A Little Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations

They were really tough—they used to tie their tomatoes on the end of a yo-yo, so they could hit you twice.

Bob Hope 1903–2003 American comedian

There was laughter in the back of the theatre, leading to the belief that someone was telling jokes back there.

George S. Kaufman 1889–1961 American dramatist

I know two kinds of audiences only—one coughing, and one not coughing.

Artur Schnabel 1882–1951 Austrian-born pianist

The play was a great success, but the audience was a total failure.

Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet

Australia

Australia is a huge rest home, where no unwelcome news is ever wafted on to the pages of the worst newspapers in the world.

Germaine Greer 1939– Australian feminist

When New Zealanders emigrate to Australia, it raises the average IQ of both countries.

Robert Muldoon 1921–92 New Zealand statesman

In Australia,

Inter alia,

Mediocrities

Think they’re Socrates.

Peter Porter 1929– Australian poet

By God what a site! By man what a mess!

Clough Williams-Ellis 1883–1978 British architect, of Sydney

Autobiography

see alsoBIOGRAPHY

An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last instalment missing.

Quentin Crisp 1908–99 English writer

Autobiography—that unrivalled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.

Philip Guedalla 1889–1944 British historian and biographer

Next to the writer of real estate advertisements, the autobiographer is the most suspect of prose artists.

Donal Henahan 1921–2012 American music critic

reviewing James D. Watson The Double Helix:

Like all good memoirs it has not been emasculated by considerations of good taste.

Peter Medawar 1915–87 English immunologist and writer

Every autobiography ... becomes an absorbing work of fiction, with something of the charm of a cryptogram.

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

To write one’s memoirs is to speak ill of everybody except oneself.

Henri Philippe Pétain 1856–1951 French soldier and statesman

Of all forms of fiction autobiography is the most gratuitous.

Tom Stoppard 1937– British dramatist

Only when one has lost all curiosity about the future has one reached the age to write an autobiography.

Evelyn Waugh 1903–66 English novelist

I shall not say why and how I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven.

Harriette Wilson 1789–1846 English courtesan, opening words of her Memoirs

Awards and Honours

You should always accept because of the pain it brings to your enemies.

Maurice Bowra 1898–1971 English scholar and literary critic

My career must be slipping. This is the first time I’ve been available to pick up an award.

Michael Caine 1933– English film actor

Oscar night at my house is called Passover.

Bob Hope 1903–2003 American comedian

on the Order of the Garter:

A very useful institution. It fosters a wholesome taste for bright colours, and gives old men who have good legs an excuse for showing them.

Lord Salisbury 1830–1903 British Conservative statesman

congratulated on being awarded a baronetcy:

Thanks—but more importantly than that, I have just been elected a member of Sunningdale Golf Club.

Denis Thatcher 1915–2003 English businessman

I had another convulsion of pleasure when Yale made me a Doctor of Literature, because I was not competent to doctor anybody’s literature but my own.

Mark Twain 1835–1910 American writer

Medals, they’re like haemorrhoids. Sooner or later every asshole gets one.

Billy Wilder 1906–2002 American screenwriter and director

Baseball

see alsoSPORTS

Think! How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?

Yogi Berra 1925–2015 American baseball player

If people don’t want to come out to the ball park, nobody’s going to stop ’em.

Yogi Berra 1925–2015 American baseball player

Baseball is very big with my people. It figures. It’s the only way we can get to shake a bat at a white man without starting a riot.

Dick Gregory 1932–2017 American comedian and civil rights activist

Don’t look back. Something may be gaining on you.

Leroy (‘Satchel’) Paige 1906–82 American baseball player, a baseball pitcher’s advice

I don’t think I can be expected to take seriously any game which takes less than three days to reach its conclusion.

Tom Stoppard 1937– British dramatist, a cricket enthusiast on baseball

Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona. Not all holes, or games, are created equal.