wit

Link	Quote	Tags	Author
dc421b2	"Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait." "I always thought that was 'Good things come to those who do the wave,'" said Simon. "No wonder I've been so confused all my life."	patience simon wit	Cassandra Clare
4d0b2d1	Don't let the muggles get you down.	muggles wit	J.K. Rowling
cd7411d	So you're a Shadowhunter,' Nate said. 'De Quincey told me that you lot were monsters.' 'Was that before or after he tried to eat you?' Will inquired.	humour nathaniel-gray will-herondale wit	Cassandra Clare
16341a1	If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.	paranoia proverbs questions wit	Thomas Pynchon
c1bdc8d	Brevity is the soul of wit.	wit	William Shakespeare
b4cc8a2	Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.	con devil lie sexy wit	Holly Black
156c449	"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome." "And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody." "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them."	defects dislike education hatred misunderstanding propensity repartee retort wit	Jane Austen
a8d8881	The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.	classic murder wit	William Shakespeare
96fbaf2	"Now what happens?" asked the man in black. "We face each other as God intended," Fezzik said. "No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone." "You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that it?"	fistfight humor wit	William Goldman
eef17a2	A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.	humor melancholy wit	P.G. Wodehouse
812c284	There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.	the-paris-review wisecracks wit	Dorothy Parker
733878f	"Ack!" I said. Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me."	humor wit	Jim Butcher
cd7c4f3	"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober."	wit	G.K. Chesterton
804ca30	"Do you like to slide?" His voice was eager. Stair rails! Did he suspect me? I forced a sigh. "No, Majesty. I'm terrified of heights." "Oh." His polite tone had returned. "I wish I could enjoy it. This fear of heights is an affliction." He nodded, a show of sympathy but not much interest. I was losing him. "Especially," I added, "as I've grown taller."	wit	Gail Carson Levine
841edb6	Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!	humor language pronunciation satire wit	Gerard Nolst Trenité
78e26ef	And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?	copy cry crying despair fall howl metaphor mimic poetic rain shakespearean simile wind wit	Mervyn Peake
b05a947	On some days you get what you want, and on others, you get what you need.	wit	Hunter S. Thompson
b75532e	"Yeah you can have a word," said Harry savagely. "Good-bye."	sarcasm tell-off wit	J.K. Rowling
75abb7d	She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.	wit women	David Mitchell
8672633	-Oh yes? Can you identify yourself? -Certainly. I'd know me anywhere.	funny-and-random humor humorous satire wit witty-quotes	Terry Pratchett
ff9dc60	" "If, with the literate, I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it.	epigrams humor oscar-wilde tribute wit	Dorothy Parker
6b2d2cf	You know, you're rather amusingly wrong.	funny humor humorous irony satire wit witty-quotes	Terry Pratchett
8d26765	If I be waspish, best beware my sting.	wasps wit women	William Shakespeare
646c1ae	Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.	humor sex technology technophobes wit	Robert A. Heinlein
66dd6a1	Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.	autism humor intelligence nerd nerds sense-of-humor wisdom wisdom-vs-nerdiness wit	Nassim Nicholas Taleb
f2d8c81	Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones.	digression philosophy reading wit writing	Ray Bradbury
9004430	"The best way to measure the loss of intellectual sophistication - this "nerdification," to put it bluntly - is in the growing disappearance of sarcasm, as mechanic minds take insults a bit too literally."	intellectual-sophistication internet irony nerd nerdery nerdiness nerds post-ironic post-modern post-modernism reddit sophistication wisdom-vs-nerds wit	Nassim Nicholas Taleb
032c911	Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable	wit	Oscar Wilde
4e98ed3	"Enough about my beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind, Westley. Talk about that."	humor intelligence minds wit women	William Goldman
54bffd7	I am a master of foolhardy plans.	planning wit	Megan Whalen Turner
1050d14	One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.	government monarchy wit	Thomas Paine
9ec1152	I'm myself, not a label.	individuality wit	John Brunner
df3ccd8	When a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping to go in a straight line.	forest logic malone-dies molloy page-94 part-1 part-i sly the-unnamable wit	Samuel Beckett
e47bb9d	"M'sieur, I am as a slave to my wife." He kissed the tips of his fingers. "I am as the dirt beneath her feet." He clasped his hands. "I must bestow on her all that she desires, or die!" "Pray make use of my sword, " invited his Grace. "It is in the corner behind you."	satanas wit	Georgette Heyer
6c98896	You remember having friends who used to lampoon the world so effortlessly, crouching at the verge of every joke and waiting to pounce on it, and you remember how they changed as they grew older and the joy of questioning everything slowly became transformed into the pain of questioning everything, like a star consuming its own core.	humor joking questions wit	Kevin Brockmeier
cd42cc3	If you've brains it's better than beauty - brains last, beauty doesn't.	brains-or-beauty smart-or-pretty wit	L.M. Montgomery
28d23ab	Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.	fun pressure wit	Christopher Hitchens
0986fc6	I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.	life suffering wisdom wit	Henry David Thoreau
b573199	In fact, Lig never formally resigned his editorship--he merely left his office late one morning, and has never returned since. Though well over a century has now passed, many members of the Guide staff still retain the romantic notion that he has simply popped out for a sandwich and will yet return to put in a solid afternoon's work. Strictly speaking, all editors since Lig Lury Jr., have therefore been designated acting editors, and Lig's desk is still preserved the way he left it, with the addition of a small sign that says LIG LURY, JR., EDITOR, MISSING, PRESUMED FED.	hitchhiker-s-guide humor originality wit	Douglas Adams
9c0f1a6	"Captain Billings," he drawled finally, "if you will pardon my candor, I might remark that you are something of an ass, don't you know."	pardon-my-french tarzan wit	Edgar Rice Burroughs
472aaef	(About a cookbook...) - What about this one? Maids of Honor? - Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor...but they ends up Tarts.	funny-and-random humor humorous retort satire wit witty	Terry Pratchett
adffc20	I spent the last Friday of summer vacation spreading hot, sticky tar across the roof of George Washington High. My companions were Dopey, Toothless, and Joe, the brain surgeons in charge of building maintenance. At least they were getting paid. I was working forty feet above the ground, breathing in sulfur fumes from Satan's vomitorium, for free. , my father said. , the judge said. Court-ordered restitution for the Foul Deed. He nailed me with the bill for the damage I had done, which meant I had to sell my car and bust my hump at a landscaping company all summer. Oh, and he gave me six months of meetings with a probation officer who thought I was a waste of human flesh. Still, it was better than jail. I pushed the mop back and forth, trying to coat the seams evenly. We didn't want any rain getting into the building and destroying the classrooms. Didn't want to hurt the school. No, sir, we sure didn't.	community-service hard-labor wit	Laurie Halse Anderson
6211eb0	Historical Re-creation, he thought glumly, as they picked their way across, under, over or through the boulders and insect-buzzing heaps of splintered timber, with streamlets running everywhere. Only we do it with people dressing up and running around with blunt weapons, and people selling hot dogs, and the girls all miserable because they can only dress up as wenches, wenching being the only job available to women in the olden days.	historical history hobbies humour larps reenactment wenches wit women	Terry Pratchett
65fb53f	You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied. Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.	jodi-picoult my-sister-s-keeper reincarnation wit	Jodi Picoult
052fdaa	I've been so thoroughly incorporated into the California culture that I practice meditation and go to a therapist, even though I always set a trap: during my meditation I invent stories to keep from being bored, and in therapy I invent stories to keep from boring the psychologist.	wit	Isabel Allende
5ce3f81	"Lady Placida smiled. "History seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what I have heard, I suspect an argument could be made that you very much did earn the title." "Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them." Lady Placida laughed. "True enough. But perhaps that is beginning to change." She offered her hands. "It is a distinct pleasure to meet you, Steadholder."	history sff wit	Jim Butcher
a898908	Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say: Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'.	monocles wit	Chip Kidd
c5bc3e1	"you ask too many questions," snapped Cletus. I kept my gaze on Roman. "that's because I get too few answers."	comebacks smart-women the-finisher wit	David Baldacci
a345aec	It's common platitude that knowledge is neutral but every now and then it would be useful if it was on your side and not theirs.	wit	John Brunner
2e98040	"The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: 1) A blind willingness to believe anything you're told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers and other "official spokesmen" for the team-owners who provide the free booze ... and: 2) A Roget's Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same paragraph. Even a sports editor, for instance, might notice something wrong with a lead that said: "The precision-jack-hammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off the Washington Redskins today by stomping and hammering with one precise jack-thrust after another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint-precision passes into the flat and numerous hammer-jack stomps around both ends...."	sports wit writing	Hunter S. Thompson
c1942bf	Listen to me. Forget all you saw. Leave it. Take your mind from it. It has nothing to do with you. But use it for experience. Now you know what hurt it brings to women when men come into the world. Remember, and make it up to your Mama and to all women...And another thing let it do. There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is not room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal. As you saw today, so come Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors. Let the memory direct your dealings with men and women. And be sure to take good care of Mama. Is it?	kindness pride wit women	Richard Llewellyn
bc9bff6	Nothing evokes the prurient like puritanism.	wit witty	Christopher Moore
3e2d5e5	"A twisted spine condemned him to walk with a limp, but as he said famously, "I do not limp when I read, nor when I write."	capable fire-and-blood limp reading wit writing	George R.R. Martin
3b7215c	Here comes Mamma Vauquerr, fair as a starrr; and strung up like a bunch of carrots. Aren't we suffocating ourselves a wee bit?' he asked, placing a hand on the top of her corset. 'A bit of a crush in the vestibule, here, Mamma! If we start crying, there'll be an explosion. Never mind, I'll be there to collect the bits--just like an antiquary.' 'Now, there's the language of true French gallantry,' murmured Madame Vauquer in an aside to Madame Couture.	comedy good-natured humor mockery obliviousness wit	Honoré de Balzac
78eb310	"Twelve dead?" I said. "Jesus."	biblical brief humour i inspirational jesus perhaps said short surprise twelve whatever wit	Dennis Lehane
6e0fd75	She contrived, without precisely making so vulgar a boast, to convey the impression that she was escaping from courtships so persistent as to amount to persecution; and Mr Beaumaris, listening with intense pleasure , said that London was the very place for anyone desirous of escaping attention.	wit	Georgette Heyer
9d66033	Cardinal Campeggio has implored Katherine to bow to the king's will, accept that her marriage is invalid and retire to a convent. Certainly, she says sweetly, she will become a nun: if the king will become a monk.	wit	Hilary Mantel
7962cfc	"Miss Taverner took the whip and reins in her hands, and mounted into the driving-seat, scorning assistance. "Take your orders from Miss Taverner, Henry," said the Earl, getting up beside his ward. "Me Lord, you are never going to let a female drive us?" said Henry almost tearfully. "What about my pride?" "Swallow it, Henry," replied the Earl amicably."	humour wit	Georgette Heyer
4cd188b	It was Colonel Parkman who upped stakes, crossed the border, and named our town, thus perversely commemorating a battle in which he'd lost. (Though perhaps that's not so unusual: many people take a curatorial interest in their own scars.) He's shown astride his horse, waving a sword and about to gallop into the nearby petunia bed: a craggy man with seasoned eyes and pointed beard, every sculptor's idea of every cavalry leader. No one knows what Colonel Parkman really looked like, since he left no pictorial evidence of himself and the statue wasn't erected until 1885, but he looks like this now. Such is the tyranny of Art. On the left-hand side of the lawn, also with a petunia bed, is an equally mythic figure: the Weary Soldier, his three top shirt buttons undone, his neck bowed as if for the headman's axe, his uniform rumpled, his helmet askew, leaning on his malfunctioning Ross rifle. Forever young, forever exhausted, he tops the War Memorial, his skin burning green in the sun, pigeon droppings running down his face like tears.	reality-check truth war wit	Margaret Atwood
4c33efa	"Gankis lifted an arm to point at the distant shale cliffs. "And in the face of it there were thousands of little holes, little what-you-call-'ems..." "Alcoves," Kennit supplied in an almost dreamy voice. "I call them alcoves, Gankis. As would you, if you could speak your own mother tongue."	answer arm blank captain cliff funny language mother name point query question response sarcasm sarcastic title tongue voice wit witty word	Robin Hobb
0da5b56	Jimmy Murray, you are an ass,' said Aunt Ruth, angrily. 'Well, we're cousins,' agreed Cousin Jimmy pleasantly.	humor relations snipe wit	L.M. Montgomery
d2d7dfa	"Then the small man suddenly ran after them and said: "I want to get my haircut. I say, do you know a little shop anywhere where they cut hair properly? I keep on having my hair cut, but it keeps on growing again." One of the tall men looked at him with the air of a pained naturalist."	sarcasm wit	G.K. Chesterton
25f356e	"I have great affection for you, Roy" I answered, "but I don't think you are the sort of person I'd care to have breakfast with."	clever wit	W. Somerset Maugham
e163e34	Beauty is more a danger than intelligence or wit. One becomes a living mirror for the inadequacies of others.	inadequacies intelligence jealousy wit	Gordon Dahlquist
27983d8	"He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James. "No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying glass, and it was all semicolons and parentheses," said Mrs. Cadwallader."	humor sarcasm wit	George Eliot
e2d21e9	"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 , 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 of you would be to sink myself quite below reproach!"	banter bantering humor insults opinion personal-opinions wit	Georgette Heyer
8247dae	"The door was flung open. Maurice Duplay filled it; energetic master, shirt- sleeves rolled up. He threw out his arms, the good Jacobin Duplay, and formed a sentence totally original, something which had never been uttered in the history of the world: "Camille, you have a son, and your wife is very well, and is asking you to be at home, right now."	wit	Hilary Mantel

dc421b2

"Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait." "I always thought that was 'Good things come to those who do the wave,'" said Simon. "No wonder I've been so confused all my life."

patience simon wit

Cassandra Clare

4d0b2d1

Don't let the muggles get you down.

muggles wit

J.K. Rowling

cd7411d

So you're a Shadowhunter,' Nate said. 'De Quincey told me that you lot were monsters.' 'Was that before or after he tried to eat you?' Will inquired.

humour nathaniel-gray will-herondale wit

Cassandra Clare

16341a1

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

paranoia proverbs questions wit

Thomas Pynchon

c1bdc8d

Brevity is the soul of wit.

wit

William Shakespeare

b4cc8a2

Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.

con devil lie sexy wit

Holly Black

156c449

"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome." "And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody." "And yours," he replied with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them."

defects dislike education hatred misunderstanding propensity repartee retort wit

Jane Austen

a8d8881

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

classic murder wit

William Shakespeare

96fbaf2

"Now what happens?" asked the man in black. "We face each other as God intended," Fezzik said. "No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone." "You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that it?"

fistfight humor wit

William Goldman

eef17a2

A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.

humor melancholy wit

P.G. Wodehouse

812c284

There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.

the-paris-review wisecracks wit

Dorothy Parker

733878f

"Ack!" I said. Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me."

humor wit

Jim Butcher

cd7c4f3

"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober."

wit

G.K. Chesterton

804ca30

"Do you like to slide?" His voice was eager. Stair rails! Did he suspect me? I forced a sigh. "No, Majesty. I'm terrified of heights." "Oh." His polite tone had returned. "I wish I could enjoy it. This fear of heights is an affliction." He nodded, a show of sympathy but not much interest. I was losing him. "Especially," I added, "as I've grown taller."

wit

Gail Carson Levine

841edb6

Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation (think of Psyche!) Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough, Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!

humor language pronunciation satire wit

Gerard Nolst Trenité

78e26ef

And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?

copy cry crying despair fall howl metaphor mimic poetic rain shakespearean simile wind wit

Mervyn Peake

b05a947

On some days you get what you want, and on others, you get what you need.

wit

Hunter S. Thompson

b75532e

"Yeah you can have a word," said Harry savagely. "Good-bye."

sarcasm tell-off wit

J.K. Rowling

75abb7d

She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.

wit women

David Mitchell

8672633

-Oh yes? Can you identify yourself? -Certainly. I'd know me anywhere.

funny-and-random humor humorous satire wit witty-quotes

Terry Pratchett

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" "If, with the literate, I am Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it.

epigrams humor oscar-wilde tribute wit

Dorothy Parker

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You know, you're rather amusingly wrong.

funny humor humorous irony satire wit witty-quotes

Terry Pratchett

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If I be waspish, best beware my sting.

wasps wit women

William Shakespeare

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Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.

humor sex technology technophobes wit

Robert A. Heinlein

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Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.

autism humor intelligence nerd nerds sense-of-humor wisdom wisdom-vs-nerdiness wit

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones.

digression philosophy reading wit writing

Ray Bradbury

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"The best way to measure the loss of intellectual sophistication - this "nerdification," to put it bluntly - is in the growing disappearance of sarcasm, as mechanic minds take insults a bit too literally."

intellectual-sophistication internet irony nerd nerdery nerdiness nerds post-ironic post-modern post-modernism reddit sophistication wisdom-vs-nerds wit

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable

wit

Oscar Wilde

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"Enough about my beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind, Westley. Talk about that."

humor intelligence minds wit women

William Goldman

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I am a master of foolhardy plans.

planning wit

Megan Whalen Turner

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One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.

government monarchy wit

Thomas Paine

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I'm myself, not a label.

individuality wit

John Brunner

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When a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping to go in a straight line.

forest logic malone-dies molloy page-94 part-1 part-i sly the-unnamable wit

Samuel Beckett

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"M'sieur, I am as a slave to my wife." He kissed the tips of his fingers. "I am as the dirt beneath her feet." He clasped his hands. "I must bestow on her all that she desires, or die!" "Pray make use of my sword, " invited his Grace. "It is in the corner behind you."

satanas wit

Georgette Heyer

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You remember having friends who used to lampoon the world so effortlessly, crouching at the verge of every joke and waiting to pounce on it, and you remember how they changed as they grew older and the joy of questioning everything slowly became transformed into the pain of questioning everything, like a star consuming its own core.

humor joking questions wit

Kevin Brockmeier

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If you've brains it's better than beauty - brains last, beauty doesn't.

brains-or-beauty smart-or-pretty wit

L.M. Montgomery

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Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.

fun pressure wit

Christopher Hitchens

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I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

life suffering wisdom wit

Henry David Thoreau

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In fact, Lig never formally resigned his editorship--he merely left his office late one morning, and has never returned since. Though well over a century has now passed, many members of the Guide staff still retain the romantic notion that he has simply popped out for a sandwich and will yet return to put in a solid afternoon's work. Strictly speaking, all editors since Lig Lury Jr., have therefore been designated acting editors, and Lig's desk is still preserved the way he left it, with the addition of a small sign that says LIG LURY, JR., EDITOR, MISSING, PRESUMED FED.

hitchhiker-s-guide humor originality wit

Douglas Adams

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"Captain Billings," he drawled finally, "if you will pardon my candor, I might remark that you are something of an ass, don't you know."

pardon-my-french tarzan wit

Edgar Rice Burroughs

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(About a cookbook...) - What about this one? Maids of Honor? - Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor...but they ends up Tarts.

funny-and-random humor humorous retort satire wit witty

Terry Pratchett

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I spent the last Friday of summer vacation spreading hot, sticky tar across the roof of George Washington High. My companions were Dopey, Toothless, and Joe, the brain surgeons in charge of building maintenance. At least they were getting paid. I was working forty feet above the ground, breathing in sulfur fumes from Satan's vomitorium, for free. , my father said. , the judge said. Court-ordered restitution for the Foul Deed. He nailed me with the bill for the damage I had done, which meant I had to sell my car and bust my hump at a landscaping company all summer. Oh, and he gave me six months of meetings with a probation officer who thought I was a waste of human flesh. Still, it was better than jail. I pushed the mop back and forth, trying to coat the seams evenly. We didn't want any rain getting into the building and destroying the classrooms. Didn't want to hurt the school. No, sir, we sure didn't.

community-service hard-labor wit

Laurie Halse Anderson

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Historical Re-creation, he thought glumly, as they picked their way across, under, over or through the boulders and insect-buzzing heaps of splintered timber, with streamlets running everywhere. Only we do it with people dressing up and running around with blunt weapons, and people selling hot dogs, and the girls all miserable because they can only dress up as wenches, wenching being the only job available to women in the olden days.

historical history hobbies humour larps reenactment wenches wit women

Terry Pratchett

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You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied. Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.

jodi-picoult my-sister-s-keeper reincarnation wit

Jodi Picoult

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I've been so thoroughly incorporated into the California culture that I practice meditation and go to a therapist, even though I always set a trap: during my meditation I invent stories to keep from being bored, and in therapy I invent stories to keep from boring the psychologist.

wit

Isabel Allende

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"Lady Placida smiled. "History seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what I have heard, I suspect an argument could be made that you very much did earn the title." "Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them." Lady Placida laughed. "True enough. But perhaps that is beginning to change." She offered her hands. "It is a distinct pleasure to meet you, Steadholder."

history sff wit

Jim Butcher

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Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say: Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'.

monocles wit

Chip Kidd

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"you ask too many questions," snapped Cletus. I kept my gaze on Roman. "that's because I get too few answers."

comebacks smart-women the-finisher wit

David Baldacci

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It's common platitude that knowledge is neutral but every now and then it would be useful if it was on your side and not theirs.

wit

John Brunner

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"The two keys to success as a sportswriter are: 1) A blind willingness to believe anything you're told by the coaches, flacks, hustlers and other "official spokesmen" for the team-owners who provide the free booze ... and: 2) A Roget's Thesaurus, in order to avoid using the same verbs and adjectives twice in the same paragraph. Even a sports editor, for instance, might notice something wrong with a lead that said: "The precision-jack-hammer attack of the Miami Dolphins stomped the balls off the Washington Redskins today by stomping and hammering with one precise jack-thrust after another up the middle, mixed with pinpoint-precision passes into the flat and numerous hammer-jack stomps around both ends...."

sports wit writing

Hunter S. Thompson

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Listen to me. Forget all you saw. Leave it. Take your mind from it. It has nothing to do with you. But use it for experience. Now you know what hurt it brings to women when men come into the world. Remember, and make it up to your Mama and to all women...And another thing let it do. There is no room for pride in any man. There is no room for unkindness. There is not room for wit at the expense of others. All men are born the same, and equal. As you saw today, so come Captains and the Kings and the Tinkers and the Tailors. Let the memory direct your dealings with men and women. And be sure to take good care of Mama. Is it?

kindness pride wit women

Richard Llewellyn

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Nothing evokes the prurient like puritanism.

wit witty

Christopher Moore

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"A twisted spine condemned him to walk with a limp, but as he said famously, "I do not limp when I read, nor when I write."

capable fire-and-blood limp reading wit writing

George R.R. Martin

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Here comes Mamma Vauquerr, fair as a starrr; and strung up like a bunch of carrots. Aren't we suffocating ourselves a wee bit?' he asked, placing a hand on the top of her corset. 'A bit of a crush in the vestibule, here, Mamma! If we start crying, there'll be an explosion. Never mind, I'll be there to collect the bits--just like an antiquary.' 'Now, there's the language of true French gallantry,' murmured Madame Vauquer in an aside to Madame Couture.

comedy good-natured humor mockery obliviousness wit

Honoré de Balzac

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"Twelve dead?" I said. "Jesus."

biblical brief humour i inspirational jesus perhaps said short surprise twelve whatever wit

Dennis Lehane

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She contrived, without precisely making so vulgar a boast, to convey the impression that she was escaping from courtships so persistent as to amount to persecution; and Mr Beaumaris, listening with intense pleasure , said that London was the very place for anyone desirous of escaping attention.

wit

Georgette Heyer

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Cardinal Campeggio has implored Katherine to bow to the king's will, accept that her marriage is invalid and retire to a convent. Certainly, she says sweetly, she will become a nun: if the king will become a monk.

wit

Hilary Mantel

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"Miss Taverner took the whip and reins in her hands, and mounted into the driving-seat, scorning assistance. "Take your orders from Miss Taverner, Henry," said the Earl, getting up beside his ward. "Me Lord, you are never going to let a female drive us?" said Henry almost tearfully. "What about my pride?" "Swallow it, Henry," replied the Earl amicably."

humour wit

Georgette Heyer

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It was Colonel Parkman who upped stakes, crossed the border, and named our town, thus perversely commemorating a battle in which he'd lost. (Though perhaps that's not so unusual: many people take a curatorial interest in their own scars.) He's shown astride his horse, waving a sword and about to gallop into the nearby petunia bed: a craggy man with seasoned eyes and pointed beard, every sculptor's idea of every cavalry leader. No one knows what Colonel Parkman really looked like, since he left no pictorial evidence of himself and the statue wasn't erected until 1885, but he looks like this now. Such is the tyranny of Art. On the left-hand side of the lawn, also with a petunia bed, is an equally mythic figure: the Weary Soldier, his three top shirt buttons undone, his neck bowed as if for the headman's axe, his uniform rumpled, his helmet askew, leaning on his malfunctioning Ross rifle. Forever young, forever exhausted, he tops the War Memorial, his skin burning green in the sun, pigeon droppings running down his face like tears.

reality-check truth war wit

Margaret Atwood

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"Gankis lifted an arm to point at the distant shale cliffs. "And in the face of it there were thousands of little holes, little what-you-call-'ems..." "Alcoves," Kennit supplied in an almost dreamy voice. "I call them alcoves, Gankis. As would you, if you could speak your own mother tongue."

answer arm blank captain cliff funny language mother name point query question response sarcasm sarcastic title tongue voice wit witty word

Robin Hobb

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Jimmy Murray, you are an ass,' said Aunt Ruth, angrily. 'Well, we're cousins,' agreed Cousin Jimmy pleasantly.

humor relations snipe wit

L.M. Montgomery

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"Then the small man suddenly ran after them and said: "I want to get my haircut. I say, do you know a little shop anywhere where they cut hair properly? I keep on having my hair cut, but it keeps on growing again." One of the tall men looked at him with the air of a pained naturalist."

sarcasm wit

G.K. Chesterton

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"I have great affection for you, Roy" I answered, "but I don't think you are the sort of person I'd care to have breakfast with."

clever wit

W. Somerset Maugham

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Beauty is more a danger than intelligence or wit. One becomes a living mirror for the inadequacies of others.

inadequacies intelligence jealousy wit

Gordon Dahlquist

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"He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James. "No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying glass, and it was all semicolons and parentheses," said Mrs. Cadwallader."

humor sarcasm wit

George Eliot

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"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 , 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 of you would be to sink myself quite below reproach!"

banter bantering humor insults opinion personal-opinions wit

Georgette Heyer

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"The door was flung open. Maurice Duplay filled it; energetic master, shirt- sleeves rolled up. He threw out his arms, the good Jacobin Duplay, and formed a sentence totally original, something which had never been uttered in the history of the world: "Camille, you have a son, and your wife is very well, and is asking you to be at home, right now."

wit

Hilary Mantel