A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

The trouble with a book is that you never know what’s in it until it’s too late.

Jeanette Winterson 1959– English novelist and critic

Bores

definition of a bore:

A person who talks when you wish him to listen.

Ambrose Bierce 1842–c.1914 American writer

What’s wrong with being a boring kind of guy?

George Bush 1924– American Republican statesman

VISITOR TO ETON: I hope that I am not boring you.

PROVOST: Not yet.

Lord Hugh Cecil 1869–1956 British Conservative politician and educationist

He is not only dull in himself, but the cause of dullness in others.

Samuel Foote 1720–77 English actor and dramatist, on a dull law lord

A bore is a fellow who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.

Henry Ford 1863–1947 American car manufacturer

Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church, or robbing a bank, but never to being bores.

Elsa Maxwell 1883–1963 American columnist and hostess

Life is too short, and the time we waste in yawning never can be regained.

Stendhal 1783–1842 French novelist

A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you.

Bert Leston Taylor 1866–1901 American writer

He is an old bore. Even the grave yawns for him.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree 1852–1917 English actor-manager, of the actor Israel Zangwill

Boxing

see alsoSPORTS

It’s gonna be a thrilla, a chilla, and a killa,

When I get the gorilla in Manila.

Muhammad Ali 1942–2016 American boxer

It’s just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up.

Muhammad Ali 1942–2016 American boxer

Boxing is show-business with blood.

David Belasco 1853–1931 American theatrical producer

Tall men come down to my height when I hit ’em in the body.

Jack Dempsey 1895–1983 American boxer

I want to keep fighting because it is the only thing that keeps me out of the hamburger joints. If I don’t fight, I’ll eat this planet.

George Foreman 1948– American boxer

We’re all endowed with God-given talents. Mine happens to be hitting people in the head.

Sugar Ray Leonard 1956– American boxer

In boxing the right cross-counter is distinctly one of those things it is more blessed to give than to receive.

P. G. Wodehouse 1881–1975 English-born writer

The British

see alsoENGLAND, SCOTLAND, WALES

on British men:

Grubby and distinctly grey around the underwear region.

Germaine Greer 1939– Australian feminist

Modest about our national pride—and inordinately proud of our national modesty.

Ian Hislop 1960– English satirical journalist

British Beatitudes! ... Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs, battleships, buggery and bishops.

James Joyce 1882–1941 Irish novelist

What two ideas are more inseparable than Beer and Britannia?

Sydney Smith 1771–1845 English clergyman and essayist

Other nations use ‘force’; we Britons alone use ‘Might’.

Evelyn Waugh 1903–66 English novelist

Bureaucracy

see alsoMANAGEMENT

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.

Dean Acheson 1893–1971 American politician

Give a civil servant a good case and he’ll wreck it with clichés, bad punctuation, double negatives and convoluted apology.

Alan Clark 1928–99 British Conservative politician

Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving—HOW NOT TO DO IT.

Charles Dickens 1812–70 English novelist

when his secretary suggested throwing away out-of-date files:

A good idea, only be sure to make a copy of everything before getting rid of it.

Sam Goldwyn 1882–1974 American film producer

Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.

Aldous Huxley 1894–1963 English novelist

on his dislike of working in teams:

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Alec Issigonis 1906–88 British engineer

I think it will be a clash between the political will and the administrative won’t.

Jonathan Lynn 1943– and Antony Jay 1930–2016 English writers

By the time the civil service has finished drafting a document to give effect to a principle, there may be little of the principle left.

Lord Reith 1889–1971 British administrator and politician

Here lies a civil servant. He was civil