Quotes About Wit

A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.

Money, money, all is money! Could you write even a penny novelette without money to put heart into you? Invention, energy, wit, style, charm--they've all got to be paid for in hard cash.

When a novel lacks the indefinable, unmistakable thing we call beauty, one looks in it for sound delineation of character, or humour of situation, or verbal wit.

I loved Monty Python for the wordplay--this sense that you didn't have to squash your intelligence to be funny. In fact, you could walk right into your intelligence and nerdiness and self-doubt, and that could be funny.

Talking to you is like -- like talking to an eel! No, is it? I've never tried to talk to an eel. Isn't it as waste of time? Not such a waste of time as talking to you!

I find it a marvellous circumstance, cousin, that no one has yet strangled you!

Oh, Randall, don't be such a vile beast! I don't think much of that,he said critically. Amiable snake was much better.

Well, it is very odd of you to threaten to throw your friends out of the window, I must say, remarked Juliana. He smiled. Not at all. It is only my friends that I would throw out of the window. Dear me! said Juliana, finding the male sex incomprehensible.

That's what you think of me, is it, girl? said his lordship, a glint in his eyes. Oh, no! she responded, dropping him a curtsy. It's what I say , sir! You must know that my featherheaded Mama has taught me to behave with all the propriety in the world! To tell you what I think of you would be to sink myself quite below reproach!

She wasn't as foolish as her sister, but she had more hair than wit

Mr Warboys, without putting himself to the trouble of deciding which of the more ferocious animals his friend resembled, stated the matter in simple, and courageously frank terms. You know, old fellow, he once told Martin,if you had a tail, damme if you wouldn't lash it!

I shall take leave to tell you, Carleton, that I find your – your wit offensive!' 'By all means!' replied Mr Carleton. 'You have my leave to tell me anything you choose! How unjust it would be in me to refuse to grant you leave to do so when it has never occurred to me that I should ask your permission to say that I find you a dead bore, which I've been doing for years.

Well, I've never written a line of poetry in my life: it is not my way! But if I *did* write about you I shouldn't call you a paltry daffodil! I should liken you to a rose--one of those yellow ones, with a deep golden heart, and a sweet scent! said Sir Bonamy, warming to the theme. Nonsense! she said briskly. You would be very much more likely to call me a plum partridge, or a Spanish fritter!

Well, have you a tongue in your head?' 'I have,' responded Hugo, 'but I was never one to give my head for washing.' 'You're not such a fool as you look,' commented his lordship.

Well, I've never written a line of poetry in my life: it is not my way! But if I *did* write about you I shouldn't call you a paltry daffodil! I should liken you to a rose--one of those yellow ones, with a deep golden heart, and a sweet scent! said Sir Bonamy, warming to the theme. Nonsense! she said briskly. You would be very much more likely to call me a plump partridge, or a Spanish fritter!

Sadness is the matrix from which wit and irony spring; sadness is uncomfortable and creative, which is why consumer society cannot tolerate it.

She liked hats, she had the true french feeling about a hat, if a hat did not provoke some witticism from a man on the street the hat was not a success.

He could send a glass eye to sleep.

It's easy being a humorist when you've got the whole government working for you.

Instead of working for the survival of the fittest, we should be working for the survival of the wittiest - then we can all die laughing.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.

Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.

I remember the first time I had sex - I kept the receipt.

I try not to rely on pop culture references as a crutch for jokes, because then, I think, that's when the timelessness quality is lost.