"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer"
— Douglas Adams

"Wit beyond measure is a man's greatest treasure."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

"Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit."
— Oscar Wilde

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

"I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else."
— G.K. Chesterton

"Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves."
— Abraham Lincoln

"I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it."
— Flannery O'Connor

"The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork."
— Oscar Wilde

"There are two ways to dislike poetry: One is to dislike it; the other is to read Pope."
— Oscar Wilde

"He drew a circle that shut me out-
Heretic , rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In !

From the poem " Outwitted ""
— Edwin Markham

""Do you like to slide?" His voice was eage.
Stair rails! Did he suspect me? I forced a sigh. "No, Majesty. I'm terrrified of heights."
"Oh." His poite tone had returned.
....
"I wish I could enjoy it. This fear of heights is an affliction."
He nodded, a show of sympathy but not much interest. I was losing him.
"Especially," I added, "as I've grown taller.""
— Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted)

"" You sounded like Dolly parton on helium."
(After kristy lee cook of season 7 on american idol,sang her country rendition of the Beatles'"Eight Days A Week.) "
— Simon Cowell

"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober."
— G.K. Chesterton (The Wisdom of Father Brown)

"A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it."
— Mark Twain

""It was like orderin a hamburger and getting only the buns"
(After Brooke White of season 7 on american idol sang the song 'Hero'
by Mariah Carey""
— Simon Cowell

"Writing a book is like sliding down a rainbow! Marketing it is like trudging through a field of chewed bubblegum on a hot, sticky day."
— Betty Dravis

"The small amount of foolery wise men have makes a great show."
— William Shakespeare

"Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable."
— Oscar Wilde (The Critic as Artist)

"The flesh is sad, alas, and I have read all the books."
— Stéphane Mallarmé

"Life is not easy. We all have problems-even tragedies-to deal with, and luck has nothing to do with it. Bad luck is only the superstitious excuse for those who don't have the wit to deal with the problems of life. "
— Joan Lowery Nixon (In The Face of Danger)

"One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion."
— Thomas Paine

"Wit is well-bred insolence."
— Aristotle

"To have a viable civilization, people have to have a benign government, a semblance of education, spare time, imagination, and manners"
— Jonathan Chamberlain Williams

"In less than a year, the Bush administration will strut out of office, leaving the country in roughly the same condition a toddler leaves a diaper."
— Graydon Carter

"Adolescence is usually typified by an unanswerable combination of innocence and insolence."
— Alice Thomas Ellis

"Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say:
'Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'.'"
— Chip Kidd (The Learners: A Novel)

"I spent the last Friday of summer vacation spreading hot, sticky tar across the roof of George Washington High. My companions were Dopey, Toothless, and Joe, the brain surgeons in charge of building maintenance. At least they were getting paid. I was working forty feet above the ground, breathing in sulfur fumes from Satan's vomitorium, for free.

Character building, my father said.

Mandatory community service, the judge said. Court-ordered restitution for the Foul Deed. He nailed me with the bill for the damage I had done, which meant I had to sell my car and bust my hump at a landscaping company all summer. Oh, and he gave me six months of meetings with a probation officer who thought I was a waste of human flesh.

Still, it was better than jail.

I pushed the mop back and forth, trying to coat the seams evenly. We didn't want any rain getting into the building and destroying the classrooms. Didn't want to hurt the school. No, sir, we sure didn't."
— Laurie Halse Anderson (Twisted)

"Being born in a stable does not make one a horse."
— Arthur Wellesley Wellington

"She would walk through the kitchen at any hour, whenever she was hungry, and put her fork in the pots and eat a little of everything without placing anything on a plate, standing in front of the stove, talking to the serving women, who were the only ones with whom she felt comfortable, the ones she got along with best."
— Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)

"This was a lucky recollection-it saved her from something like regret."
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

"I've been so thoroughly incorporated into the California culture that I practice meditation and go to a therapist, even though I always set a trap: during my meditation I invent stories to keep from being bored, and in therapy I invent stories to keep from boring the psychologist."
— Isabel Allende (Mi Pais Inventado: Un Paseo Nostalgico por Chile)

"After dinner, at five o’clock, the crew distributed folding canvas cots to the passengers, and each person opened his bed wherever he could find room, arranged it with the bedclothes from his petate, and set the mosquito netting over that. Those with hammocks hung them in the salon, and those who had nothing slept on the tablecloths that were not changed more than twice during the trip."
— Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)

"Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things that differ and the difference of things that are alike."
— Germaine De Stael

""Something is only odd because it is not normal. If odd things were normal, than wouldn't normal things become odd?""
— Unknown, Poet