A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

Woody Allen 1935– American film director, writer, and actor

An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.

Stephen Fry 1957– English comedian, actor, and writer

The chief end of man is to frame general ideas—and ... no general idea is worth a damn.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 1841–1935 American lawyer

It is better to entertain an idea than to take it home to live with you for the rest of your life.

Randall Jarrell 1914–65 American poet

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

George Orwell 1903–50 English novelist

The English approach to ideas is not to kill them, but to let them die of neglect.

Jeremy Paxman 1950– British journalist and broadcaster

My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a producer.

Cole Porter 1891–1964 American songwriter

Idleness

If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.

Alan Bennett 1934– English dramatist and actor

I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass—which is better than trying to fill them.

E. M. Cioran 1911–95 Romanian-born French philosopher

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.

Jerome K. Jerome 1859–1927 English writer

My son’s taken up meditation—at least it’s better than sitting doing nothing.

Max Kauffman American artist

on being accused of idleness:

I’m burning the midday oil!

Ronald Reagan 1911–2004 American Republican statesman

Ignorance

on being asked why he had defined pastern in his dictionary as the ‘knee’ of a horse:

Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.

Samuel Johnson 1709–84 English poet, critic, and lexicographer

You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

Will Rogers 1879–1935 American actor and humorist

There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

Donald Rumsfeld 1932– American Republican politician and businessman

Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

Insults

see alsoCOMEBACKS

The reason Michael Jackson entitled his album Bad was because he couldn’t spell Indescribable.

Anonymous

Lord Birkenhead is very clever but sometimes his brains go to his head.

Margot Asquith 1864–1945 British political hostess

The t is silent, as in Harlow.

Margot Asquith 1864–1945 British political hostess, to Jean Harlow, who had been mispronouncing her first name

I didn’t know he’d been knighted. I knew he’d been doctored.

Thomas Beecham 1879–1961 English conductor, on rival conductor Malcolm Sargent’s knighthood

If there is anybody here that I have forgotten to insult, I apologize.

Johannes Brahms 1833–97 German composer, leaving a gathering

shouting at his whist partner:

Ye stupid auld bitch—I beg yer pardon, mem. I mistook ye for my wife.

Lord Braxfield 1722–99

The ‘g’ is silent—the only thing about her that is.

Julie Burchill 1960– English journalist and writer, of Camille Paglia

When he said we were trying to make a fool of him I could only murmur that the Creator had beat us to it.

Ilka Chase 1905–78 American actress and writer

She’s been kissed oftener than a police-court Bible and by much the same class of people.

Robertson Davies 1913–95 Canadian novelist

Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it’s because I’m not a bitch. Maybe that why Miss Crawford always plays ladies.

Bette Davis 1908–89 American actress

He is just about the nastiest little man I’ve ever known. He struts sitting down.

Lillian Dykstra American journalist, on American politician Thomas E. Dewey

on hearing that Nancy Mitford was borrowing a friend’s villa ‘to finish her book’:

Oh really? What exactly is she reading?

Edith Evans 1888–1976 English actress

[Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is about] bullfighting, bullslinging, and bull—.

Zelda Fitzgerald 1900–47

There never was a Churchill from John of Marlborough down that had either morals or principles.

W. E. Gladstone 1809–98 British Liberal statesman