A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

From birth to 18 a girl needs good parents. From 18 to 35, she needs good looks. From 35 to 55, good personality. From 55 on, she needs good cash.

Sophie Tucker 1884–1966 Russian-born American vaudeville artist

Youth is when you are allowed to stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Middle age is when you are forced to.

Bill Vaughan 1915–77 American columnist

Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

The Mind

see alsoINTELLIGENCE, MENTAL HEALTH

WOODY ALLEN: My brain? It’s my second favourite organ.

Woody Allen 1935– American film director, writer, and actor and Marshall Brickman 1941–in the film Sleeper

definition of the brain:

An apparatus with which we think that we think.

Ambrose Bierce 1842–c.1914 American writer

Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.

Lord Dewar 1864–1930 British industrialist

Insanity is hereditary. You can get it from your children.

Sam Levenson 1911–80 American humorist

If I knew what I was so anxious about I wouldn’t be anxious.

Mignon McLaughlin 1913–83 American writer

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

Terry Pratchett 1948–2015 English fantasy writer

Not body enough to cover his mind decently with; his intellect is improperly exposed.

Sydney Smith 1771–1845 English clergyman and essayist

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up.

Mark Twain 1835–1910 American writer

A neurosis is a secret you don’t know you’re keeping.

Kenneth Tynan 1927–80 English theatre critic

Right now I’m having amnesia and déja vu at the same time. I think I’ve forgotten this before.

Steven Wright 1955– American comedian

Mistakes and Misfortunes

STRIKER: Surely you can’t be serious.

DR RUMACK: I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.

Jim Abrahams and others screenwriters, in the film Airplane!

waiter delivering champagne to George Best’s hotel room:

Tell me, Mr Best, where did it all go wrong?

Anonymous, £20,000 in cash was scattered on the bed, which also contained Miss World

My only solution for the problem of habitual accidents . . . is to stay in bed all day. Even then, there is always the chance that you will fall out.

Robert Benchley 1889–1945 American humorist

on being told by her son that lesbians are women who sleep together:

MRS HOPKINS: Well, that’s nothing. I slept with your Auntie Phyllis all during the air raids.

Alan Bennett 1934– English dramatist and actor

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.

Ambrose Bierce 1842–c.1914 American writer

I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I’m sure I can repeat them.

Peter Cook 1937–95 English comedian and actor, as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling

If Gladstone fell into the Thames, that would be misfortune; and if anybody pulled him out, that, I suppose, would be a calamity.

Benjamin Disraeli 1804–81 British Tory statesman and novelist

I left the room with silent dignity, but caught my foot in the mat.

George Grossmith 1847–1912 and Weedon Grossmith 1854–1919 English writers

If, of all words of tongue and pen,

The saddest are, ‘It might have been,’

More sad are these we daily see:

‘It is, but hadn’t ought to be!’

Bret Harte 1836–1902 American poet

My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the liar—I went steady with a woodpecker until I was 21.

Bob Hope 1903–2003 American comedian

MICHAEL CAINE: You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!

Troy Kennedy-Martin 1932–2009 British screenwriter, in the film The Italian Job

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

Stanislaw Lec 1909–66 Polish writer

I had never had a piece of toast

Particularly long and wide,

But fell upon the sanded floor,

And always on the buttered side.

James Payn 1830–98 English writer

I actually slipped on a hamburger in Hamburg once, and almost fell off stage.

Keith Richards 1943– English rock musician

a postcard of the Venus de Milo sent to his niece:

See what’ll happen to you if you don’t stop biting your finger-nails.

Will Rogers 1879–1935 American actor and humorist

For Pheasant read Peasant, throughout.