Product Description

What's the funniest thing you've ever heard? Who said it? Was is Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse (The Right Hon. was a tubby little chap who looked as if he had been poured into his clothes and had forgotten to say "When"!), Groucho Marx (A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running), Nancy Mitford (She said that all the sights of Rome were called after London cinemas), Lily Tomlin (Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain), Homer Simpson (To alcohol! The cause of - and solution to - all of life's problems!) or Joan Rivers (I don't exercise. If God wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor)? May be it was Noel Coward, Jack Dee, H.L. Mencken, Woody Allen or Rowan Atkinson? They are all here: over 5,500 quotations from the funniest people of the past hundred years. The quotations are grouped thematically, covering catgories from abstinence, bosses and honeymoons (Honeymoon - the morning after the knot before) to wealth, wine and Yugoslavia, via creativity, pets (Springfield Pet Shop: All Our Pets are Flushable) and swimming (They say that swimming is great exercise. Have you ever seen a whale?). The result is a book which will give the reader a line for any kind of speech or simply provide hours of pleasurable browsing. He who laughs, lasts - Mary Pettibone Poole.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1423156 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 373 pages

Review
'I often quote myself,' said Bernard Shaw, 'It adds spice to my conversation.' The joy of a dictionary of quotations as a bedside book is that the chapters are so short. The special joy of this one is that there's a smile in every line and a guffaw on almost every page. I've just come across the 'Unhelpful advice for foreign tourists in London: Women are not allowed upstairs on buses; if you see a woman there ask her politely to descend; try the famous echo in the British Museum Reading Room; on first entering an underground train, it is customary to shake hands with every passenger'. (Kirkus UK)

Customer Reviews

A GOOD ARGUMENTATIVE WEAPON
Alas! A good reason for you not to buy any of those joke books. Instead, acquire this wonderful recollection of funny phrases actually said or written........ Suggested to witty quotation fans, of course, but a must for those that don’t possess humor but do have a good memory !!!!! A compilation of hilarious phrases, edited by Fred Metcalf, that will not let you down, in any argument or discussion. Good to break the ice, superb to outwit your opponent, it is the perfect tool to keep at bay the drama, in heavy or intricate conversations. Talking to the pretentious literati or author, you can say: “A good writer is not, per se, a good critic. No more than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender...” If he replies: “Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves” then you can say: “I never read a book before reviewing it- it prejudices a man so....” and then add: “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book. I’ll waste no time in reading it...” (a review by Luciano Lupini)