A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

Tammy Wynette 1942–98 American singer

Q: Who does George Michael sleep with?

A: Nobody. You can’t get two on a sunbed.

Paula Yates 1959–2000 British television presenter

Peoples

seeCOUNTRIESand Peoples

Personalities

seePEOPLEand Personalities

Pessimism

seeOPTIMISMand Pessimism

Philosophy

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

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

Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.

George Carlin 1937–2008 American comedian

I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don’t know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.

Oliver Edwards 1711–91 English lawyer

He thinks nothing empirical is Knowable—I asked him to admit that there was not a rhinoceros in the room, but he wouldn’t.

Bertrand Russell 1872–1970 British philosopher and mathematician, of Wittgenstein

I have a new philosophy; I’m only going to dread one day at a time.

Charles Monroe Schulz 1922–2000 American cartoonist

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

Alfred North Whitehead 1861–1947 English philosopher and mathematician

What is your aim in philosophy?—To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.

Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889–1951 Austrian-born philosopher

You would not like Nietzsche, sir. He is fundamentally unsound.

P. G. Wodehouse 1881–1975 English-born writer, Jeeves to Bertie Wooster

Poetry

see alsoLITERATURE, POETS

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

G. K. Chesterton 1874–1936 English essayist, novelist, and poet

on the haiku:

To convey one’s mood in seventeen syllables is very diffic.

John Cooper Clarke 1949– English poet

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.

T. S. Eliot 1888–1965 American-born British poet, critic, and dramatist

I’d as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.

Robert Frost 1874–1963 American poet

The notion of expressing sentiments in short lines having similar sounds at their ends seems as remote as mangoes on the moon.

Philip Larkin 1922–85 English poet

Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

Don Marquis 1878–1937 American poet and journalist

My favourite poem is the one that starts ‘Thirty days hath September’ because it actually tells you something.

Groucho Marx 1890–1977 American film comedian

All that is not prose is verse; and all that is not verse is prose.

Molière 1622–73 French comic dramatist

to Rousseau, of his ‘Ode to Posterity’:

It will never reach its address.

Voltaire 1694–1778 French writer and philosopher

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

Poets

see alsoPOETRY

Even the greatest poets need something to cling to. Keats had Beauty; Milton had God. T. S. Eliot’s standby was Worry.

John Carey 1934– British literary scholar

A poet who reads his work in public may have other nasty habits.

Robert Heinlein 1907–88 American science fiction writer

Dr Donne’s verses are like the peace of God; they pass all understanding.

James I 1566–1625 British king

on the relative merits of two minor poets:

Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.

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

We had the old crow over at Hull recently, looking like a Christmas present from Easter Island.

Philip Larkin 1922–85 English poet, of Ted Hughes

on being asked by Stephen Spender how a poet could serve the Communist cause in Spain:

Go and get killed, comrade, we need a Byron in the movement.

Harry Pollitt 1890–1960 British Communist politician

ACQUAINTANCE: How are you?

YEATS: Not very well. I can only write prose today.

W. B. Yeats 1865–1939 Irish poet

Political Parties

Vote Labour and you build castles in the air. Vote Conservative and you can live in them.

David Frost 1939–2013 English broadcaster

I never dared be radical when young

For fear it would make me conservative when old.

Robert Frost 1874–1963 American poet