A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

Anthony Powell 1905–2000 English novelist

on the latest generation of stairlifts:

They go so fast you can still remember why you went upstairs.

June Whitfield 1925– English actor

One should never make one’s début with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an interest to one’s old age.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

Opera

I do not mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don’t understand.

Edward Appleton 1892–1965 English physicist

The opera ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.

Dan Cook 1926–2008 American journalist

People are wrong when they say that the opera isn’t what it used to be. It is what it used to be—that’s what’s wrong with it.

Noël Coward 1899–1973 English dramatist, actor, and composer

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings.

Ed Gardner 1901–63 American radio comedian

Parsifal is the kind of opera that starts at six o’clock. After it has been going three hours, you look at your watch and it says 6.20.

David Randolph 1914–2010 American conductor

It is a music one must hear several times. I am not going again.

Gioacchino Rossini 1792–1868 Italian composer, of Tannhäuser

The first act of the three occupied two hours. I enjoyed that in spite of the singing.

Mark Twain 1835–1910 American writer

Optimism and Pessimism

see alsoHOPE

A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is a man who hopes that they are.

Chauncey Depew 1834–1928 American businessman and politician

I guess I just prefer to see the dark side of things. The glass is always half empty. And cracked. And I just cut my lip on it. And chipped a tooth.

Janeane Garofalo 1964– American comedian

The people who live in a Golden Age usually go around complaining how yellow everything looks.

Randall Jarrell 1914–65 American poet

My friends, as I have discovered myself, there are no disasters, only opportunities. And, indeed, opportunities for fresh disasters.

Boris Johnson 1964– British Conservative politician

An optimist is a girl who mistakes a bulge for a curve.

Ring Lardner 1885–1933 American writer

Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?

L. M. Montgomery 1874–1942 Canadian novelist

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.

George F. Will 1941– American columnist

The Paranormal

on spiritualism:

I always knew the living talked rot, but it’s nothing to the rot the dead talk.

Margot Asquith 1864–1945 British political hostess

I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re sceptical.

Arthur C. Clarke 1917–2008 English science fiction writer

supposed opening words of a letter of dismissal to the Sun’s astrologer:

As you will no doubt have foreseen ...

Kelvin Mackenzie 1946– British journalist

The only contact I ever made with the dead was when I spoke to a journalist from the Sun.

Morrissey 1959– English singer and songwriter

Apart from the known and the unknown, what else is there?

Harold Pinter 1930–2008 English dramatist

Mr Geller may have psychic powers by means of which he can bend spoons; if so, he appears to be doing it the hard way.

James Randi 1928– Canadian-born American conjuror

Parents

see alsoCHILDREN, FAMILY, MOTHERS

Maternity is a matter of fact. Paternity is a matter of opinion.

Walter Bagehot 1826–77 English economist

I’m still working. I need the money. Money, I’ve discovered, is the one thing keeping me in touch with my children.

Gyles Brandreth 1948– English writer and broadcaster

If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.

Bette Davis 1908–89 American actress

Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.

Phyllis Diller 1917–2012 American actress

[A successful parent is one] who raises a child who grows up and is able to pay for his or her own psychoanalysis.

Nora Ephron 1941–2012 American screenwriter and director

To be a successful father ... there’s one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don’t look at it for the first two years.

Ernest Hemingway 1899–1961 American novelist

sMom and Pop were just a couple of kids when they got married. He was eighteen, she was sixteen, and I was three.

Billie Holiday 1915–59 American singer

Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.