I always arrive late at the office, 
but I make up for it by leaving early.
* Charles Lamb

I don't want any yes-men around me. I 
want everyone to tell me the truth - 
even if it costs him his job.
* Samuel Goldwyn

Write something, even if it's 
just a suicide note.
* Gore Vidal

Today's payslip has more deductions 
than a Sherlock Holmes novel.
* Raymond Cvikota

The last time I was in Spain I got 
through six Jeffrey Archer novels. 
I must remember to take enough toilet 
paper next time.
* Bob Monkhouse

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's 
best friend and inside of a dog, 
it's too dark to read.
* Groucho Mark

I adore adverbs; they are the only 
qualifications I really much respect.
* Henry James

As long as a woman can look ten years 
younger than her own daughter, she is 
perfectly satisfied.
* Oscar Wilde

When women kiss it always reminds me 
of prize fighter shaking hands.
* HL Mencken

Some of us learn from other peoples 
mistakes. The rest of us are the other 
people.
* Unknown

Victor Hugo was a madman who 
thought he was Vistor Hugo.
* Jean Cocteau

Once you've put one of his books down, 
you simply can't pick it up again.
* Mark Twain (about Henry James)

What other culture could have 
produced someone like Hemmingway 
and not seen the joke?
* Gore Vidal

Critics are to authors what dogs 
are to lamp-posts.
* Jeffrey Robinson

An incinerator is a writer's 
best friend.
* Thornton Wilder

Someone told me that each equation 
I included in the book would halve 
the sales
* Stephen Hawking

The covers of this book are too 
far apart.
* Ambrose Bierce

The profession of book writing makes 
horse racing seem like a solid and 
stable business.
* John Steinbeck

I have been commissioned to write an 
autobiography and I would be grateful 
to any of your readers who could tell 
me what I was doing between 1960 and 
1974.
* Jeffrey Bernard

Dr Donne's verses are like the peace 
of God; they pass all understanding.
* James I.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
* T. S. Eliot

If you steal from one author, it's 
plagiarism; if you steal from many, 
it's research.
* Wilson Mizner

Those who can do, those who can't teach.
* George Bernard Shaw

Human beings, who are almost unique in 
having the ability to learn from the 
experience of others, are also remarkable 
for their apparent disinclination to do so.
* Douglas Adams

It is better to be beautiful than 
to be good. But... it is better to 
be good than to be ugly.
* Oscar Wilde

I am the kind of writer that people 
think other people are reading.
* V. S. Naipaul

My favourite poem is the one that starts 
'Thirty days hath September' because it 
actually tells you something.
* Groucho Marx

A publisher who writes is like a 
cow in a milk bar.
* Arthur Koestler

Give a man a free hand and 
he'll run it all over you.
* Mae West

No man is an island, but some 
of us are pretty long peninsulas.
* Ashleigh Brilliant

If you've got them by the balls 
their hearts and minds will follow.
* John Wayne

In Australia, not reading poetry 
is the national pastime.
* Phyllis McGinley

The most important thing for poets to 
do is to write as little as possible.
* T. S. Eliot

Men are simple things. They can survive 
a whole weekend with only three things: 
beer, boxer shorts and batteries for the 
remote control...
* Diana Jordan

Insanity is hereditary: You can 
get it from your children.
* Sam Levinson

Children really brighten up a household. 
They never turn the lights off.
* Ralph Bus

No wonder people are so horrible 
when they start life as children.
* Kingsley Amis

Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue 
is to a lady; but a newspaper can always 
print a retraction.
* Adlai Stevenson

All bad poetry springs from 
genuine feeling.
* Oscar Wilde

Nothing induces me to read a novel 
except when I have to make money by 
writing about it. I detest them.
* Virginia Woolf

I never read the life of any important 
person without discovering that he knew 
more and could do more than I could 
ever hope to know or do in half a 
dozen lifetimes.
* J. B. Priestley

In married life three is company 
and two none.
* Oscar Wilde

My advice to you is get married: if you 
find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, 
you'll become a philosopher.
* Socrates

The General was essentially a man of peace, 
except of course in his domestic affairs.
* Oscar Wilde

Love is temporary insanity curable 
by marriage.
* Ambrose Bierce

I was married by a judge. I should 
have asked for a jury.
* Groucho Marx

My wife has a slight impediment in 
her speech. Every now and then she 
stops to breathe.
* Jimmy Durante

Some people ask the secret of our long 
marriage. We take time to go to a 
restaurant two times a week. A little 
candlelight, dinner, soft music and 
dancing. She goes Tuesdays, I go Fridays.
* Henry Youngman

If we take matrimony at it's lowest, 
we regard it as a sort of friendship 
recognised by the police.
* Robert Louis Stevenson

If love is the answer, could 
you rephrase the question?
* Lilly Tomlin

Marriage is like putting your hand 
into a bag of snakes in the hope of 
pulling out an eel.
* Leonardo Di Vinci

The quickest way to a man's 
heart is through his chest.
* Roseanne Barr

When I eventually met Mr. Right 
I had no idea that his first name 
was Always.
* Rita Rudner

I'm the only man in the world with a 
marriage licence made out to whom it 
may concern.
* Mickey Rooney

A married man should forget his mistakes; 
no use two people remembering the same thing.
* Duane Dewel

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

In my house I'm the boss, my wife 
is just the decision maker.
* Woody Allen

I've had bad luck with both my wives. 
The first one left me and the second 
one didn't.
* Patrick Murray

I wouldn't be caught dead marrying a 
woman old enough to be my wife.
* Tony Curtis

A woman voting for divorce is like 
a turkey voting for Christmas.
* Alice Glynn

The appropriate age for marriage 
is around eighteen for girls and 
thirty-seven for men.
* Aristotle

Women should be obscene 
and not heard.
* Groucho Marx

What would men be without women? 
Scarce, sir, mighty scarce.
* Mark Twain

Whatever women do they must do twice 
as well as men to be thought half as 
good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
* Charlotte Whitton

I hate housework. You make the beds, you 
wash the dishes and six months later you 
have to start all over again.
* Joan Rivers

Last week I stated that this woman was the 
ugliest woman I had ever seen. I have since 
been visited by her sister and now wish to 
withdraw that statement.
* Mark Twain

Wild horses couldn't drag a secret out 
of a woman. However, women seldom have 
lunch with wild horses.
* Ivern Boyett

Women: Can't live with them, can't 
bury them in the back yard without 
the neighbours seeing.
* Sean Williamson

If a woman insists on being 
called Ms, ask her if it 
stands for miserable.
* Russell Bell

Show me a woman who doesn't feel 
guilt and I'll show you a man.
* Erica Jong

I only know that people call me a 
feminist whenever I express sentiments 
that differentiate me from a doormat 
or a prostitute.
* Rebecca West

One of the reasons I don't see eye to 
eye with Women's Lib is that women have 
it all on a plate if only they knew it. 
They don't have to be pretty either.
* Charlotte Rampling

You know when you put a stick in 
water and it looks bent? That's 
why I never take baths.
* Steven Wright

It took me fifteen years to discover that 
I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't 
give it up because by that time I was too 
famous.
* Robert Benchley

An author who speaks about their own books 
is almost as bad as a mother who speaks 
about her own children.
* Benjamin Disraeli

A genius is a man who can rewrap 
a new shirt and not have any pins 
left over.
* Dino Levi

The baby is fine, the only 
problem is that he looks like 
Edward G. Robinson.
* Woody Allen

There are few things more satisfying 
than seeing your children have teenagers 
of their own.
* Doug Larson

I like children - fried.
* W. C. Fields

Everytime a child says, "I don't believe 
in fairies", there's a a little fairy 
somewhere that falls down dead.
* J. M. Barrie

The trouble with children is that 
they're not returnable.
* Quentin Crisp

A child of five could understand 
this. Fetch me a child of five.
* Groucho Marx

I Love children, especially when 
they cry for then someone takes 
them away.
* Nancy Mitford

Human beings are the only creatures 
on earth that allow their children 
to come back home.
* Bill Cosby

Watching your daughter being collected 
by her date feels like handing over a 
million dollar Stradivarius to a gorilla.
* Jim Bishop

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father 
was so ignorant I could hardly stand to 
have the old man around. But when I got 
to be twenty-one, I was astonished by 
how much he'd learned in seven years.
* Mark Twain

The child was a keen bed-wetter.
* Noel Coward

I have good looking kids. Thank 
goodness my wife cheats on me.
* Rodney Dangerfield

My parents used to beat the shit 
out of me. And, looking back on it, 
I'm glad they did. I'm looking 
forward to beating the shit out of 
my own kids, for no reason whatsoever.
* Denis Leary

When you're eight years old 
nothing is your business.
* Lenny Bruce

In general my children refuse to 
eat anything that hasn't danced 
in television.
* Erma Bombeck

Never underestimate a child's 
ability to get into more trouble.
* Martin Mull

I never met a kid I liked.
* W. C. Fields

I have a stepladder. It's a very 
nice stepladder but it's sad that 
I never knew my real ladder.
* Craig Charles

Children nowadays are tyrants. They 
contradict their parents, gobble 
their food and tyrannise their teachers.
* Socrates

Don't bother discussing sex with 
small children. They rarely have 
anything to add.
* Fran Lebowitz

Having a family is like having 
a bowling alley installed in 
your head.
* Martin Mull

Childhood is that wonderful time 
of life when all you need to do 
to lose weight is take a bath.
* Richard Zera

The real menace about dealing with 
a five-year-old is that in no time 
at all you begin to sound like a 
five-year-old.
* Jean Kerr

My eleven year old daughter mopes 
around the house all day waiting 
for her breasts to grow.
* Bill Cosby

I love to go to the playground 
and watch the children jumping 
up and down. They don't know I'm 
firing blanks.
* Emo Philips

Children are the most desirable 
opponents at scrabble as they are 
both easy to beat and fun to cheat.
* Fran Lebowitz

I went to a general store. They wouldn't 
let me buy anything specifically.
* Steven Wright

If you're going to do something tonight 
that you'll be be sorry for tomorrow 
morning, sleep late.
* Henry Youngman

Clothes make the man. Naked people 
have little or no influence on society.
* Mark Twain

The most overlooked advantage of owning 
a computer is that if they foul up there's 
no law against whacking them around a bit.
* Eric Porterfield

When women go wrong, 
men go right after them.
* Mae West

She doesn't understand the concept of 
Roman numerals. She thought we just 
fought in world war eleven.
* Joan Rivers

Happiness is having a large, 
loving, caring, close knit 
family in another city.
* George Burns

Beware of computer programmers 
that carry screwdrivers.
* Leonard Brandwein

UNIX is basically a simple operating system, 
but you have to be a genius to understand 
the simplicity.
* Dennis Ritchie

Is Elizabeth Taylor fat? Her 
favourite food is seconds.
* Joan Rivers

I once bought my kids a set of 
batteries for Christmas with a 
note on it saying, toys not 
included.
* Bernard Manning

Parents are not interested in 
justice, they're interested in 
peace and quiet.
* Bill Cosby

"Babies don't need a vacation but 
I still see them at the beach. I'll 
go over to them and say, "What are 
you doing here, you've never worked 
a day in your life!".
* Steven Wright

I was the kid next door's 
imaginary friend.
* Emo Philips

Nouvelle Cuisine, roughly translated, 
means: I can't believe I paid ninety-six 
dollars and I'm still hungry.
* Mike Kalin

When I am dead, I hope it may be said: 
"His sins were scarlet but his books 
were read".
* Hilliare Belloc

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, 
or insanity to anyone, but they've always 
worked for me.
* Hunter S. Thompson

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm 
for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll 
be warm for the rest of his life.
* Terry Pratchett

I drive way too fast to worry 
about cholesterol.
* Steven Wright

What would I do if I had only six 
months left to live? I'd type faster.
* Isaac Assimov

I always start writing with a clean 
piece of paper and a dirty mind.
* Patrick Dennis

They say such nice things about people 
at their funerals that it makes me sad 
that I'm going to miss mine by just a 
few days.
* Garrison Keilor

My advice to you is get married: if 
you find a good wife you'll be happy; 
if not, you'll become a philosopher.
* Socrates

Ice-cream is exquisite. What 
a pity it isn't illegal.
* Voltaire

If you think your boss is stupid remember; 
you wouldn't have a job if he was smarter.
* Albert Grant

A lot of people become pessimists 
from financing optimists.
* C. T. Jones

A verbal contract isn't worth 
the paper it's written on.
* Samuel Goldwyn

We didn't actually overspend our budget. 
The allocation simply fell short of our 
expenditure.
* Keith Davis

Any organisation is like a septic tank. 
The really big chunks rise to the top.
* John Imhoff

His insomnia was so bad, he couldn't 
sleep during office hours.
* Arthur Baer

Anything is good if it's 
made of chocolate.
* Jo Brand

The perfect lover is one who 
turns into pizza at 4am.
* Charles Pierce

Who bothers to cook TV dinners? 
I suck them frozen.
* Woody Allen

Those are my principles. If you 
don't like them I have others.
* Groucho Marx

She had lost the art of conversation 
but not, unfortunately, the power of 
speech.
* George Barnard Shaw

The nice thing about being a celebrity 
is that if you bore people they think 
it's their fault.
* Henry Kissinger

Camping is nature's way of 
promoting the motel business.
* Dave Barry

Cockroaches and socialites are the 
only things that can stay up all 
night and eat anything.
* Herb Caen

The cocktail party is a device for 
paying off obligations to people 
you don't want to invite for dinner.
* Charles Smith.

Experience is the name every 
one gives to their mistakes.
* Oscar Wilde

As yet, Bernard Shaw hasn't become 
prominent enough to have any enemies, 
but none of his friends like him.
* Oscar Wilde

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, 
a loyal friend; provided, of course, he 
really is dead.
* Voltaire

It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will 
travel thousands of miles, against prevailing 
winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.
* Dave Barry

I don't care to belong to a club that 
accepts people like me as members.
* Groucho Marx

There are only two things a child 
will share willingly; communicable 
diseases and its mother's age.
* Benjamin Spock

My unhealthy affection for my second 
daughter has waned. Now I despise all 
my seven children equally.
* Evelyn Waugh

They told me that Gladstone read Homer 
for fun, which I thought served him right.
* Winston Churchill

The Compleat Angler is acknowledged to 
be one of the world's books. Only the 
trouble is that the world doesn't read 
its books, it borrows a detective story 
instead.
* Stephen Leacock

Ever wonder if illiterate people get 
the full effect of alphabet soup?
* John Mendosa

What's another word for thesaurus?
* Steven Wright

This is the sixth book I've written, 
which isn't bad for a guy who's only 
read two.
* George Burns

Some are born great, some achieve 
greatness, and some hire PR officers.
* Daniel J. Boorstin

Only one man ever understood me, 
and he didn't understand me.
* G. W. Hegel

To write a diary every day is like 
returning to one's own vomit.
* Enoch Powell

Only one thing is impossible for God: 
To find any sense in any copyright law 
on the planet.
* Mark Twain

A positive attitude will not solve all 
your problems, but it will annoy enough 
people to make it worth the effort.
* Herm Albright

To be positive is to be mistaken 
at the top of one's voice.
* Ambrose Bierce

There is only one thing in life worse 
than being talked about, and that is 
not being talked about.
* Oscar Wilde

Last week I stated that this woman was 
the ugliest woman I had ever seen. I 
have since been visited by her sister 
and now wish to withdraw that statement.
* Mark Twain

I am free of all prejudices. 
I hate everyone equally.
* W. C. Fields

There are two things in life 
for which we are never truly 
prepared: Twins.
* Josh Billings

I've got the brain of a four 
year old. I'll bet he was glad 
to be rid of it.
* Groucho Marx

I will not eat oysters. I want 
my food dead. Not sick, not 
wounded, dead.
* Woody Allen

If toast always lands butter-side down, 
and cats always land on their feet, what 
happens if you strap toast on the back 
of a cat and drop it?
* Steven Wright

We live in an age when pizza gets 
to your home before the police.
* Jeff Marder

I never forget a face, but in your case 
I'll be glad to make an exception.
* Groucho Marx

Martyrdom: The only way a man can 
become famous without ability.
* George Bernard Shaw

The statistics on sanity are that one out 
of every four Americans are suffering from 
some form of mental illness. Think of your 
three best friends. If they're okay, then 
it's you.
* Rita Mae Brown

My advice to you is get married: if you find 
a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll 
become a philosopher.
* Socrates

The only imaginative fiction being 
written today is income tax returns.
* Herman Wouk

It's not a good idea to put your wife 
into a novel; not your latest wife anyway.
* Norman Mailer

My computer dating bureau came up 
with a perfect gentleman. Still, 
I've got another three goes.
* Sally Poplin

I haven't spoken to my wife in years. 
I didn't want to interrupt her.
* Rodney Dangerfield

USA Today has come out with a new survey: 
Apparently three out of four people make 
up 75 percent of the population.
* David Letterman

In ancient times they had no statistics 
so they had to fall back on lies.
* Stephen Leacock

This is not a novel to be tossed aside 
lightly. It should be thrown with great 
force.
* Dorothy Parker

Ketchup left overnight on dinner plates 
has a longer half-life than radioactive 
waste.
* Wes Smith

Biologically speaking, if something 
bites you it's more likely to be female.
* Desmond Morris

When I die I'm going to leave 
my body to science fiction.
* Steven Wright

Inanimate objects can be classified 
scientifically into three major categories; 
those that don't work, those that break 
down and those that get lost.
* Russell Baker

Descended from the apes? Let us hope 
that it is not true. But if it is, 
let us pray that it may not become 
generally known.
* F. A. Montagu

There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
* Mark Twain

I am an expert of electricity. My father 
occupied the chair of applied electricity 
at the state prison.
* W. C. Fields

You ask me if I keep a notebook to record 
my great ideas. I've only ever had one.
* Albert Einstein

Everything that can be invented 
has been invented.
* Charles Duell

Chaos Theory is a new theory invented by 
scientists panicked by the thought that 
the public were beginning to understand 
the old ones.
* Mike Barfield

The secret of creativity is knowing 
how to hide your sources.
* Albert Einstein

Computers are useless. They 
can only give you answers.
* Pablo Picasso

Computer dating is fine, 
if you're a computer.
* Rita May Brown

All sorts of computer errors are now 
turning up. You'd be surprised to know 
the number of doctors who claim they 
are treating pregnant men.
* Isaac Asimov

A winkle is just a bogey with 
a crash helmet on.
* Mick Miller

I went to a restaurant that serves 
"breakfast at any time". So I ordered 
French Toast during the Renaissance.
* Steven Wright

A gourmet who thinks of calories is 
like a tart who looks at her watch.
* James Beard

She looked as if she'd been poured 
into her clothes and had forgotten 
to say when.
* P. G. Wodehouse

Women are nothing but machines 
for producing children.
* Napolean Bonaparte

An archaeologist is best husband a 
woman can have: the older she gets, 
the more interested he is in her.
* Agatha Christie

The male is a domestic animal which, 
if treated with firmness and kindness, 
can be trained to do most things.
* Jilly Cooper

Computers make it easier to do a lot of 
things, but most of the things they make 
it easier to do don't need to be done.
* Andy Rooney

Computer Science is no more about computers 
than astronomy is about telescopes.
* E. W. Dijkstra

The great thing about a computer notebook 
is that no matter how much you stuff into 
it, it doesn't get bigger or heavier.
* Bill Gates

Not even computers will replace committees, 
because committees buy computers.
* Unknown

I do not fear computers. I fear 
the lack of them.
* Isaac Asimov

Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, 
except the things in the world that just don't 
add up.
* James Magary

In all large corporations, there is a 
pervasive fear that someone, somewhere 
is having fun with a computer on company 
time. Networks help alleviate that fear.
* John C. Dvorak

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded 
if you tied them the usual way. This happens 
to us all the time with computers, and nobody 
thinks of complaining.
* Jeff Raskin

If computers get too powerful, we can organize 
them into a committee - that will do them in.
* Bradley's Bromide

The most likely way for the world to be 
destroyed, most experts agree, is by 
accident. That's where we come in; we're 
computer professionals. We cause accidents.
* Nathaniel Borenstein

To err is human - and to blame 
it on a computer is even more so.
* Robert Orben

If the automobile had followed the same 
development cycle as the computer, a 
Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get 
a million miles per gallon, and explode 
once a year, killing everyone inside.
* Robert X. Cringely

If you put tomfoolery into a computer, 
nothing comes out of it but tomfoolery. 
But this tomfoolery, having passed through 
a very expensive machine, is somehow enobled 
and no-one dares criticize it.
* Pierre Gallois

My doctor gave me six months to live, but 
when I couldn't pay the bill he gave me six 
months more.
* Walter Matthau

Fiction writing is great. You can 
make up almost anything.
* Ivana Trump

My reputation grows with every failure.
* George Bernard Shaw

The difference between fiction and 
reality is that fiction has to make 
sense.
* Tom Clancy

I understand the importance of 
bondage between parent and child.
* Dan Quayle

Until I was thirteen I thought 
my name was "Shutup".
* Joe Namath

To err is human, but to really foul 
things up you need a computer.
* Paul Ehrlich

Marriage is the alliance of two people, one 
of whom never remembers birthdays and the 
other who never forgets them.
* Ogden Nash

The perfect computer has been developed. 
You just feed in your problems and they 
never come out again.
* Al Goodman

Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist 
should have his head examined.
* Samuel Goldwyn

No-one can feel as helpless as 
the owner of a sick goldfish.
* Kin Hubbard

First the doctor told me the good 
news: I was going to have a disease 
named after me.
* Steve Martin

A criminal is a person with predatory 
instincts who has not sufficient capital 
to form a corporation.
* Howard Scott

I'm spending a year dead for tax reasons.
* Douglas Adams

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they 
had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed but they 
produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the 
Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; 
they had five hundred years of democracy and peace 
and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.
* Orson Welles

Only one thing is impossible for God: 
To find any sense in any copyright 
law on the planet.
* Mark Twain

The definition of a consultant: Someone 
who borrows, your watch, tells you the time 
and then charges you for the privilege.
* Unknown

In the business world an executive knows 
something about everything, a technician 
knows everything about something and the 
switchboard operator knows everything.
* Harold Coffin

The first rule of business is: Do 
other men for they would do you.
* Charles Dickens

Few great men would have 
got past personnel.
* Paul Goodman

When I asked my accountant if anything 
could get me out of this mess I am in 
now he thought for a long time and said, 
"Yes, death would help".
* Robert Morley

If advertisers spent the same amount of 
money on improving their products as they 
do on advertising then they wouldn't have 
to advertise them.
* Will Rogers

To make a long story short, there's 
nothing like having a boss walk in.
* Doris Lilly

If it weren't for electricity we'd all 
be watching television by candlelight.
* George Gobol