A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

Hanging is too good for him. He must be posted to the infantry.

Frederick the Great 1712–86 Prussian monarch, on being asked to endorse the execution of a cavalryman who sodomized his horse

Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,

From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block.

W. S. Gilbert 1836–1911 English writer

It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.

O. Henry 1862–1910 American short-story writer

If I ever hear you accuse the police of using violence on a prisoner in custody again, I’ll take you down to the station and beat the eyes out of your head.

Joe Orton 1933–67 English dramatist

Critics and Criticism

A bad review may spoil your breakfast but you shouldn’t allow it to spoil your lunch.

Kingsley Amis 1922–95 English novelist and poet

There is less in this than meets the eye.

Tallulah Bankhead 1903–68 American actress, of a revival of Maeterlinck’s play ‘Aglavaine and Selysette’

apparent reassurance to a leading lady after a particularly bad first night:

My dear, good is not the word.

Max Beerbohm 1872–1956 English critic, essayist, and caricaturist

Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves.

Brendan Behan 1923–64 Irish dramatist

summing up the long-running 1920s Broadway hit Abie’s Irish Rose:

Hebrews 13.8. [Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever.]

Robert Benchley 1889–1945 American humorist

to a Hollywood writer who had criticized Alan Bennett’s ‘An Englishman Abroad’:

Listen, dear, you couldn’t write ‘fuck’ in the dust on a Venetian blind.

Coral Browne 1913–91 Australian actress

on book reviewing:

The thankless task of drowning other people’s kittens.

Cyril Connolly 1903–74 English writer

on leaving halfway through an especially cloying screening:

My family has a history of diabetes.

Judith Crist 1922–2012 American film critic

I have knocked everything but the knees of the chorus girls, and nature has anticipated me there.

Percy Hammond 1873–1936 American critic

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp-post how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton 1946– English dramatist

When I read something saying I’ve not done anything as good as Catch-22 I’m tempted to reply, `Who has?’

Joseph Heller 1923–99 American novelist

I didn’t like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions—the curtain was up.

Groucho Marx 1890–1977 American film comedian

And it is that word ‘hummy’, my darlings, that marks the first place in ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ at which Tonstant Weader fwowed up.

Dorothy Parker 1893–1967 American critic and humorist

House Beautiful is play lousy.

Dorothy Parker 1893–1967 American critic and humorist

Let my people go!

Mort Sahl 1926– Canadian-born American comedian, at a viewing of Exodus

Never pay any attention to what critics say ... A statue has never been set up in honour of a critic!

Jean Sibelius 1865–1957 Finnish composer

I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.

Sydney Smith 1771–1845 English clergyman and essayist

As learned commentators view

In Homer more than Homer knew.

Jonathan Swift 1667–1745 Irish poet and satirist

My dear Sir: I have read your play. Oh, my dear Sir!

Yours faithfully.

Herbert Beerbohm Tree 1852–1917 English actor-manager, rejecting a play

A critic is a man who knows the way but can’t drive the car.

Kenneth Tynan 1927–80 English theatre critic

The original Greek is of great use in elucidating Browning’s translation of the Agamemnon.

Robert Yelverton Tyrrell 1844–1914 Irish classicist

Critics search for ages for the wrong word which, to give them credit, they eventually find.

Peter Ustinov 1921–2004 British actor, director, and writer

Norman Mailer, annoyed at Vidal’s literary style of criticism, hit him over the head with a glass tumbler:

Ah, Mailer is, as usual, lost for words.

Gore Vidal 1925–2012 American novelist and critic

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

Dance