Quotes by Humorists - Page 25

There are people who are always anticipating trouble and in this way they manage to enjoy many sorrows that never really happen.
Josh Billings
NOTICEPersons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.BY ORDER OF THE AUTHORPer G.G.,Chief of Ordnance
Mark Twain
I don’t know why it was, exactly, but nothing irritated my father quite like the sound of his children’s happiness. Group crying, he could stand, but group laughing was asking for it, especially at the dinner table.
David Sedaris
To be busy is man's only happiness.
Mark Twain
If a person gives you his time he can give you no more precious gift.
Frank Tyger
Never use the passive voice. Do not say, 'It will get done.' Say, 'I'll do it,' and then stick to a solid, unwavering deadline
Gina Barreca
Trouble will come soon enough and when he does come receive him as pleasantly as possible ... the more amiably you greet him the sooner he will go away.
Artemus Ward
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
Once again, we come to the holiday season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.
Dave Barry
It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick - on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.
Jerome K. Jerome
On Undecided Voter​s: "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 inter​est you in the chick​en?​” she asks.​ “Or would​ you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broke​n glass​ in it?”To be undecided in this elect​ion is to pause​ for a moment and then ask how the chick​en is cooked.
David Sedaris
I can last two months on a good compliment.
Mark Twain
They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation.
Jerome K. Jerome
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
All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that's an alibi for my ignorance.
Will Rogers
You gwyne to have considerable trouble in yo' life, en considerable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne to git well agin.
Mark Twain
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.
Mark Twain
For a little while, hope made a show of reviving-not with any reason to back it, but only because it is its nature to revive when the spring has not been taken out of it by age and familiarity with failure.
Mark Twain
If books are not good company, where shall I find it?
Mark Twain
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
Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.
Mark Twain
I am opposed to millionaires but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.
Mark Twain
You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris- no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never "weeps, he knows not why." If Harris's eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over his chop.If you were to stand at night by the sea-shore with Harris, and say:"Hark! do you not hear? Is it but the mermaids singing deep below the waving waters; or sad spirits, chanting dirges for white corpses held by seaweed?" Harris would take you by the arm, and say:"I know what it is, old man; you've got a chill. Now you come along with me. I know a place round the corner here, where you can get a drop of the finest Scotch whisky you ever tasted- put you right in less than no time."Harris always does know a place round the corner where you can get something brilliant in the drinking line. I believe that if you met Harris up in Paradise (supposing such a thing likely), he would immediately greet you with:"So glad you've come, old fellow; I've found a nice place round the corner here, where you can get some really first-class nectar.
Jerome K. Jerome
And so the merry party began. It was one of those jolly, happy, bread-crumbling parties where you cough twice before you speak, and then decide not to say it after all.
P.G. Wodehouse
My mother phones daily to ask "Did you just try to reach me?" When I reply no she adds "So if you're not too busy call me while I'm still alive " . . . and hangs up.
Erma Bombeck
April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
Mark Twain
Miss Appleby, her library books, and her story-telling sessions were very popular with all the children in Heavenly Valley. To Nancy and Plum they were a magic carpet that whisked them out of the dreariness and drudgery of their lives at Mrs. Monday's and transported them to palaces in India, canals in Holland, pioneer stockades during the Indian wars, cattle ranches in the West, mountains in Switzerland, pagodas in China, igloos in Alaska, jungles in Africa, castles in England, slums in London, gardens in Japan, or most important of all, into happy homes where there were mothers and fathers and no Mrs. Mondays or Marybelles.
Betty MacDonald
Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation.
Mark Twain
Life itself is only a vision, a dream.""Nothing exists; all is a dream. God--man--the world--the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars--a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space--and you!
Mark Twain
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.
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
Erma Bombeck
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
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
What ho!" I said."What ho!" said Motty."What ho! What ho!""What ho! What ho! What ho!"After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.
P.G. Wodehouse
You know, everybody's ignorant, just on different subjects.
Will Rogers
Remember: If you go for a walk with a friend in England, don't say a single word for hours; if you go for a walk with your dog, talk to it all the time.
George Mikes
Why don't you get a haircut you look like a chrysanthemum.
P.G. Wodehouse
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
Owl love you forever
David Sedaris
but I have no mind for business and considered staying awake to be enough of an accomplishment.
David Sedaris
And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.
P.G. Wodehouse
As you get older; you've probably noticed that you tend to forget things. You'll be talking with somebody at a party, and you'll know that you know this person, but no matter how hard you try, you can't remember his or her name. This can be very embarassing, especially if he or she turns out to be your spouse.
Dave Barry
Some fellows pay a compliment like they expected a receipt.
Kin Hubbard
The Duke of Dunstable had one-way pockets. He would walk ten miles in the snow to chisel an orphan out of tuppence.
P.G. Wodehouse
Love doesn't make the world go 'round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
Franklin P. Jones
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
-'What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this?'There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter
P.G. Wodehouse
I could still see that Pauline was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever met, but of the ancient fire which had caused me to bung my heart at her feet that night at the Plaza there remained not a trace. Analysing this, if analyzing is the word I want, I came to the conclusion that this changed outlook was due to the fact that she was so dashed dynamic. Unquestionably an eyeful, Pauline Stoker had the grave defect of being one of those girls who want you to come and swim a mile before breakfast and rout you out when you are trying to snatch a wink of sleep after lunch for a merry five sets of tennis.
P.G. Wodehouse
I look in the glass sometimes at my two long, cylindrical bags (so picturesquely rugged about the knees), my stand-up collar and billycock hat, and wonder what right I have to go about making God's world hideous. Then wild and wicked thoughts come into my heart. I don't want to be good and respectable. (I never can be sensible, I'm told; so that don't matter.) I want to put on lavender-colored tights, with red velvet breeches and a green doublet slashed with yellow; to have a light-blue silk cloak on my shoulder, and a black eagle's plume waving from my hat, and a big sword, and a falcon, and a lance, and a prancing horse, so that I might go about and gladden the eyes of the people. Why should we all try to look like ants crawling over a dust-heap? Why shouldn't we dress a little gayly? I am sure if we did we should be happier. True, it is a little thing, but we are a little race, and what is the use of our pretending otherwise and spoiling fun? Let philosophers get themselves up like old crows if they like. But let me be a butterfly.
Jerome K. Jerome
I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things and I have succeeded fairly well.
Robert Benchley
Man is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight
Mark Twain