Quotes by Humorists - Page 9

Unconsciously we all have a standard by which we measure other men, and if we examine closely we find that this standard is a very simple one, and is this: we admire them, we envy them, for great qualities we ourselves lack. Hero worship consists in just that. Our heroes are men who do things which we recognize, with regret, and sometimes with a secret shame, that we cannot do. We find not much in ourselves to admire, we are always privately wanting to be like somebody else. If everybody was satisfied with himself, there would be no heroes.
Mark Twain
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
Will Rogers
In Boston they ask, how much does he know? In New York, how much is he worth? In Philadelphia, who were his parents?
Mark Twain
New York - The city where the people from Oshkosh look at the people from Dubuque in the next theater seats and say "These New Yorkers don't dress any better than we do.
Robert Benchley
On a New York subway you get fined for spitting, but you can throw up for nothing.
Lewis Grizzard
Central Park is the grandiose symbol of the front yard each child in New York hasn't got.
Robert Benchley
It was generally agreed that a coffin-size studio on Avenue D was preferable to living in one of the boroughs. Moving from one Brooklyn or Staten Island neighborhood to another was fine, but unless you had children to think about, even the homeless saw it as a step down to leave Manhattan. Customers quitting the island for Astoria or Cobble Hill would claim to welcome the change of pace, saying it would be nice to finally have a garden or live a little closer to the airport. They’d put a good face one it, but one could always detect an underlying sense of defeat. The apartments might be bigger and cheaper in other places, but one could never count on their old circle of friend making the long trip to attend a birthday party. Even Washington Heights was considered a stretch. People referred to it as Upstate New York, though it was right there in Manhattan.
David Sedaris
I'm bound to say that New York's a topping place to be exiled in. Everybody was awfully good to me, and there seemed to be plenty of things going on, and I'm a wealthy bird, so everything was fine.
P.G. Wodehouse
When it's summer, people sit a lot. Or lie. Lie in the sense of recumbency. A good heavy book holds you down. It's an anchor that keeps you from getting up and having another gin and tonic. Many a person has been saved from summer alcoholism, not to mention hypertoxicity, by Dostoyevsky. Put The Idiot in your lap or over your face, and you know where you are going to be for the afternoon.
Roy Blount Jr.
So slip on your goggles and your reading trunks, for the sun is high. Let me leave you with one more thought. In what season of the year do we find ourselves - I'm speaking for a moment in terms of the physical world - wading through things? Surf. Kelp. Books. Summer.
Roy Blount Jr.
You will never win if you never begin.
Helen Rowland
This is indeed India! "…. The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of hundred nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of traditions, whose yesterday’s bear date with the modering antiquities for the rest of nations-the one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, wise and fool, rich and poor, bond and free, the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the world combined.
Mark Twain
Natives of the Florida Keys often refer to themselves as Conchs, and for good reason: They have been drinking.
Dave Barry
The only way that I could figure they could improve upon Coca-Cola, one of life's most delightful elixirs, which studies prove will heal the sick and occasionally raise the dead, is to put bourbon in it.
Lewis Grizzard
It was my Uncle George who discovered alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.
P.G. Wodehouse
‘Foo Kyu’ is just a very unfortunate cultural coincidence.""Just think about his poor son, ‘Foo Kyu Two.’
John Zakour
I smiled, reached into my pockets and pulled out a pair of ultrapowerful earplugs, the kind that are standard issue for skyway construction workers, artillery soldiers, and roadies for the thirty-five most popular teen boy bands.
John Zakour
I focused the power from my armor into my leg and kicked the door in. The metal and plastic fibers splintered and the hinges ripped free from the wall.“By the way, boss,” HARV said. “I believe that the door was unlocked.
John Zakour
You bastard, stop that whistling and fight me like a man!
John Zakour
Great Gates almighty,” HARV said inside my brain. “I go off-line for a few nanos and the whole world goes to DOS.
John Zakour
As a matter of fact, Ona spent more credits on the window shades alone than you will make in your entire lifetime and that’s if you live to be 185.”“And that’s meant to make me feel better?” I said.“No, that is meant to inform you. I am your computer not your nanny.
John Zakour
Carol, I thought you didn't liked playing with the minds of normal people.”“Yes, but the press don't count as normal.”“She’s got you there,” HARV added.
John Zakour
I can tell you that she's not breathing,” he said. “She has no heartbeat and all organ function and brain activity have stopped. Also her body temperature is now at seventy-three degrees.”“So you’re saying that she’s dead,” I said.“Well, I can't prove it, but, yes, I am leaning that way.
John Zakour
W turned on his heel and began walking toward the door at the far wall. And by walking I mean, of course, not moving at all, at least not to the naked eye, because his strides could only be measured in micrometers. His creaky legs made barely the tiniest of forward steps, so he’d taken four strides before I noticed any lateral movement at all.“I'll be right back.”“Geologically speaking, of course,” HARV said.
John Zakour
Forget it,” I said. “Opie could be bloodthirsty, rabid, radioactive, and selling life insurance and he’d still be preferable to listening to the two of you.
John Zakour
I told you it was easy,” HARV said.“True, but you say that about everything.”“That's because everything is easy for me.”“Everything but humility.”“No, that's easy, too. I just choose not to practice it.
John Zakour
Don't worry, boss,” HARV said. “I get the feeling that this is only the tip of the iceberg of complications.”“HARV, you’re a machine. You don’t get feelings.”“Would it make you feel better if I said I've done a numerical analysis on the probabilities and the results are skewed toward you having more problems with this case?
John Zakour
How bad is it?”“The story is only just now being reported, but let's put it this way,” HARV said. “The bag is now clearly catless, and there’s a very foul odor coming from the fan.
John Zakour
Stupid Ape: I had to quantify this with the word “stupid” so as not to offend the ape community. Large of limb, impotent of intellect, he was the kind of guy who lettered in leg-breaking at thug school but flunked the written exam because he didn't know which end of the e-pencil to use.
John Zakour
No thanks,” I answered, “I never take rides from strangers, thugs who've tried to kill me or people with poor personal hygiene. Congratulations, by the way, for being the first person to qualify in all three categories.
John Zakour
Yeah, but will it hurt?”’ I asked.“This is science, Zach,” Randy said, reassuringly, as he tilted my head back and lowered the lens to my eye. “Of course it will hurt.
John Zakour
O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.
Leo Rosten
When Eve upon the first of MenThe apple press’d with specious cant,Oh! what a thousand pities thenThat Adam was not adamant!
Thomas Hood
I'm not a parent myself, but I think the best solution at this point is to slap that child across the face. It won't stop crying, but at least now it'll be doing it for a good reason.
David Sedaris
The best time for you to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust.
Josh Billings
There is this advantage about German beer: it does not make a man drunk as the word drunk is understood in England. There is nothing objectionable about him; he is simply tired. He does not want to talk; he wants to be let alone, to go to sleep; it does not matter where— anywhere.
Jerome K. Jerome
Oh, I'm not saying that alcohol is perfect. It has caused its share of problems. Russia is only one example.
Dave Barry
Cover your glass in France or Germany --even worse, in England - and in the voice of someone who has personally affronted, your host will ask why you're not drinking. 'Oh, I just don't feel like it this morning.''Why not?''I guess I'm not in the mood?''Well, this'll put you in the mood. Here. Drink up.''No, really, I'm OK.''Just taste it.''Actually, I'm sort of...well, I sort of have a problem with it.''Then how about half a glass?
David Sedaris
If you are foolish enough to be contented, don't show it, but grumble with the rest; and if you can do with a little, ask for a great deal. Because if you don't you won't get any.
Jerome K. Jerome
The storm is over, there is sunlight in my heart. I have a glass of wine and sit thinking of what has passed.
P.G. Wodehouse
The snag in this business of falling in love, aged relative, is that the parties of the first part so often get mixed up with the wrong parties of the second part, robbed of their cooler judgement by the party of the second part's glamour. Put it like this: the male sex is divided into rabbits and non-rabbits and the female sex into dashers and dormice, and the trouble is that the male rabbit has a way of getting attracted by the female dasher (who would be fine for the non-rabbit) and realizing too late that he ought to have been concentrating on some mild, gentle dormouse with whom he could settle down peacefully and nibble lettuce.
P.G. Wodehouse
The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them.
Kin Hubbard
Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.
Will Cuppy
A hypocritical businessman, whose fortune had been the misfortune of many others, told Mark Twain piously, “Before I die I intend to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I want to climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud.” “I have a better idea,” suggested Twain. “Why don’t you stay right at home in Boston and keep them?
Mark Twain
It's considered good sportsmanship not to pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
Mark Twain
If you have not seen it, FOOTBALL is a game in which men shove one another back and forth for no reason. They do not choose how, when, or whom they shove. All that has been decided for them in advance. All they need to do is follow the orders given to them before the game, showing them where to run and how to violently deploy the meat of their bodies against the meat that is running at them. They are doing this in order to please one angry old man on the sidelines. This old man is called the "coach" or "yelling surrogate dad who will never be happy.
John Hodgman
Golf is a good walk spoiled.
Mark Twain
Guys care about sports teams. I'm not talking about simply rooting; I'm talking about a relationship that guys develop, a commitment to a sport team that guys take way more seriously than, for example, wedding vows.
Dave Barry
You won't mind my calling you Comrade, will you? I've just become a socialist. It's a great scheme. You ought to be one. You work for the equal distribution of property, and start by collaring all you can and sitting on it.
P.G. Wodehouse
I have been studying the principles of socialism deeply of late, and I came to the conclusion that I must join the cause. It looked good to me. You work for the equal distribution of property and start in by swiping all you can and sitting on it. Ah, noble scheme! Me for it!
P.G. Wodehouse
Girls do go for the finely-chiselled. And apart from his looks, he's and artist, and there's something about artists that seems to act on the other sex like catnip on cats.
P.G. Wodehouse
Employers are like horses — they require management.
P.G. Wodehouse
I like the trail that the Internet created. For example, I was watching one of those Douglas Sirk movies, and I noticed that Rock Hudson towered over everyone, and I typed in "How tall was" and I saw "How tall was Jesus," and I'm like, "Sure," and half an hour later you're somewhere you didn't expect to be. It doesn't work that same way in books, does it? Even if you have an encyclopedia, the trail isn't that crazy. I like that aspect of it.
David Sedaris
Th' first thing to have in a libry is a shelf.Fr'm time to time this can be decorated with lithrachure.But th' shelf is th' main thing.
Finley Peter Dunne
Daylight would have shown a wilderness weathered and blowzy, a wanton that had lived her summer too fast and too greedily. It would have shown the white birches pale and shivering in a sudden ague, and here and there an ash or a sumac burning red, like a hectic spot, where the first frosts already had set the marks of their galloping consumption on the cheek of the forest, giving warning of the time when the white plague of the winter would make a massacre of all this present glory and turn the trees to naked skeletons and stretch a bony bare cadaver on every steeper hillside to bleach there until the snows covered things up. But now the kindly nighttime had all signs and threats of approaching death, so that each shriveled speckled leaf, as revealed and traced in the waning light, seemed flawless — a perfect part of a perfect tapestry.
Irvin S. Cobb
It was Christmas Eve. Big snowflakes fluttered slowly through the air like white feathers and made all of the Heavenly Valley smooth and white and quiet and beautiful.Tall fir trees stood up to their knees in snow and their outstretched hands were heaped with it. Those that were bare of leaves wore soft white fur on their scrawny, reaching arms and all the stumps and low bushes had been turned into fat white cupcakes.
Betty MacDonald
Feminine psychology is admittedly odd, sir. The poet Pope...""Never mind about the poet Pope, Jeeves.""No, sir.""There are times when one wants to hear all about the poet Pope and times when one doesn't.""Very true, sir.
P.G. Wodehouse
I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. "Can I interest you in the chicken?" she asks. "Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it? To be undecided in this election is to pause for a moment and then ask how the chicken is cooked.
David Sedaris
There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.
Mark Twain
Hate people on an individual basis only - you must actually get to know someone at least slightly before you can properly hate him or her.
Jill Conner Browne