A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

I’ve a definite sense of spirituality. I want Brooklyn to be christened, but don’t know into what religion yet.

David Beckham 1975– English footballer

FOSTER: I’m still a bit hazy about the Trinity, sir.

SCHOOLMASTER: Three in one, one in three, perfectly straightforward. Any doubts about that see your maths master.

Alan Bennett 1934– English dramatist and actor

The Vatican is against surrogate mothers. Good thing they didn’t have that rule when Jesus was born.

Elayne Boosler 1952– American comedian

If Jesus had been killed 20 years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.

Lenny Bruce 1925–66 American comedian

An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.

John Buchan 1875–1940 Scottish novelist

Thanks to God, I am still an atheist.

Luis Buñuel 1900–83 Spanish film director

The one excuse for being pagan is to enjoy it thoroughly.

Roy Campbell 1901–57 South African poet

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

George Carlin 1937–2008 American comedian

Blessed are the cheesemakers.

Graham Chapman 1941–89, John Cleese 1939– , and others British comedians, a misheard beatitude, in the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

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

Said Waldershare, ‘Sensible men are all of the same religion.’ ‘And pray what is that?’ ... ‘Sensible men never tell.’

Benjamin Disraeli 1804–81 British Tory statesman and novelist

  What after all

Is a halo? It’s only one more thing to keep clean.

Christopher Fry 1907–2005 English dramatist

I find it hard to understand why one should look for sermons in stones when the inability to preach is so attractive a feature of stones.

Northrop Frye 1912–91 Canadian literary critic

The three kinds of services you generally find in the Episcopal churches. I call them either low-and-lazy, broad-and-hazy, or high-and-crazy.

Willa Gibbs Canadian writer

imagining how a Church of England Inquisition might have worked

‘Cake or death?’ ‘Cake, please.’

Eddie Izzard 1962– British comedian

VISITOR: How many people work in the Vatican?

POPE JOHN: About half of them.

Pope John XXIII 1881–1963 Italian cleric

FATHER TED: It’s nice to have a nun around. Gives the place a bit of glamour.

Graham Linehan 1968– and Arthur Mathews 1959– screenwriters

You can’t run the Church on Hail Marys.

Paul Marcinkus 1922–2006 American Roman Catholic archbishop, view of a Vatican banker

on hearing an evangelical sermon:

Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life.

Lord Melbourne 1779–1848 British Whig statesman

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

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

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry.

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

I celebrate everyone’s religious holidays. If it’s good enough for the righteous, it’s good enough for the self-righteous I always say.

Bette Midler 1945– American actress

You are not an agnostic ... You are just a fat slob who is too lazy to go to Mass.

Conor Cruise O’Brien 1917–2008 Irish politician, writer, and journalist

There’s no reason to bring religion into it. I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible.

Sean O’Casey 1880–1964 Irish dramatist

No praying, it spoils business.

Thomas Otway 1652–85 English dramatist

on long sermons:

The mind cannot absorb what the backside cannot endure.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh 1921– British prince

I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.

Ronald Reagan 1911–2004 American Republican statesman

The Chinese said they would ... build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.

Bertrand Russell 1872–1970 British philosopher and mathematician

People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die.

Saki 1870–1916 Scottish writer

You can’t expect the fatted calf to share the enthusiasm of the angels over the prodigal’s return.

Saki 1870–1916 Scottish writer