is lie, and that has made me immune to compliments.
David Sedaris
A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
Mark Twain
My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for who I am. Concentrate too hard on the millions of people who hate you for what you are and you're likely to turn into one of those unkempt, sloppy dressers who sag beneath the weight of the two hundred political buttons they wear pinned to their coats and knapsacks.
David Sedaris
The Bible has noble poetry in it... and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies.
Mark Twain
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Mark Twain
Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.
Mark Twain
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
Mark Twain
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
Mark Twain
I have lived a long life and had many troubles, most of which never happened
Mark Twain
Would Crazy Horse have spent this much to remodel a kitchen?
Ian Frazier
The true philosopher is a man who says "All right," and goes to sleep in his armchair.
P.G. Wodehouse
There are situations in life which are beyond one. The sensible man realizes this, and slides out of such situations, admitting himself beaten. Others try to grapple with them, but it never does any good. When affairs get in a real tangle, it is best to sit still and let them straighten themselves out. Or, if one does not do that, simply to think no more about them. This is Philosophy. The true philosopher is the man who says "All right," and goes to sleep in his arm-chair. One's attitude towards Life's Little Difficulties should be that of the gentleman in the fable, who sat down on an acorn one day and happened to doze. The warmth of his body caused the acorn to germinate, and it grew so rapidly that, when he awoke, he found himself sitting in the fork of an oak sixty feet from the ground. He thought he would go home, but, finding this impossible, he altered his plans. "Well, well," he said, "if I cannot compel circumstances to my will, I can at least adapt my will to circumstances. I decide to remain here." Which he did, and had a not unpleasant time. The oak lacked some of the comforts of home, but the air was splendid and the view excellent.Today's Great Thought for Young Readers. Imitate this man.
P.G. Wodehouse
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
Mark Twain
Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.
Erma Bombeck
Gussie, a glutton for punishment, stared at himself in the mirror.
P.G. Wodehouse
I flung open the door. I got a momentary flash of about a hundred and fifteen cats of all sizes and colours scrapping in the middle of the room, and then they all shot past me with a rush and out of the front door; and all that was left of the mobscene was the head of a whacking big fish, lying on the carpet and staring up at me in a rather austere sort of way, as if it wanted a written explanation and apology.
P.G. Wodehouse
When humor goes, there goes civilization.
Erma Bombeck
Oh, for Christ's sake,' I hear. 'Can we please just try to have a good time?' This is like ordering someone to find you attractive, and it doesn't work. I've tried it.
David Sedaris
The source of all humor is not laughter, but sorrow.
Mark Twain
A grandmother pretends she doesn't know who you are on Halloween.
Erma Bombeck
Hobbies of any kind are boring except to people who have the same hobby. This is also true of religion, although you will not find me saying so in print.
Dave Barry
Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage.
Erma Bombeck
A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.
P.G. Wodehouse
The wolf said, "You know, my dear, it isn't safe for a little girl to walk through these woods alone." Red Riding Hood said, "I find your sexist remark offensive in the extreme, but I will ignore it because of your traditional status as an outcast from society, the stress of which has caused you to develop your own, entirely valid, worldview. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way.
James Finn Garner
Everyone is guilty at one time or another of throwing out questions that beg to be ignored, but mothers seem to have a market on the supply. "Do you want a spanking or do you want to go to bed?" Don't you want to save some of the pizza for your brother?" Wasn't there any change?
Erma Bombeck
I take my only exercise acting as a pallbearer at the funerals of my friends who exercise regularly.
Mark Twain
If God had wanted us to be concerned for the plight of the toads, he would have made them cute and furry.
Dave Barry
It was one of the dullest speeches I ever heard. The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.
P.G. Wodehouse
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
Mark Twain
Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired.
Mark Twain
Written on her tombstone: "I told you I was sick.
Erma Bombeck
Eating rice cakes is like chewing on a foam coffee cup, only less filling.
Dave Barry
Whenever I get that sad, depressed feeling, I go out and kill a policeman.
P.G. Wodehouse
I mean to say, I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess. And when a girl comes along who has about twice the regular allowance, she too often makes a bee line for me with the love light in her eyes. I don't know how to account for it, but it is so.""It may be Nature's provision for maintaining the balance of the species, sir.
P.G. Wodehouse
I love the Olympics, because they enable people from all over the world to come together and--regardless of their political or cultural differences--accuse each other of cheating.
Dave Barry
What's the use of a great city having temptations if fellows don't yield to them?
P.G. Wodehouse
As for Gussie Finknottle, many an experienced undertaker would have been deceived by his appearance and started embalming on sight.
P.G. Wodehouse
If we would learn what the human race really is at bottom, we need only observe it in election times.
Mark Twain
Camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business.
Dave Barry
Humor is a spontaneous, wonderful bit of an outburst that just comes. It's unbridled, its unplanned, it's full of suprises.
Erma Bombeck
I don't know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me.
Jerome K. Jerome
I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.
Mark Twain
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.
Dave Barry
Sometimes I can't figure designers out. It's as if they flunked human anatomy.
Erma Bombeck
Have you noticed that whatever sport you're trying to learn, some earnest person is always telling you to keep your knees bent?
Dave Barry
In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.
Mark Twain
When forced to leave my house for an extended period of time, I take my typewriter with me, and together we endure the wretchedness of passing through the X-ray scanner. The laptops roll merrily down the belt, while I’m instructed to stand aside and open my bag. To me it seems like a normal enough thing to be carrying, but the typewriter’s declining popularity arouses suspicion and I wind up eliciting the sort of reaction one might expect when traveling with a cannon.It’s a typewriter,’ I say. ‘You use it to write angry letters to airport security.
David Sedaris
It was one of those cases where you approve the broad, general principle of an idea but can't help being in a bit of a twitter at the prospect of putting it into practical effect. I explained this to Jeeves, and he said much the same thing had bothered Hamlet.
P.G. Wodehouse
Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.
Mark Twain
When you see what some girls marry, you realize how they must hate to work for a living.
Helen Rowland
If anger were mileage, I'd be a very frequent flyer, right up there in First Class.
Gina Barreca
Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't.
David Sedaris
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.
Jerome K. Jerome
It usually takes me two or three days to prepare an impromptu speech.
Mark Twain