Humorists From The United States

"The decision to drop the atomic bomb - that wasn't Truman, but sweepstakes winner Penny Holkum of Palm Beach. And for that she received a case of Lucky Strikes and a lifetime supply of sadness."

"You can't fight a war on terror if you're ending a sentence with a preposition."

"The silhouette was named for Etienne de Silhouette, the notoriously stingy finance minister for Louis XV, who ironically was himself incapable of casting a shadow, due to lycanthropy."

"There had been hoboes in the United States since there had been trains and liquor, which is to say, always."

"Truth may be stranger than fiction, goes the old saw, but it is never as strange as lies. (Or, for that matter, as true.)"

"Generally speaking, I think it is fair to say that I am a friend to the creatures of the Earth when I am not busy eating them or wearing them."

"This pie chart represents the $70 billion in tax cuts, and the majority of that will go to people making over $200,000 a year. Or, as the government refers to them, "citizens.""

"Look at Dick Cheney. Financially he's obscenely wealthy, but he's clearly unhappy. I wouldn't be surprised if he's visited by no less than three ghosts a night."

"(on soccer) Americans don't need a metaphor for war. We have war."

"If you make the smokestacks out of children, who will you force to clean them?"

"Closer to showtime, the jovial crowd now arrives in droves. Laughing. Smiling. Until they hear the melodic sounds of “This Land Is Fagland,” being sung by small children. With the most vigor, even the tiniest join in, big smiles, swaying their heads like it were the Barney the Dinosaur song. The chubby, red-haired girl actually jumps while singing—she's that happy."

"Looking at the time, I can't believe the irony. Expecting a huge reaction, I announce, “Hey everyone, it's 4:20!” No one cares. No one looks up. On a pot farm, it's always 4:20."

"I'm stunned. Is this a trick to steal my shoes? Thirty-year carnie vet Wayne-o is offering me, me, a corn dog. I think I've officially been accepted as a fellow carny! We all want acceptance, and maybe that's the allure of the carny life—no matter how big of a freak you are in the outside world, if you work hard enough, you can be accepted as a carny."

"Hell is other people's babies. That's the lesson I learned when I ventured to the Eighth Annual America's Most Beautiful Baby Contest in Phoenix, Arizona. Outside, it's hot enough to fry baby food. But inside the bliss of a beautiful air-conditioned shopping mall, one baby will be judged far more beautiful than all the others, and displayed on stage like a little trained monkey. The grand prize awarded to the winning baby: a brand new car!"

"Adjusting my thick glasses and dropping my half-Chinese Austin Powers accent, I futilely try to defend myself (noting there's nothing worse in the world than being screamed at by a bunch of female celebrity impersonators)."

"Listen! John A. Logan is the Head Center, the Hub, the King Pin, the Main Spring, Mogul and Mugwump of the final plot by which partisanship was installed in the Commission."

"Nothing to do but work, Nothing to eat but food, Nothing to wear but clothes To keep one from going nude."

"Nothing to breathe but air Quick as a flash 'tis gone; Nowhere to fall but off, Nowhere to stand but on."

"Nowhere to go but out, Nowhere to come but back."

"If I should die to-night And you should come in deepest grief and woe— And say:—"Here's that ten dollars that I owe," I might arise in my large white cravat And say, "What's that?""

"Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing."

"Statistician: A man who believes figures don't lie, but admits that under analysis some of them won't stand up either."

"The history of humorous writing discloses everchanging trends. Our fast-paced modern living is too impatient for the lengthy light verse and the leisurely essays of our forefathers."

"Many a man who falls in love with a dimple make the mistake of marrying the whole girl."

"An epigram is the marriage of wit, and wisdom; a wisecrack, their divorce."

"Orwell's defenders always look to contextualize Orwell's shortcomings in a historic moment. Whatever his infraction, he was a victim of circumstance—times were different then, and, for example, Hitler was looking really good for a minute there. Orwell never meant that his books should be employed to stultify schoolchildren. And yet that's what "Animal Farm" is—an educational missile aimed at any healthy impulse towards reform. The argument that "Animal Farm" is a generalized indictment of totalitarianism is simply unsupportable by the text or any existing presentation of the text. Rather, the intelligence of the pigs as opposed to the stupidity of the other animals, and the ultimate hopelessness of revolution, renders "Animal Farm" a de facto endorsement of the status quo."

"An alert copyreader on a newspaper couldn’t believe it when he read a reporter’s account of the theft of 2025 pigs. That’s a lot of pigs, he thought, and called the farmer to check the copy. “Is it true that you lost 2025 pigs?” he asked. “Yeth,” lisped the farmer. “Thanks,” returned the copyreader, and corrected the story to read “two sows and 25 pigs.”"

"The personal comparative is marked by epigrammatic self-satire. It implies that everyone thinks himself better than anyone else, but only the egoist says so."

"It is the uncensored sense of humor of a people which is the ultimate therapy for man in society."

"When Marilyn Monroe, the American Venus, visited England, one London correspondent wrote that she looked like a million dollars. Fortunately, he did not write that she looked like a million pounds."

"Where there is insight in citation, or wisdom winged with wit, especially from the world of letters, I have quoted liberally. For a good epigram not only makes a point, but a point to ponder. This book provides many such quotations that I have unearthed from the tomes of many writers."

"Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings."

"Maybe my desire to find meaning in all of this was just a remnant of my obsessive-compulsive behavior, and yet it felt as though a map was being drawn for me, but every landmark was a riddle that needed solving before I could unearth my own lost treasure: myself."

"Jews can't eat pork - surely anal delights are way higher up on the list of taboos."

"Tension among a bunch of neurotics is just more interesting for a story than is a description of dedicated professionals doing their work and getting along, which is the case in reality. When in doubt, assume I made it up."

"Heinous fuckery most foul!"

"Fuckstockings!"

"Regardless of its purpose, the humpback-whale song is the most complex piece of nonhuman composition on earth. Whether it's art, prayer, or booty call, the humpback song is an amazing thing to experience firsthand, and I suspect that even once the science of it is put to bed, it will remain, as long as they sing, magic."

"Gentle spook, if it is a warning you bring, state it true. If action you require, ask outright. If music you must make, play on- but by the wine-stained balls of Bacchus, speak your bloody business quick and clear and then be gone, before Time's iron tongue licks away my mercy bonk with second thoughts!"

"Said I, in perfect fucking French."

"Great heroes have Great horniness."

"You should feel what it is like to pleasure a falcon. You lock talons with her in the sky and do it while you both are falling like meteors. You would like it; they never complain if you come too fast."

"If you have come to these pages for laughter, may you find it. If you are here to be offended, may your ire rise and your blood boil. If you seek an adventure, may this song sing you away to blissful escape. If you need to test or confirm your beliefs, may you reach comfortable conclusions. All books reveal perfection, by what they are or what they are not. May you find that which you seek, in these pages or outside them. May you find perfection, and know it by name."

"And once I shagged Regan on a platter of pork in front of Muslims."

"You think you know how this story is going to end, but you don't. Trust me, I was there. I know."

"She's a bloody vision of loveliness."

"Regan: Smell him. He reeks of sex, like fish and mushroom and sweat, doesn't he? Pocket: Aye, your honor, I'm sure I have an odor about me. I must confess, I was sans trou today in the kitchen, while awaiting my laundry. Bubble had left a casserole out on the floor to cool, and it did trip me and I fell prick-deep in gravy and goo- but I was on my way to chapel at the time. King Lear: [To Pocket] You put your dick in my lunch? King Lear: [to the bailiff] The fool put his dick in my lunch? Regan: No, in your beloved daughter. King Lear: Quiet, girl! Captain Curran, send a guard to watch the bread and the cheese before the fool has his way with it."

"King Lear: How hath my fool offended? Regan: He hath shagged me roughly, against my will, and finished too soon. King Lear: By force- Pocket? He isn't eight-stone on a feast day- he couldn't shag a cat by force. Pocket: That's not true, sire. If the cat is distracted with a trout, then - well, uh, never mind."

"Pocket: Do you know that there's no fool piece on the chessboard, Kent? Kent: Methinks the fool is the player, the mind above the moves. Pocket: Well, that's a scratchy spot of cat wank. But bloody well said."

"The Ghost: I'm sorry to haunt you while you're rogering the help. Pocket: The rogering has not commenced, wisp. I have barely bridled the horse for a moist and bawdy ride. Now, go away!"