Wit Quotes

“We rose from our chairs and bowed at each other, Japanese-style. The eight of them sat on the opposite side of the table to us, leaving the middle chair empty. All looking at us, no-one speaking a word. A long minute later, a very short, rather elderly lady – also dressed in funereal black – waddled in and seated herself in the empty chair in the middle of the row, directly facing us. She smiled; well, she attempted to twist her mouth. Too much effort. Her expression reverted to seriousness. Lin, sitting next to her, now spoke and introduced her as the Managing Director. She didn’t speak any English. Nor, it transpired, did any of the others – or if they did, we would never know, as either they weren’t brave enough to try or were inhibited by the business hierarchy. A scene that could have come out of Kafka.”
― Oliver Dowson, There's No Business Like International Business: Business Travel – But Not As You Know It

“In Brazil, every road, bridge and viaduct has been given a name, usually that of some long-forgotten personage who was once famous for doing something worthy. Honestly, every one of them; deeper into the country, I’ve even found unsurfaced dirt tracks given names. I’m never likely to have even five minutes of fame, but if I did, I don’t think I’d want to be remembered by a dirt track going from Nowhere Town to Obscure Village.”
― Oliver Dowson, There's No Business Like International Business: Business Travel – But Not As You Know It

“Beyond them stood a far greater number of men, all dressed like human versions of classic tin soldiers; dark blue jackets, white shirts, red sashes and black top hats. Definitely not 21st century military uniform; I’d have thought that they were actors had they not, on a drum roll, unshouldered their rifles and fired into the air.”
― Oliver Dowson, There's No Business Like International Business: Business Travel – But Not As You Know It

“I love airports. I’m fascinated by how an airport runs seamlessly as one huge well-oiled machine, and to watch how, when things go wrong, as they do all the time, all those little crises are fixed by people running around like the T-cells of a mammalian immune system dealing with infections before they have chance to get out of control.”
― Oliver Dowson, There's No Business Like International Business: Business Travel – But Not As You Know It

“The questions appeared to be pre-rehearsed. The senior people spoke to the young one in Japanese, and he translated. I answered, and he translated back. Another one. Another one. And one more, that I felt needed a longer answer. Only then did I also notice that there was a clock on the wall opposite me, ticking past 11:59. I opened my mouth and began my answer. To my astonishment, mid-sentence, everyone just stood up, bowed, turned to their right and, in line, walked out of the room. Even while I was talking. They weren’t being rude. It’s just how meetings in Japan work.”
― Oliver Dowson, There's No Business Like International Business: Business Travel – But Not As You Know It

“As far as I'm concerned, you can't have fun in a high neckline - I don't care how witty you are.”
― Eve Babitz, I Used to Be Charming: The Rest of Eve Babitz

“Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially.

Lane. [Gravely.] There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice.

Algernon. No cucumbers!

Lane. No, sir. Not even for ready money.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays

“It was one of those exuberant peaches that meet you halfway, so to speak, and are all over you in a moment.”
― saki, The Chronicles of Clovis

“She used to be a tremendously affectionate and cooperative cat, perfectly happy for you to pick her up and carry her around on your shoulder like a parrot. Time was, you could even pop her on your head like a living fur hat and she’d stay there, content to grow fat on your loving brainwaves. Now, in her advanced years, she’s developed a certain coolness. Though there are, of course, limits to one’s cool when one looks like a not-particularly-sophisticated glove puppet.”
― Robert Wringham, Stern Plastic Owl

“The scheme entered her head presumably because nature abhors a vacuum”
― Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant

“I can remember the days, said the Gin-and-Ginger-Ale, when every other girl you met stood about six feet two in her dancing-shoes, and had as many curves as a Scenic Railway.”
― P. G. Wodehouse

“It’s libertine this and libertine that, but so far as I can tell, he only has about six notches in his bedpost and it never once crossed his mind that he could lower himself onto it.”
― Robert Wringham, Stern Plastic Owl

“To my own ear, I sound like Charles de Gaulle himself but when I put my new-found phrases into practice, the post office clerk from whom I’ve asked to buy a stamp will look at me like I’ve asked him to administer a rectal thermometer.”
― Robert Wringham, Stern Plastic Owl

“The little stone Saint and the Goblin got on very well together, though they looked at most things from different points of view. The Saint was a philanthropist in an old fashioned way; he thought the world, as he saw it, was good, but might be improved. In particular he pitied the church mice, who were miserably poor. The Goblin, on the other hand, was of opinion that the world, as he knew it, was bad, but had better be let alone. It was the function of the church mice to be poor.”
― Saki, Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches

“if he had an equal in his profession he had never acknowledged the fact.”
― Saki, The Chronicles of Clovis

“Who are those depressed-looking young women who have just gone by?" asked the Baroness; "they have the air of people who have bowed to destiny and are not quite sure whether the salute will be returned.”
― Saki, The Chronicles of Clovis

“she had been the eldest sister of a large family of self-indulgent children, and her particular form of indulgence had consisted in openly disapproving of the foibles of the others. Unfortunately the hobby had grown up with her.”
― Saki, The Chronicles of Clovis

“this Mime here said to the others 'I wouldn’t talk if I were you' before their exam.”
― J.S. Mason, A Dragon, A Pig, and a Rabbi Walk into a Bar...and other Rambunctious Bites

“much like a when a bullfighter comes home he struts through the matadoor”
― J.S. Mason, A Dragon, A Pig, and a Rabbi Walk into a Bar...and other Rambunctious Bites

“or like a piece from the baroque period which is before things were fixed”
― J.S. Mason, A Dragon, A Pig, and a Rabbi Walk into a Bar...and other Rambunctious Bites

“Give me Zidane and 10 planks of wood and I’ll win you the Champions League.”
― Alex Ferguson

“Do people have a left mind he’d wondered? What’s the difference anyway?”
― Stefanie Hutcheson, The Adventures of George and Mabel: Based on an Almost... well, you know (The Adventures of George and Mabel: Based on an Almost

“And then I was in love with Franchot Tone. I wrote to him and he sent me a signed photograph. Of course, I must say I'd enclosed a stamp. I can't tell you what looking at that photograph did for me. Then later on there was a boy at our A.R.P. post who was awfully witty if one hadn't read Oscar Wilde. But the first time he kissed me was a shocking disillusion. Not at all what Franchot Tone had led me to expect.''
Peggy obviously shot out this nonsense rather as a pursued octopus shoots out protective fluid.”
― Monica Stirling, Ladies with a Unicorn

“Well, good night," he said. "I'm off to the elephant with my kids. On the supposition that you should need me some night, you'll find me there. I live on the second floor. There is no doorman. You should ask for Monsieur Gavroche.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

“I’m living in the future, so the present is my past. My presence is a present, so you can kiss my ass.”
― Anonymous

“You have a very fine set of horses, Mr. Addleshaw, although the one with the black star on his nose does tend to shy a little when other carriages approach."

"When other carriages approach, or when you're driving on the wrong side of the street?" he countered.”
― Jen Turano, After a Fashion

“she believed in the healthy influence of natural surroundings, never having been in Sicily, where things are different.”
― Saki, Reginald

“Reginald gave a delicate shiver, such as an Italian greyhound might give in contemplating the approach of an ice age of which he personally disapproved, and resigned himself to the inevitable political discussion.”
― Saki, Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches

“Temptations came to him, in middle age, tentatively and without insistence, like a neglected butcher-boy who asks for a Christmas box in February for no more hopeful reason that than he didn’t get one in December. He had no more idea of succumbing to them than he had of purchasing the fish-knives and fur boas that ladies are impelled to sacrifice through the medium of advertisement columns during twelve months of the year. Still, there was something impressive in this unasked-for renunciation of possibly latent enormities.”
― saki, Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches

“That's his problem, not yours.'
'You make everything sound so simple.'
'Maybe you're making it too complicated.”
― Jody Hedlund, To Tame a Cowboy