A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

Marci Klein 1967– American television producer

I base my fashion sense on what doesn’t itch.

Gilda Radner 1946–89 American comedian and actress

Don’t wear perfume in the garden—unless you want to be pollinated by bees.

Anne Raver American journalist

his only regret:

I wish I had invented blue jeans.

Yves Saint Laurent 1936–2008 French fashion designer

His socks compelled one’s attention without losing one’s respect.

Saki 1870–1916 Scottish writer

Women dress alike all over the world: they dress to be annoying to other women.

Elsa Schiaparelli 1896–1973 Italian-born French fashion designer

I blame the women’s movement for 10 years in a boiler suit.

Jill Tweedie 1936–93 British journalist

I like to dress egos. If you haven’t got an ego today, you can forget it.

Gianni Versace 1949–97 Italian fashion designer

It is charming to totter into vogue.

Horace Walpole 1717–97 English writer and connoisseur

Feminism

see alsoWOMEN

The suffragettes were triumphant. Woman’s place was in the gaol.

Caryl Brahms 1901–82 and S. J. Simon 1904–48

A good part—and definitely the most fun part—of being a feminist is about frightening men.

Julie Burchill 1960– English journalist and writer

The feminist movement seems to have beaten the manners out of men, but I didn’t see them put up a lot of resistance.

Clarissa Dickson Wright 1947–2014 English chef and broadcaster

Make policy, not coffee.

Betty Friedan 1921–2006 American feminist, slogan for the National Organisation for Women’s Political Caucus

Militant feminists, I take my hat off to them. They don’t like that.

Milton Jones 1964– English comedian

BETTY FRIEDAN: Don’t you hate women being treated as a sexual plaything?

JESSICA MITFORD: But Betty, you’re not a plaything, you’re a war toy!

Jessica Mitford 1917–96 British writer

God made man and then said I can do better than that and made woman.

Adela Rogers St Johns 1894–1988 American journalist

We can’t reduce women to equality. Equality is a step down for most women.

Phyllis Schlafly 1924–2016 American lawyer

Like every good little feminist-in-training in the sixties, I burned my bra—and now it’s the nineties and I realize Playtex had supported me better than any man I have ever known.

Susan Sweetzer

Film Producers and Directors

see alsoCINEMA, HOLLYWOOD

resigning from the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America in 1933:

Gentlemen, include me out.

Sam Goldwyn 1882–1974 American film producer

PRODUCTION ASSISTANT: But Mr Goldwyn, you said you wanted a spectacle.

GOLDWYN: Yes, but goddam it, I wanted an intimate spectacle!

Sam Goldwyn 1882–1974 American film producer

That’s the way with these directors, they’re always biting the hand that lays the golden egg.

Sam Goldwyn 1882–1974 American film producer

Hitchcock was more careful about how the birds were treated than he was about me. I was just there to be pecked.

Tippi Hedren 1930– American actress, on the filming of The Birds

If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.

Alfred Hitchcock 1899–1980 British-born film director

Tsar of all the rushes.

B. P. Schulberg 1892–1957 American film producer, of Louis B. Mayer

Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to, and I see another movie I want to make.

Steven Spielberg 1947– American film director and producer

on Roman Polanski:

The four foot Pole you wouldn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole.

Kenneth Tynan 1927–80 English theatre critic

To Raoul Walsh a tender love scene is burning down a whorehouse.

Jack Warner 1892–1978 Canadian-born American film producer

I like the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.

Orson Welles 1915–85 American actor and film director

Johnny, it’s the usual slashed-wrist shot ... Keep it out of focus. I want to win the foreign picture award.

Billy Wilder 1906–2002 American screenwriter and director

An actor entering through the door, you’ve got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you’ve got a situation.

Billy Wilder 1906–2002 American screenwriter and director

Film Stars

see alsoCINEMA, HOLLYWOOD

Can’t act. Slightly bald. Also dances.

Anonymous, studio official’s comment on Fred Astaire

They used to shoot her through gauze. You should shoot me through linoleum.