The Book of Great Funny One-Liners (2 page)

Of all my wife’s relations I like myself the best.

Joe Cook, American actor

Brigands demand your money or your life—women require both.

Samuel Butler, British writer

A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.

British writer Samuel Johnson, as quoted by his biographer, James Boswell

The secret of a successful marriage is not to be at home too much.

Colin Chapman, British designer

In my house I’m the boss. My wife is just the decision maker.

American film maker, comic and writer Woody Allen

In India a farmhand was caught in the act with his cow. He said he had bad eyesight and thought it was his wife.

Spike Milligan, British actor and comedian

They kept mistresses of such dowdiness they might almost have been mistaken for wives.

Roberston Davies, American writer

An appropriate age for marriage is 18 for girls and 37 for men.

Aristotle, ancient Greek philosopher

If thee marries for money, thee surely will earn it.

Ezra Bowen, American editor

Housework is what a woman does that nobody notices until she hasn’t done it.

Evan Esar, American humorist

There is little wife-swapping in suburbia. It is unnecessary, the females all being so similar.

Richard Gordon, British broadcaster

Have I ever paid for sex? Only emotionally.

Lee Hurst, British comedian

Don’t knock masturbation. It’s sex with someone you love.

Woody Allen, American film maker, comic and writer

When authorities warn you of the dangers of sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities.

Matt Groening, American cartoonist and creator of
The Simpsons

You’re getting old if you discuss the facts of life with your children and you get slapped by your wife when you attempt to try out some of the things they told you.

Russell Bell, American actor

To please my wife, I decided to get in touch with my feminine side. Now I’ve got a yeast infection.

Bob Delaney, American basketball referee

Everyone should be married. A bachelor’s life is no life for a single man.

Samuel Goldwyn, American film studio director

The three words you don’t want to hear while making love are ‘Honey, I’m home’.

Ken Hammond, Canadian hockey player

I’m glad I’m not bisexual. I couldn’t stand being rejected by men as well as women.

Bernard Manning, British comedian

‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.

Samuel Butler, British writer

Remember men, we’re fighting for this woman’s honour, which is more than she ever did.

Groucho Marx, American actor and comedian

You’re getting old when the girl you smile at thinks you’re one of her father’s friends.

Arthur Murray, American dance impresario

Sex is one of the most wholesome, beautiful things money can buy.

Steve Martin, American comedian

I will not allow my daughters to learn foreign languages because one tongue is sufficient for a woman.

John Milton, British poet

The best way to remember your wife’s birthday is to forget it once.

Joseph Cossman, American entrepreneur

I wouldn’t be caught dead marrying a woman old enough to be my wife.

Tony Curtis, American actor

My wife’s hands are so beautiful I’m going to have a bust made of them.

Samuel Goldwyn, American film studio director

Women are called the opposite sex because when you want to do anything they want to do the opposite.

Corey Ford, American humorist

I asked her if she was doing anything on Saturday night and she told me she was committing suicide. So I asked her if she was doing anything on Friday night.

Woody Allen, American film maker, comic and writer

Under 21 women are protected by law; over 65 they’re protected by nature; anything in between is fair game.

Cary Grant, American actor

Women run everything. The only thing I have decided in my house over the last twenty years is to recognise Angola as an independent state.

Brian Clough, British footballer

It’s hard to lose a mother-in-law. In fact, it’s almost impossible.

W.C. Fields, American actor

The Grand Canyon—what a marvellous place to drop one’s mother-in-law.

Ferdinand Foch, French soldier

I’m not a breast man. I’m a breast person.

John Wilson, British writer

We have a saying in Russia, ‘Women are like buses.’ That’s it.

Yakov Smirnoff, Ukranian-American comedian

When I eventually met Mr Right, I had no idea his first name was ‘Always’.

Rita Rudner, American comedian

Men carry their brains lower than women do, so when they’re scratching their crotches they’re not being gross—they’re just thinking.

Diana Jordan, American comedian

Men should be like Kleenex—soft, strong and disposable.

Cher, American singer and actor

The only reason I would take up jogging is so I could hear heavy breathing again.

Erma Bombeck, American humorist

My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion; a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved.

Colette, French author

Men aren’t attracted to me by my mind. They are attracted to me by what I don’t mind.

Gypsy Rose Lee, American stripper

Every woman needs at least three men: one for sex, one for money and one for fun.

Bess Myerson, first Jewish woman to win the Miss America Pageant (1945)

A sexagenarian! At his age! I think that’s disgusting.

Gracie Allen, American comedian

There is so little difference between husbands that you might as well keep the first.

Adela Rogers Saint-Johns, American writer

Give a man a free hand and he’ll run it all over you.

Mae West, American actor

Men have simple needs. They can survive the whole weekend with only three things—beer, boxer shorts and batteries for the remote control.

Diana Jordan, American comedian

My mother-in-law is so fat, she has her own ZIP code.

Phyllis Diller, American comedian

I love men, not because they are men, but because they are not women.

Queen Christina of Sweden

Beware of the man who picks your dresses; he wants to wear them.

Erica Jong, American author

She would be a nymphomaniac if they could only calm her down a little.

Judy Garland, American singer and actor

Never marry a man with a big head, because you’re going to give birth to that man’s child and you want a baby with a narrow head.

Jilly Goolden, British media personality

Sleeping with Aldous Huxley was like being crawled over by slugs.

Nancy Cunard, American socialite

When a man makes a woman his wife, it’s the highest compliment he can pay her, and it’s usually the last.

Helen Rowland, American journalist

Whatever else can be said about sex, it cannot be called a dignified performance.

Helen Lawrenson, American journalist

I don’t want to adopt. Not with my genes. I have award-winning genes.

Woody Allen, American film maker, comic and writer

When you are eight years old, nothing is any of your business.

Lenny Bruce, American comedian

Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of memory.

Will Durant, American historian

Madam, there’s no such thing as a tough child—if you boil them first for a few hours, they always come out tender.

W.C. Fields, American actor

As a housewife, I feel that if the kids are still alive when my husband comes home from work, then hey, I’ve done my job.

Roseanne Barr, American comedian

Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids.

Erma Bombeck, American humorist

Don’t bother discussing sex with small children. They rarely have anything to add.

Fran Leibowitz, American wit

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is.

Erma Bombeck, American humorist

Try flying in a plane with a baby if you want a sense of what it must have been like to be a leper in the fourteenth century.

Nora Ephron, American film director

The worst eternal triangle known is: teenager, parent and telephone.

Lavonne Mathison, American writer

My schooldays were the happiest days of my life—which gives you some idea of the misery I’ve endured over the past twenty-five years.

Paul Merton, British actor

We had bad luck with our kids—they all grew up.

Christopher Morley, American editor and author

Never underestimate a child’s ability to get into more trouble.

Martin Mull, American actor

I decided to have a vasectomy after a family vote on the matter. The kids voted for it eleven to three.

Brendan O’Carroll, Irish comedian

In general, my children refused to eat anything that hadn’t danced on TV.

Erma Bombeck, American humorist

Even young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.

P.J. O’Rourke, American writer

Don’t have sex, man. It leads to kissing and pretty soon you have to talk to them.

Steve Martin, American comedian

God invented vegetables to let women get even with their children.

P.J. O’Rourke, American writer

Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other.

Lawrence J. Peter, American writer famous for The Peter Principle, the management ‘law’ that states that everyone is promoted up to the point where they reach their level of incompetence.

I never want to become pregnant, ever. To me life is hard enough without having someone kick you from the inside.

Rita Rudner, American comedian

No matter how old a mother is, she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.

Florida Scott-Maxwell, American journalist

One of my school reports read as follows—’This boy shows great originality, which must be crushed at all costs’.

Peter Ustinov, British comedian and actor

My teenage son is half-man, half-mattress.

Val Valentine, British screenwriter

The main purpose of children’s parties is to remind you that there are children worse than your own.

Katherine Whitehorn, British journalist

Parents are not interested in justice; they are interested in peace and quiet.

Bill Cosby, American comedian

Babies don’t need a vacation but I still see them at the beach. I’ll go over to a little baby and say, ‘What are you doing here? You’ve never worked a day in your life.’

Steven Wright, American comedian

To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright and wit

My unhealthy affection for my second daughter has waned. I now despise all of my seven children equally.

Evelyn Waugh, British novelist

I can never understand why, when I was born, I was the one who ended up with the stretch marks.

Linda Agran, American producer

She wore a low but futile décolletage.

Dorothy Parker, American writer and poet

My photographs don’t do me justice—they look just like me.

Phyllis Diller, American comedian

Women should try to increase their size rather than to decrease it, because I believe the bigger we are, the more space we’ll take up, and the more we’ll have to be reckoned with.

Roseanne Barr, American comedian

When I go to the beauty parlour, I always use the emergency entrance. Sometimes I just go for an estimate.

Phyllis Diller, American comedian

Of course William Morris was a wonderful artist and an all-round man, but the art of walking round him always made me tired.

Max Beerbohm, British caricaturist

Seize the moment. Think of all those women on the
Titanic
who waved off the dessert cart.

Erma Bombeck, American humorist

He’s so fat, he can be his own running mate.

Johnny Carson, American television presenter

You couldn’t tell if she was dressed for an opera or an operation.

Irvin S. Cobb, American writer

If her dress had pockets my wife would look like a pool table.

Rodney Dangerfield, American comedian

I’m so fat that when I get my shoes cleaned, I have to take the shoeshine’s word for it.