A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

You’re familiar with the tragedies of antiquity, are you? The great homicidal classics?

Tom Stoppard 1937– British dramatist

Like playing Beethoven on the kazoo.

John Sutherland 1938– English writer, on his translation of Shakespeare into text messages

Love

see alsoDATING, SEX

Even logical positivists are capable of love.

A. J. Ayer 1910–89 English philosopher

The test for true love is whether you can endure the thought of cutting your sweetheart’s toe-nails.

W. N. P. Barbellion 1889–1919 English diarist

Make love to every woman you meet. If you get five percent on your outlays it’s a good investment.

Arnold Bennett 1867–1931 English novelist

It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous, that you realize just how much you love them.

Agatha Christie 1890–1976 English writer

Love and a cottage! Eh, Fanny! Ah, give me indifference and a coach and six!

George Colman, the Elder 1732–94 and David Garrick 1717–79 English dramatists

The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.

Benjamin Disraeli 1804–81 British Tory statesman and novelist

What is commonly called love, namely the desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh.

Henry Fielding 1707–54 English novelist and dramatist

Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun.

Matt Groening 1954– American humorist and satirist

When I’m not near the girl I love,

I love the girl I’m near.

E. Y. Harburg 1898–1981 American songwriter

Love’s like the measles—all the worse when it comes late in life.

Douglas Jerrold 1803–57 English dramatist and journalist

Tell me, George, if you had to do it all over would you fall in love with yourself again.

Oscar Levant 1906–72 American pianist, to George Gershwin

Love’s a disease. But curable.

Rose Macaulay 1881–1958 English novelist

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

H. L. Mencken 1880–1956 American journalist and literary critic

If love is the answer, could you rephrase the question?

Lily Tomlin 1939– American comedienne and actress

Love conquers all things—except poverty and toothache.

Mae West 1892–1980 American film actress

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

Management

see alsoBUREAUCRACY

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.

Peter F. Drucker 1909–2005 Austrian-born American management consultant

Meetings are a great trap ... However, they are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.

J. K. Galbraith 1908–2006 Canadian-born American economist

Only the paranoid survive.

Andrew Grove 1936–2016 Hungarian-born American businessman, dictum on which he long ran his company, the Intel Corporation

I was to learn later in life that ... we tend ... to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.

Charlton Ogburn Jr 1911–98 American writer, frequently wrongly attributed to Petronius Arbiter (d. AD 65)

The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take.

C. Northcote Parkinson 1909–93 English writer

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair 1878–1968 American novelist and social reformer

MICHAEL DOUGLAS: Lunch is for wimps.

Stanley Weiser and Oliver Stone 1946– screenwriters, in the film Wall Street

Don’t say yes until I finish talking!

Darryl F. Zanuck 1902–79 American film producer, characteristic instruction

Manners

My grandmother took a bath every year, whether she was dirty or not.

Brendan Behan 1923–64 Irish dramatist

INTERVIEWER: You’ve been accused of vulgarity.

MEL BROOKS: Bullshit!

Mel Brooks 1926– American film director and comic actor

Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say. It saves time.

Lewis Carroll 1832–98 English writer and logician

Vulgarity is the garlic in the salad of charm.

Cyril Connolly 1903–74 English writer

NOTE FROM FELLOW DINNER GUEST: Talk to the woman on your left.

HEATH (PASSING THE NOTE BACK): I have.

Edward Heath 1916–2005 British Conservative statesman