A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

Political Parties

Politicians

Politics

Poverty

Power

Praise and Flattery

Pregnancy see Birth and Pregnancy

Prejudice

Present see Past, Present, and Future

Presidents

Prime Ministers

Progress

Publishing

Punishment see Crime and Punishment

Puns

Quotations

Reading

Relationships

Religion

Restaurants

Retirement

Royalty

Satisfaction and Discontent

Science

Scotland

Secrecy

Self-Knowledge and Self-Deception

Sex

Sickness and Health

Singing see Songs and Singing

Sleep and Dreams

Snobbery

Society and Social Life

Songs and Singing

Speeches

Sports and Games

Statistics

Success

Taxes

Technology

Telegrams

Television

Tennis

The Theatre

Time

Towns and Cities

Transport

Travel

Trust and Treachery

Truth

Unintended Humour

The Universe

Virtue and Vice

Wales

War

Wealth

The Weather

Weddings

Wine

Wit and Wordplay

Wives

Women and Woman’s Role

Wordplay see Wit and Wordplay

Words

Work

Writers

Writing

Youth

Academic Life

see alsoEDUCATION

You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can’t tell him much.

James Barnes 1866–1936 American writer

No academic person is ever voted into the chair until he has reached an age at which he has forgotten the meaning of the word ‘irrelevant’.

Francis M. Cornford 1874–1943 English academic

Old professors never die, they merely lose their faculties.

Stephen Fry 1957– English comedian, actor, and writer

I find that the three major administrative problems on campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.

Clark Kerr 1911–2003 American academic

In university they don’t tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.

Doris Lessing 1919–2013 English writer

of writer friends with degrees in English:

University seems to have turned them into Conan the Grammarians, who fret over perfect sentence construction.

Kathy Lette 1958– Australian writer

The Socratic method is a game at which only one (the professor) can play.

Ralph Nader 1934– American consumer protectionist

replying to Woodrow Wilson’s ‘And what in your opinion is the trend of the modern English undergraduate? ’:

Steadily towards drink and women, Mr President.

F. E. Smith 1872–1930 British Conservative politician and lawyer

Acting

see alsoACTORS, FILM STARS, THEATRE

METHOD ACTOR: What is my motivation?

ABBOTT: Your job.

George Abbott 1887–1995 American director, producer, and dramatist

CLAUDETTE COLBERT: I knew these lines backwards last night.

NOËL COWARD: And that’s just the way you’re saying them this morning.

Noël Coward 1899–1973 English dramatist, actor, and composer

when asked to say something terrifying during rehearsals:

We open in two weeks.

John Gielgud 1904–2000 English actor

when asked by Michael Hordern for advice before playing Lear for the first time:

All I can tell you is, get a light Cordelia.

John Gielgud 1904–2000 English actor

An actor is a kind of a guy who if you ain’t talking about him ain’t listening.

George Glass 1910–84 American film producer

JOSEPHINE HULL: Shakespeare is so tiring. You never get a chance to sit down unless you’re a king.

George S. Kaufman 1889–1961 and Howard Teichmann 1916–87 American dramatists, in the film The Solid Gold Cadillac

on nudity:

The part never calls for it. And I’ve never ever used that excuse. The box office calls for it.

Helen Mirren 1945– English actress

I used to work for a living, then I became an actor.

Roger Moore 1927–2017 English actor

Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people from coughing.

Ralph Richardson 1902–83 English actor

I wish sir, you would practise this without me. I can’t stay dying here all night.

Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1751–1816 Irish dramatist and Whig politician

I told Mad Frankie Fraser ‘I’m doing Hamlet’—he said, ‘I’ll do him for you.’

Arthur Smith 1954– English comedian

definition of acting:

Shouting in the evenings.

Patrick Troughton 1920–87 British actor

Talk low, talk slow, and don’t say much.

John Wayne 1907–79 American actor

They say an actor is only as good as his parts. Well, my parts have done me pretty well, darling.

Barbara Windsor 1937– English actress

Actors

see alsoACTING, FILM STARS

My only regret in the theatre is that I could never sit out front and watch me.

John Barrymore 1882–1942 American actor