Humorist Extraordinaire Quotes

Does your mind feel more and more like teflon? Nothing sticks to it? ~ Lily Tomlin

It's been what – eleven years?" he says, his voice quieter now.

"Twelve." I swallow.

"Twelve. Christ, yeah, right." He runs his hand through his hair. "You look different ... but the same – you know," he shrugs.

"I know," I smile. "You look different too." I gesture to the tattoos on his arms.

He grins down at them, then back at me.

"But still the same." I point my finger to the freckles on his nose.

Surprised by how much my fingers are itching to touch him, I draw my hand back.

He rubs his hand over his nose. "Yeah, no getting rid of them."

"I always liked them."

"Yeah, but you liked the Care Bears, Tru."

I flush. I can't believe he remembers that.

It's crazy that he, Jake Wethers, rock god extraordinaire, remembers that I liked the Care Bears when I was little. ~ Samantha Towle

I've never made up events, but I've always been a big exaggerator. It's written on my humorist license that I'm allowed to do that. ~ David Sedaris

- You gave me a dead frog for my birthday!
- To remind you we all die and end up rotting underground eaten by maggots so we should enjoy our birthdays while we have them. I found it thoughtful. ~ Soman Chainani

Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers. ~ Leo Rosten

Whenever I'm with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines. ~ Amy Tan

To quote a noted Jewish humorist, Sholom Aleichem: "First comes health. You can always hang yourself later." As ~ Bel Kaufman

How am I going to explain to my kids one day that I can't buy them a happy meal because the toy will make them fat? ~ Carroll Bryant

Some settlers began with no implements but an ax. In conversation, the subject of axes
their ideal weight, their proper helves
was more popular than politics or religion. A man who made good axes, who knew the secrets of tempering the steel and getting the center of gravity right, received the celebrity of an artist and might act accordingly. The best ax maker in southern Indiana was "a dissolute, drunken genius, named Richardson." Men who really knew how to chop became famous, too. An ax blow requires the same timing of weight shift and wrist action as a golf swing, and as in golf those who where good at it taught others; sometimes all the men in one district learned their stroke from the same axman extraordinaire. A good stroke had a "sweetness" similar to the sound of a well-struck golf or tennis ball, and gave a satisfaction which moved the work along. ~ Ian Frazier

The difficulty with humorists is that they will mix what they believe with what they don't - whichever seems likelier to win an effect. ~ John Updike

If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be
a Christian. Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist ~ George Washington

To paraphrase the great humorist, Will Rogers . . . "We're all ignorant, but only on different subjects". ~ Wilson Casey

Wisdom of the Ages: "Government" Like a mafia protection racket-without the protection. ~ Matthew Heines

Behind every humorist who delights in knifing hypocrites is a major self-critic. ~ Wendy Aron

The key, I would say to any fledgling humorist starting out, is to make sure that sloppiness is part of your recipe. That way they come to expect fumbling and clumsiness and they say, "Oh, it must be a charming part of his personality." ~ Nick Offerman

I am billed as a humorist, but of course I am a tragedian at heart. ~ Will Cuppy

I was a lazy reader as a kid. One nutrition label on a box of Cap'n Crunch and I'd have to take a nap. ~ M.J. McGuire

Humor is an absurd answer to a reasonable question. ~ Mark Bell

But pure wit is akin to Puritanism; to the perfect and painful consciousness of the final fact in the universe. Very briefly, the man who sees the consistency in things is a wit - and a Calvinist. The man who sees the inconsistency in things is a humorist - and a Catholic. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton

The sums acquired by the administrators of this domaine extraordinaire in the period of France's zenith were quite remarkable and in some ways foreshadow Nazi Germany's plunder of its satellites and conquered foes during the Second World War. ~ Paul Kennedy

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people – that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature. ~ James Thurber

I learned as a young man that I don't write jokes, but that I can deliver more mundane material and get a laugh. I call myself a humorist. ~ Nick Offerman

The humorist who invented trial by jury played a colossal practical joke upon the world, but since we have the system we ought to try and respect it. A thing which is not thoroughly easy to do, when we reflect that by command of the law a criminal juror must be an intellectual vacuum, attached to a melting heart and perfectly macaronian bowels of compassion. ~ Mark Twain

I love him fuckin' fierce, but he's an idiot extraordinaire. ~ C.M. Stunich

Since much of American taxes prior to 1763 went to support the local clergy, one humorist suggested the opportunity to vote on that. If the minister was turned out, he could open a tavern and preach to his customers if he served them liquor. ~ Colin G. Calloway

How will I be remembered? As a technician or artist? As a humorist or a visionary? ~ Norman Rockwell

Sahl was never a great comic. His nervous, jabbing, keep-them-off-balance delivery was the strategy of a man who was not comfortable in front of an audience. His creative method -- a rapid scanning of the day's output of newspapers, magazines, and radio broadcasts -- was a recipe for superficiality or, at best, the kind of quick, shallow laugh triggered by a topical allusion. Sahl was always devoid of the two basic ingredients of great humor: imagination and soul. He could make fun of the latest Hollywood movies. He could stab at the pieties of his own class. He could take an abrupt insight into politics or wold events and phrase it neatly into a gag. What he could never do was suggest a world of living, breathing people behaving in ridiculous yet recognizably human patterns. ~ Albert Goldman

This is the funniest book I've ever held in my hands.
Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize winning humorist and author says about Radical Sabbatical ~ Dave Barry

The fool has said in his heart: pass me another Everlasting God-Stopper, please. ~ M.J. McGuire

Jenny Chen Is An Ordinary Girl. Or Else That's What Everyone Thinks. Yes, Jenny Is A Drug Dealer And Slave Trader. She Likes To Act Innocent, Always Smiling, Even When Xin Yu Gong Whacks Her Like There's No Tomorrow. That Is All A Ruse To Hide Her Secretly Evil Disposition. She Is Powerful, Holding All The Chains To Expose Government Corruption. Heck, She Even Ordered Every Letter To Be Written As A Capital For Every New Word. Her Word Is Law. She Is Supreme, Compared To Us Peasants. She Is Jenny Whenny Chen, Drug Dealer Extraordinaire And Slave Trader of The Zong Ship. ~ E.G. Taylor

You have told yourself that you have found your knight in shining armor, my brother Rick. Isn't that the truth? You met him and he fit the bill, so you have told yourself a wonderful story and, stubborn brat that you are, you have been clinging to it ever since. After all, what could be more appropriate than for Francesca Cahill, reformer extraordinaire, to fall in love with my reform-minded Republican brother? But wait! Being as this is a love story, there has to be an unhappy middle and the perfect hero isn't quite so perfect after all. For he is married. Oh, wait! It isn't that bad, after all, for as it turns out he is a man of virtue, and he really loves you, while he despises his wife! And did I forget to mention that she is vile and evil? So the story can limp along, and true love might survive after all! Does this sound at all familiar, Francesca?"
"I almost hate you," she whispered. And she felt a tear sliding down her cheek. ~ Brenda Joyce

Perhaps the Hungarian humorist Ferencz Karinthy captures the spirit of the situation best in a tableau about a bored businessman who amuses himself by looking through high-powered binoculars from his office high in a skyscraper into neighbouring office rooms. On one occasion he spies a middle-aged executive chasing a comely secretary around his desk. As it happens the observers knows the building in which this drama is taking place and can even make out the name of the occupant from the plaque on his desk. He consults the telephone directory and gives the culprit, who is still trying to force his attentions on the secretary, a ring. When the culprit answers the telephone the observer announces himself as God Almighty and tells him to stop molesting the young woman in his employ. The culprit, thunderstruck and unable to account fo the observer's exact knowledge of what has been going on, fall son his knees in a paroxysm of fear and wonder and begs forgiveness. The observer roundly berates the culprit who swears he will do anything to make amends and promises never to sin again. Hereupon the observer informs the culprit that he can indeed make amends by lending him 100 pengo [dollars]. The answer, of course is a burst of profanity and the abrupt termination of the call. Karinthy then draws his moral: if you want to play God don't try to borrow money... ~ George Bailey

Bungee jumping is like suicide with strings attached. ~ M.J. McGuire

I saw that Roy was not inclined to be amused. I was not annoyed, for I am quite used to people not being amused at my jokes. I often think that the purest type of the artist is the humorist who laughs alone at his own jests. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I think that you are only obliged to be a humorist from the age of 18 until you turn 30. Past the age of 30 I don't think there is any obligation to be clever at all. ~ Garrison Keillor

The 'absurdities' of life can either turn you into a 'philosopher' or a 'humorist'..
Both 'opposing' poles of the same scale, a matter of understanding..
Ideal, if we can slide down the scale this way and that...
Read somewhere..Philosophers get heard, Humorists get paid..:-) ~ Abha Maryada Banerjee

PANTALOONS, n. A nether habiliment of the adult civilized male. The garment is tubular and unprovided with hinges at the points of flexion. Supposed to have been invented by a humorist. Called trousers by the enlightened and pants by the unworthy. ~ Ambrose Bierce

Mark Hensley Jr. And Flore Barbu refuse to watch These Charming Men, a seemingly odd decision when you consider they each paid thirty dollars to attend a convention where that band was performing twice. These are the prototypical "weird white kids": Hensley appears to be auditioning for Bud Cort's role in a remake of Harold and Maude, and Barbu seems like the kind of woman who thinks Sylvia Plath was an underrated humorist. Both are wearing neckties for no apparent reason. These are the people you remember as being Smiths fans. And heaven knows they're miserable now. ~ Chuck Klosterman

Anytime you open a business, you have to be effective in promoting whether it's a franchise or not. You'll need to learn to be a Web marketer extraordinaire. There's plenty of material out there. ~ Dave Ramsey

Lee was not just a Bad Boy, a Badass or a Badass Extraordinaire. He was a fucking crazy man. ~ Kristen Ashley

The American humorist sat on his couch suffering thoughts of her, trying to figure out how to win back her affections, wondering what had happened between them or just tumbling head-over-heels down into romantic oblivion where the image of a remembered kiss provokes bottomless despair and makes death seem like the right idea.
He experienced the basics of love ended. ~ Richard Brautigan

When a humorist ventures upon the grave concerns of life he must do his job better than another man or he works harm to his cause. ~ Mark Twain

They were not in the least deterred when a celebrated Washington humorist claimed that his calculations proved that the world ended on December 31, 1999 - but that everyone had had too much of a hangover to notice. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

First, I was an idealist (that was early - fools are born, not made, you know); next I was a realist; now I am a pessimist, and, by Jove! if things get much worse I'll become a humorist. ~ Ellen Glasgow

Like most seasoned phonies, I roundly suspect that everyone is as disingenuous as I am. ~ David Sedaris

I'm quite the humorist, for a woman who hires killers. ~ Joe Abercrombie

Few authors have captivated the American penchant for curiosity like Samuel Longhorne Clemens. Many have called his cantankerous alter ego, Mark Twain, the greatest American humorist-philosopher of his age-if not of all times. With his wry observations and forthright humor-unleashed in his particularly pithy paragraphs-Mark Twain became one of the most prolific satirists in American literature.
The New York Times editorial, reporting of his death on April 22, 1910, said. " He has been quoted in common conversation oftener, perhaps, than any of his fellow-countrymen, including Benjamin Franklin and Lincoln.
In 1909, Mark Twain is quoted as saying, " I came in with Haley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Haley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."
His prediction was accurate-Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, one day after the comet's closest approach to earth.
In Mark Twain's Guide to Audacious Sarcasm-volume 1,
Lowell Smith has assembled twenty of the classic cantankerous tales and wry observations of Mark Twain's celestial career. ~ Lowell Smith

Oh, hello, me lovely, we haven't met. Asmodeus, demon extraordinaire, at your service. Any service you may require, especially those that involve nudity and adjoining body parts joining other people's body parts. (Asmodeus) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

And as Craig Brown - he's an English humorist, not a comedian but he's just a writer and humorist - I'm quite a fan of. I heard him talking in a rather similar way on the radio. He said I'm the sort of person - I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was rather interesting - he said I'm the sort of person that can be reduced to tears in an empty church and feel like I'm the CEO of the Devil's organization in a full one, and I tend to feel like that as well. I love empty churches and going into them looking around, but I'm not a churchgoer at all. ~ Nick Lowe