A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

To Americans, English manners are far more frightening than none at all.

Randall Jarrell 1914–65 American poet

‘What are you doing for dinner tonight?’

‘Digesting it.’

George S. Kaufman 1889–1961 American dramatist, replying to a dinner invitation arriving at 8.30 pm

I’ve always had good manners. I always take the cigarette out of my mouth before kissing someone.

Ian Kilminster (known as ‘Lemmy’) 1945–2015 English pop singer

as the pantomime dame Mother Goose:

The bus was so crowded—even the men were standing.

Dan Leno 1860–1904 English entertainer

I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.

E. V. Lucas 1868–1938 English journalist, essayist, and critic

aged four, having had hot coffee spilt over his legs:

Thank you, madam, the agony is abated.

Lord Macaulay 1800–59 English politician and historian

GROUCHO MARX: Do you suppose I could buy back my introduction to you?

S. J. Perelman 1904–79 and others screenwriters, in the film Monkey Business

Everyone knows that the real business of a ball is either to look out for a wife, to look after a wife, or to look after somebody else’s wife.

R. S. Surtees 1805–64 English sporting journalist and novelist

Somerset Maugham excused his leaving early when dining with Lady Tree by saying, ‘I must look after my youth’:

Next time do bring him. We adore those sort of people.

Lady Tree 1863–1937 English actress

Orthodoxy is my doxy; heterodoxy is another man’s doxy.

William Warburton 1698–1779 English theologian and bishop

Manners are especially the need of the plain. The pretty can get away with anything.

Evelyn Waugh 1903–66 English novelist

Duty is what one expects from others, it is not what one does oneself.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

Marriage

see alsoDIVORCE, HUSBANDS, WEDDINGS

WOODY ALLEN: I think people should mate for life. Like pigeons, or Catholics.

Woody Allen 1935– American film director, writer, and actor, in the film Manhattan

A man cannot marry before he has studied anatomy and has dissected at the least one woman.

Honoré de Balzac 1799–1850 French novelist

I’m not going to make the same mistake once.

Warren Beatty 1937– American actor, film director, and screenwriter, on marriage

Love matches are formed by people who pay for a month of honey with a life of vinegar.

Countess of Blessington 1789–1849 Irish novelist

It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four.

Samuel Butler 1835–1902 English novelist

The deep, deep peace of the double-bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue.

Mrs Patrick Campbell 1865–1940 English actress

He has a future and I have a past so we should be all right.

Jennie Churchill 1851–1921 American-born society hostess, on her marriage to Montagu Porch in 1918 (he was forty-one, three years younger than her son Winston)

If you’re married for more than ten minutes, you’re going to have to forgive somebody for something.

Hillary Rodham Clinton 1947– American lawyer and politician

The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772–1834 English poet, critic, and philosopher

asked, on returning from their honeymoon, about the age difference with her husband, 32 years her junior:

If he dies, he dies.

Joan Collins 1933– British actress

Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner.

Charles Caleb Colton 1780–1832 English clergyman and writer

Marriage is a wonderful invention; but, then again, so is a bicycle repair kit.

Billy Connolly 1942– Scottish comedian

One of those looks which only a quarter-century of wedlock can adequately marinate.

Alan Coren 1938–2007 English humorist

I have always thought that every woman should marry, and no man.

Benjamin Disraeli 1804–81 British Tory statesman and novelist

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Benjamin Franklin 1706–90 American politician, inventor, and scientist

I support gay marriage because I believe they have a right to be just as miserable as the rest of us.