Favourite humorous quotes

Some of these I find hilarious; others amusing, and some provocative. I hope you enjoy some of them, too.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a trip to the bathroom.

There are three kinds of people in this world: the haves, the have-nots, and the have-not-paid-for-what-they-haves.

Douglas Adams
I really wish I had listened to what my mother had told me when I was young.
Why? What did she say?
I don't know. I didn't listen.

Joey Adams
A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions your wife asks for nothing.

Fred Allen
I like long walks — especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

Kingsley Amis
No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home at Weston-super-Mare.

Joe Ancis
The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.

Poul Anderson
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way,
did not become still more complicated.

W. H. Auden
We're here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't know.

Warren Bennis
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

Ambrose Bierce
Sweater, n.: garment worn by child when its mother is feeling chilly.

Daniel J. Boorstin
Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know.

Dik Browne, aka Hagar the Horrible
As you journey through life take a minute every now and then to give a thought for the other fellow. He could be plotting something.

Luis Buel
Solitude is a wonderful thing — so long as you can talk about it with someone afterwards.

Gelett Burgess
When the waitress puts the dinner on the table, the old men look at the dinner. The young men look at the waitress.

George Burns
If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age.

Samuel Butler
The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.

Calvin vs Arminius graffiti
Freewill is a foregone conclusion
God made me an Arminian
Choose Life, Choose Calvinism

Lewis Carroll
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" asked Alice.
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't care much where-" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"- So long as I get somewhere." Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Raymond Chandler
I regard psychiatry as fifty percent bunk, thirty percent fraud, ten percent parrot talk,
and the remaining ten percent just a fancy lingo for the common sense we have had
for hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, if we ever had the guts to read it.

Geoffrey Chaucer
Women desire six things: They want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous, obedient to wife, and lively in bed.

Sir Winston Churchill
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore
DM: Do you feel you've learnt by your mistakes here?
PC: I think I have, yes, and I think I can probably repeat them almost perfectly. I know my mistakes inside out.

Marie Corelli
I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night.

Clarence Darrow
I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't,
because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it.

Diogenes
On being asked by someone how he could become famous, Diogenes responded:
By worrying as little as possible about fame

George Eliot
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of that fact.

Erasmus
When I get a little money I buy books
and if any is left I buy food and clothes.

W. C. Fields
I have spent a lot of time searching through the Bible for loopholes.

Gene Fowler
Writing is easy: all you do is sit staring at the blanksheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

Robert Frost
It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

Stephen Fry
It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue.

Of course too much is bad for you. That's what too much means!

David Gerrold
If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing for money.

Richard Gill
There are three sexes: male, female and Year Nine...

Ginger Meggs graffito
The difference between fiction and reality?
Fiction has to make sense.

Dick Gregory
America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don't misuse a household pet.

Aldo Gucci
The bitterness of poor quality is remembered long after the sweetness of low price has faded from memory.

Jack Handy
To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography and the dancers hit each other.

To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around.
That way, if anybody says, "Hey, can you give me a hand?" You can say, "Sorry, got these sacks."

Maybe in order to understand mankind we have to look at that word itself. MANKIND. Basically, it's made up of two separate words "mank"and "ind." What do these words mean? It's a mystery and that's why so is mankind.

Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room talking to you, which is why I don't like to read good books.

As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.

Hank Hanegraaff
If you find a perfect church, don't join it; you'll ruin it.

Sydney J. Harris
The rich who are unhappy are worse off than the poor who are unhappy;
for the poor, at least, cling to the hopeful delusion that more money would solve their problems -- but the rich know better.

When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask, 'Compared to what?'

Alfred Hitchcock
The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

John Andrew Holmes
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.

Eugene Ionesco
Why do people always expect authors to answer questions? I am an author because I want to ask questions.
If I had answers, I'd be a politician.

Lyndon Baines Johnson
I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy.
First, let her think she's having her own way.
And second, let her have it.

Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his wife.

Samuel Johnson
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Franklin P. Jones
It's a strange world of language in which skating on thin ice can get you into hot water.

Mary Ellen Kelly
Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.

John F. Kennedy
Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those to whom they entrust the minds of their children a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom they entrust the care of their plumbing.

Vernon Law
Experience is a hard teacher, because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.

Stephen Leacock
I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Simon Le Bon
I'm not a snob. Ask anybody. Well, anybody who matters.

Carol Leifer
Whenever I travel I like to keep the seat next to me empty. I found a great way to do it. When someone walks down the aisle and says to you, "Is someone sitting there?" just say, "No one - except the Lord."

John Lennon (1940-80)
Nothing happened in the sixties except that we all dressed up.

Martin Luther
I have undertaken to translate the Bible into German. This was good for me; otherwise I might have died in the mistaken notion that I was a learned fellow.

Robert McCloskey
I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said,
but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.

Margaret Maron
Every time we start thinking we're the center of the universe, the universe turns around and says with a slightly distracted air, "I'm sorry. What'd you say your name was again?"

Groucho Marx
Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

He may look like an idiot, and he may sound like an idiot, but don't let him fool you. He really is an idiot.

Francois Mauriac
"Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are" is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread.

James Ball Naylor
King David and King Solomon
Led merry, merry lives,
With many, many lady friends
And many, many wives;
But when old age crept over them,
With many, many qualms,
King Solomon wrote the Proverbs
And King David wrote the Psalms.

George S. Patton
The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

Mary Pettibone Poole
The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.

Ronald Reagan
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book

Malcolm Rogers
The science of Psychiatry is now where the science of Medicine was before germs were discovered

Will Rogers
The more you observe politics, the more you've got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

Andy Rooney
I've learned..... that a smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks!

Dorothy L. Sayers
I always have a quotation for everything -- it saves original thinking.

Francis Schaeffer
In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.

Erik Satie
When I was young, I was told: "You'll see, when you're fifty."
I'm fifty and I haven't seen a thing.

Charles M. Schultz
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.

George Bernard Shaw
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity.

Robert Silensky
We have all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of William Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know that this is not true.

Ringo Starr
Of course I'm ambitious. What's wrong with that? Otherwise you sleep all day.

John Stoltenberg
Pornography tells lies about women. But pornography tells the truth about men.

Barbra Streisand
Why does a woman work ten years to change a man's habits and then complain that he's not the man she married?

Bob Talbert
Good teachers are costly, but bad teachers cost more.

Lily Tomlin
Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.

Mark Twain
Be careful of reading health books, you might die of a misprint.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not. But I am getting old and soon I shall remember only the latter.

Voltaire
The art of medicine is for the doctor to amuse the patient while nature heals the disease.

Auberon Waugh
Anyone wishing to communicate with Americans should do so by e-mail, which has been specially invented for the purpose, involving neither physical proximity nor speech.

Mae West
Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.

Oscar Wilde
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

I am not young enough to know everything.

To get back my youth, I would do anything in the world, except take excercise, get up early, or be respectable.

The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.

Nothing is so dangerous as being too modern; one is apt to grow old-fashioned quite suddenly.

John Wilmot
Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children; now, I have six children and no theories.

Ludwig Wittgenstein
When I came home I expected a surprise and there was no surprise for me, so, of course, I was surprised.

Richard Yates
They say that we are better educated than our parents' generation. What they mean is that we go to school longer. It is not the same thing.