Tag Archives: humor

Write It Right: Democracy for Democratic Party

Posted on April 4, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Democracy for Democratic Party. One could as properly call the Christian Church ‘the Christianity.’”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Nancy Mitford on Aristocracy

Posted on March 28, 2025 | Leave a comment

“An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.”

Nancy Mitford

Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.

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Rebecca West on Anthologies

Posted on March 21, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Anthologies are mischievous things. Some years ago there was a rage for chemically predigested food, which was only suppressed when doctors pointed out that since human beings had been given teeth and digestive organs they had to be used or they degenerated very rapidly. Anthologies are predigested food for the brain.”

Rebecca West

Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.

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Miss Manners on Political Demonstrations

Posted on March 14, 2025 | Leave a comment

“The first obligation of the demonstrator is to be legible. Miss Manners cannot sympathize with a cause whose signs she cannot make out even with her glasses on.”

Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.

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Dorothy Parker Schools a Young Playwright

Posted on March 7, 2025 | Leave a comment

“A young playwright, who Mrs. Parker felt had been copying her themes, described his most recent to play to her as follows: ‘It’s hard to say—except that it’s a play against all isms.’

Mrs. Parker added, ‘Except plagiarism.’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Dick Gregory on Perspective

Posted on February 7, 2025 | Leave a comment

“You gotta say this for the white race—its self-confidence knows no bounds. Who else would go to a small island in the South Pacific where there’s no poverty, no crime, no unemployment, no war and no worry—and call it a ‘primitive society.’”

Dick Gregory

Excerpted from: Sherrin, Ned, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996.

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Write It Right: Deprivation for Privation

Posted on January 31, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Deprivation for Privation. ‘The mendicant showed the effects of deprivation.’ Deprivation refers to the act of depriving, taking away from; privation is the state of destitution, of not having.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Laurence Peter on Bureaucracy

Posted on January 24, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.”

Laurence J. Peter

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Harlan Ellison on Childhood

Posted on January 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Nobody gets out of childhood alive.”

Harlan Ellison

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Applause

Posted on January 17, 2025 | Leave a comment

“Applause, n. The echo of a platitude.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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