Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about comedy

1,001 quotes from 337 people

Most readBy personPage 37 of 67

I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled “Science Fiction” … and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.
Kurt Vonnegut1922–2007“Science Fiction”; originally published in The New York Times Book Review, 5 September 1965
- Clever Jabs
- Writing
A kiss is but a modified bite, and a fond mother, when she rapturously avers that her babe is ‘almost good enough to eat,’ merely shows that she is herself only a trifle too good to eat it.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Cynic’s Word Book (1906), p. 43 (Cannibal)
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
EDEdsger W. Dijkstra1930–2002How do we tell truths that might hurt? (1975)
- Clever Jabs
- Computers
Dawn, n. The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh.
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
- Sleep
There used to be a time when this country’s president could have delivered the same New Year’s Address he had given a year before, and nobody would have noticed.
Fortunately, that time has passed.
Václav Havel1936–2011New Year’s Address to the Nation (1991)
- Clever Jabs
- Presidency
I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician, this surprise surprised me.
Bertrand Russell1872–1970Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), Part III, chapter II, “Solipsism”, p. 196
- Philosophy
Shave a gorilla and it would be almost impossible, at twenty paces, to distinguish him from a heavyweight champion of the world. Skin a chimpanzee, and it would take an autopsy to prove he was not a theologian.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956Baltimore Evening Sun (4 April 1927)
- Clever Jabs
- Theology
I have always said that a conference was held for one reason only, to give everybody a chance to get sore at everybody else. Sometimes it takes two or three conferences to scare up a war, but generally one will do it.
Will Rogers1879–1935Daily Telegram number 2159, Mr. Rogers Has An Idea How Conferences End (5 July 1933)
- War & Peace
A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake; but he is also bound to confess that a fortunate inferiority prevents him personally from making such mistakes.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936Charles Dickens (1906), Ch. 10 “The Great Dickens Characters”
- Animals
I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.
William F. Buckley Jr.1925–20081963 statement, as quoted in Ralph Keyes, The Quote Verifier (2006), p. 82
- Clever Jabs
- Government
If I were the government I would have a special brigade of gendarmes to keep an eye on artists who paint landscapes from nature. Oh, I don’t mean to kill anyone; just a little dose of bird-shot now and then as a warning.
Edgar Degas1834–1917As quoted in Ambroise Vollard, Degas: An Intimate Portrait (1927), p. 56
- Art
I believe I forgot to tell you I was made a Duke.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington1769–1852Postscript to a letter to his brother Henry Wellesley (22 May 1814)
Reality is a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.
Lily Tomlinborn 1939The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985), As “Trudy”
The more you know, the less you are impressed by Foucault.
Camille Pagliaborn 1947Junk Bonds and Corporate Raiders: Academe in the Hour of the Wolf, p. 174
- Clever Jabs
- Philosophy
No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.
Lily Tomlinborn 1939The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985), As Lily