Limerick Quotes

I think the first time I really heard poetry was in the schoolyard. Just the little limericks that kids say when they're jumping rope and playing games. I think that's the first time I heard rhyming words - I don't know if I'd call that the definitive poetry, but that's when I heard rhyming words said and not necessarily sung. ~ Jill Scott

Limericks don't come from Limerick. But it comes from that between the verses when they used to have those competitions that they would put in the refrain, "follow me up, follow me up, follow me up to Limerick Town." ~ Malachy McCourt

The only part of the evening I really enjoyed was when Lord Pomtinius told me a limerick about an adulterous abbot."
"Don't you dare repeat it!" her sister ordered. Georgiana had never shown the faintest wish to rebel against the rules of propriety. She loved and lived by them.
"There once was an adulterous abbot," Olivia teased, "as randy-"
Georgiana slapped her hands over her ears. "I can't believe he told you such a thing! Father would be furious if he knew."
"Lord Pomtinius was in his cups," Olivia said. "Besides, he's ninety-six and he doesn't care about decorum any longer. Just a laugh, now and then."
"It doesn't even make sense. An adulterous abbot? How can an abbot be adulterous? They don't even marry."
"Let me know if you want to hear the whole verse," Olivia said. "It ends with talk of nuns, so I believe the word was being used loosely. ~ Eloisa James

It was Edward Lear who created the original limerick, and is credited with A Book of Nonsense (1846). Apparently, he did this to amuse his clients' children while they were waiting for their parents' having portraits painted. Edward Lear was an artist first and a poet last. How strange then that we remember him mostly for limericks?
Since writing many of these little jocular verses, I have noticed a strange effect that keeps you reading: each time you read one limerick, you just cannot help reading the next, especially when they are nicely set out on a page. I am particularly proud of my lim-sagas, of which only two are contained in this book, but I consider them the best of my collection. ~ Bernie Morris

Seven Ages: first puking and mewling
Then very pissed-off with your schooling
Then fucks, and then fights
Next judging chaps' rights
Then sitting in slippers: then drooling. ~ Robert Conquest

Said Pinocchio's lover, midst sighs,
My puppet's technique takes the prize.
He gives me full measure
Through dishonest pleasure:
I sit on his face and he lies. ~ Jennifer Kaufman

JESUS & THE WEATHER

I don't think Jesus Who is Our Lord would have liked the weather in Limerick because it's always raining and the Shannon keeps the whole city damp. My father says the Shannon is a killer river because it killed my two brothers. When you look at pictures of Jesus He's always wandering around ancient Israel in a sheet. It never rains there and you never hear of anyone coughing or getting consumption or anything like that and no one has a job there because all they do is stand around and eat manna and shake their fists and go to crucifixions.

Anytime Jesus got hungry all He had to do was go up the road to a fig tree or an orange tree and have His fill. If He wanted a pint He could wave His hand over a big glass and there was the pint. Or He could visit Mary Magdalene and her sister, Martha, and they'd give Him His dinner no questions asked and He'd get his feet washed and dried with Mary Magdalene's hair while Martha washed the dishes, which I don't think is fair. Why should she have to wash the dishes while her sister sits out there chatting away with Our Lord? It's a good thing Jesus decided to be born Jewish in that warm place because if he was born in Limerick he'd catch the consumption and be dead in a month and there wouldn't be any Catholic Church and there wouldn't be any Communion or Confirmation and we wouldn't have to learn the catechism and write compositions about Him.

The End. ~ Frank McCourt

Had a cold hummus with pita bread,
Under a delicious food, yellow or red.
Might just have the appetite to cook
Urgent dinner by hook or crook.
So that's just a humus humor spread. ~ Ana Claudia Antunes

It's certainly hard to find fault with a work that quotes Shakespeare, Homer, and a dirty limerick about "the young man from Oswego. ~ Simon Sheppard

limerick?" asked ~ Lenore Look

Although life is hard in pace
Lose not thy calm and grace.
If thee are not tender
Vow not to surrender
Eternity lies right before thy face. ~ Ana Claudia Antunes

The God you imagine looks like Father Brennan, the man who baptized you: tall and Irish, with white hair and kind blue eyes, shooting a basketball in black vestments on the parish playground. The Virgin is one of the nuns who ran the adjoining schoolhouse: a spinster with a downy chin, her veil a habit. Old and sacred words, they taught you. You would not invent your own any more than you would try to build your own cathedral. Bead by bead, you whisper the same words Saint Peter spoke in Rome, the same words spoken today by all believers in São Paulo and Boston and Limerick and Cebu. ~ Mia Alvar

You are the only woman I want to spend my life with. This fact had dawned on me for quite some time now. Things might be fucked up for now. But I'll do everything to fix this chaos, so I can freely say it to you. Althea Denise Limerick, I want to marry you. ~ April Avery

Sean Connery, in Vyshny Volochyok
in the rain on a drizzly solo trek,
said, "forgetting my sweater
has made me much wetter.
I certainly do miss my polo-neck."
- Arthur Shappey, Limerick, Cabin Pressure ~ John David Finnemore

Lo!" I said. "I arrived at Camp Half-Blood as Lester Papadopoulos!"
"A pathetic mortal!" Calypso chorused. "Most worthless of teens!"
I glared at her, but I didn't dare stop my performance again. "I overcame many challenges with my companion, Meg McCaffrey!"
"He means his master!" Calypso added. "A twelve-year-old girl! Behold her pathetic slave, Lester, most worthless of teens!"
The policeman huffed impatiently. "We know all this. The emperor told us."
"Shh," said Nanette. "Be polite."
I put my hand over my heart. "We secured the Grove of Dodona, an ancient Oracle, and thwarted the plans of Nero! But, alas, Meg McCaffrey fled from me. Her evil stepfather had poisoned her mind!"
"Poison!" Calypso cried. "Like the breath of Lester Papadopoulos, most worthless of teens!"
I resisted the urge to push Calypso into the flower bed.
Meanwhile, Leo was making his way towards the bulldozer under the guise of an interpretive dance routine, spinning and gasping and pantomiming my words. He looked like a hallucinating ballerina in boxer shorts, but the blemmyae politely got out of his way.
"Lo!" I shouted. "From the Oracle of Dodona we received a prophecy - a limerick most terrible!"
"Terrible!" Calypso chorused. "Like the skills of Lester, most worthless of teens!"
"Vary your adjectives," I grumbled, then continued for my audience: "We travelled west in search of another Oracle, along the way fighting many fearsome foes! The Cyc ~ Rick Riordan

A dozen more questions occurred to me. Not to mention twenty-two possible solutions to each one, sixteen resulting hypotheses and counter-theorems, eight abstract speculations, a quadrilateral equation, two axioms, and a limerick. That's raw intelligence for you. ~ Jonathan Stroud

I'm on the university board in Limerick, so I visit the city often. ~ Terry Wogan

I think the language as spoken in Limerick and Cork has not really been written; 'City of Bohane' is a combination of the two. Bohane is a little kingdom. When I began writing it, I realised that it was in the future and that it was a place that didn't care about anything that happened outside it. ~ Kevin Barry

If Jonah had gone to Yale,
Instead of the gut of a whale,
He'd have a diploma,
A better aroma,
And a nice little condo in Vail. ~ M.J. McGuire

Ah, yeah. Yeah, tis awful all right. Well, your Mam wanted me to talk to you about it, but…'
He stopped; he didn't know what else to say.
'Yeah? Ah, I know the score, Dad. She wants me to be careful, is it?'
'Ah, no. Well, yeah; there's that, of course. No, she wanted… well, if you'd any questions, you
know?' I wasn't sure if he wanted me to say yes, or if he just wanted me to say no, and save him
having to be awkward. He looked lost. I felt like I wanted to save him
'No, I've no questions, Dad. It's all right, shur.' He looked at me then. His eyes went wet, like
he was going to start bawling. If we were in a film, he might have hugged me. But we were in
Limerick, so he just said:
'Well, so,' and put his one glove back on.

From The Boys of Summer ~ Ciarán West

In my very early days as a journalist, as a cub reporter on a local newspaper, I used to cover the district courthouse in Limerick city - all human life passed through that establishment, and my time there remains a source of inspiration. ~ Kevin Barry

I was a cub reporter on a local newspaper in Limerick city, and I used to cover the district court meetings. All of life passed through the Limerick courthouse. Misery, malevolence, the dark side of humanity ... I tell ya, it made 'Angela's Ashes' look like 'The Wonderful World of Disney.' ~ Kevin Barry

On various occasions, especially in trying to think of western American history in the context of the worldwide history of colonialism, it has struck me that much of the mental behavior that we sometimes denounce as ethnocentrism and cultural insensitivity actually derives less from our indifference or hostility than from our clumsiness and awkwardness when we leave the comfort of the English language behind ... [V]enturing outside the bounds of the English language exercises and stretches our minds in ways that are essential for getting as close as we can to the act of seeing the world from what would otherwise remain unfamiliar and alien perspectives. ~ Patricia Nelson Limerick

He knows how it is to leave Ireland, did it himself and never got over it. You live in Los Angeles with sun and palm trees day in day out and you ask God if there's any chance He could give you one soft rainy Limerick day ~ Frank McCourt

There were a few people who got jobs in Limerick, a big barrel on wheels, and it was a barrel that went back and forth, and a shovel and a broom. So, they went around shoveling the horseshit into this barrel. So, you got that job when you were around 15, and then you got to retire at the age of 65, with a pension. A small pension. So that would be 50 years of shoveling horseshit. And I was advised very seriously that I should get that job. ~ Malachy McCourt

I'm learning. The mick from the lanes of Limerick letting the envy hang out. I'm dealing with first-and second-generation immigrants, like myself, but I've also got the middle classes and the upper middle classes and I'm sneering. I don't want to sneer but old habits die hard. It's the resentment. Not even anger. Just resentment. I shake my head over the things that concern them, that middle-class stuff, it's too hot, it's too cold and this is not the toothpaste I like. Here am I after three decades in America still happy to be able to turn on the electric light or reach for a towel after the shower. ~ Frank McCourt

There once was a man from Des Moines
Whose wife was always annoyed
He stepped in the kitchen
She started her bitchin'
Now that fucking cunt is dead. ~ Frances Winkler

There once was a girl of the sea, who refused to see who she could be. The strength of a world in the hands of a girl, consumed by the curse of the three. ~ Kimberly Spencer

Latin is a dead tongue
And Romans made songs!
Then no one disagree:
It delighted them in theory
Now it's "the Latin" in me. ~ Ana Claudia Antunes

There was a young lady called Peaches,
who simply loved animals to pieces.
She ate pigs and sheep,
and for cows she would weep,
when baked in a sauce of rich greases. ~ Mango Wodzak

I'm in New York, land of the free and home of the brave, but I'm supposed to behave as if I were in Limerick at all times. ~ Frank McCourt

Since this war began our sympathy has gone out to all the suffering people who have been dragged into it. Further hundreds of millions have become involved since I spoke at Limerick fortnight ago. ~ Eamon De Valera

Fat Charlie blew his nose. "I never knew I had a brother," he said.
"I did," said Spider. "I always meant to look you up, but I got distracted. You know how it is."
"Not really."
"Things came up."
"What kind of things?"
"Things. They came up. That's what things do. They come up. I can't be expected to keep track of them all."
"Well, give me a f'rinstance."
Spider drank more wine. "Okay. The last time I decided that you and I should meet, I, well, I spent days planning it. Wanted it to go perfectly. I had to choose my wardrobe. Then I had to decide what I'd say to you when we met. I knew that the meeting of two brothers, well, it's the subject of epics, isn't it? I decided that the only way to treat it with the appropriate gravity would be to do it in verse. But what kind of verse? Am I going to rap it? Declaim it? I mean, I'm not going to greet you with a limerick. So. It had to be something dark, something powerful, rhythmic, epic. And then I had it. The perfect line: Blood calls to blood like sirens in the night. It says so much. I knew I'd be able to get everything in there - people dying in alleys, sweat and nightmares, the power of free spirits uncrushable. Everything was going to be there. And then I had to come up with a second line, and the whole thing completely fell apart. The best I could come up with was Tum-tumpty-tumpty-tumpty got a fright."
Fat Charlie blinked. "Who exactly is Tum-tumpty-tumpty-tumpty?"
"It's not any ~ Neil Gaiman

All right, here's a limerick: A young martial artist called Dave Was fearless and handsome and brave He saved me from thugs When I nearly got mugged So now I'm forever Dave's slave." There was a short silence. I cringed. "Um, sorry. Came out a bit gay, that one." Bugger, bugger, bugger. ~ J.L. Merrow

In the early nineties, I was a cub reporter on a city newspaper in Limerick, and assigned to the courthouse there. One day, an old detective sergeant came and whispered to me in the press pit. He pointed out a young offender, a teenager who was up for stealing a car or something relatively minor, and said, 'See this kid? He'll kill.' ~ Kevin Barry

It pains me to see how modern society has totally corrupted the limerick and given it the reputation of lewdness which, in turn, has morally barred our children from even taking a peek into this wonderful form of fun and rhythm. I think Edward Lear would turn in his grave if he knew that.
I have therefore decided to reinvent the limerick as it was originally intended: to poke fun, irreverence, just plain daftness, or erroneous behaviour. ~ Bernie Morris

Caves of blue.
Strike the hue.
Westward, burning.
Pages turning.
Indiana.
Ripe banana.
Happiness approaches.
Serpents and roaches.
There once was a god named Apollo
Who plunged in a cave blue and hollow
Upon a three-seater
The bronze fire-eater
Was forced death and madness to swallow ~ Rick Riordan

In Limerick, a family that was dysfunctional was one who could afford to drink but didn't. ~ Malachy McCourt

Go walk barefoot on the grass
Really flow, just let it pass...
And dance in the wind,
So do it in your mind,
Such glory it is that the spirit lasts! ~ Ana Claudia Antunes