Most of the following are from the Guiness Dictionary of Yet More Poisonous Quotes, compiled by Colin Jarman. It's a must-read for anyone seeking sophisticated humor. Anyone who at this point wishes to question my level of sophistication is advised to seek mental guidance.
"They finally found one." --- Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards on himself, after a brain scan.
Q: What's the difference between Madonna and a Rottweiler?
A: Lipstick.
Tell me the story of that frock Judy. It's obviously an old favorite. You were wise to remove the curtain rings. --- Edna Everage.
Good career move. --- Gore Vidal on hearing on the death of Truman Capote.
I bet your father spent the first year of your life throwing stones at the stork. --- Groucho Marx
You have the brains of a four-year old child and I bet he was glad to get rid of it. --- Groucho Marx
... Esther Rantzen's teeth (formerly the property of Arkle the race-horse). --- Victor Lewis-Smith
With his womanly voice, stark white skin and Medusa hair, his gash of red lipstick, heavy eyeliner, almost non-existent nose and lopsided face, Jackson was making this appearance in order to scotch all rumours that he is not quite normal. --- Craig Brown in the Sunday Times on the 1993 interview of Michael Jackson by Oprah Winfrey.
What problems do you have, apart from being unemployed, a moron and a dork? --- John McEnroe to a tennis spectator
Labour MP: Must you fall asleep while I'm speaking?
Winston Churchill: No, it is purely voluntary.
"Oh if I could piss the way he speaks!" Georges Clemenceau on Lloyd George.
A trade unionist is someone who hates his job and is afraid someone will take it from him. --- Richard Needham.
Jimmy Carter couldn't even hold his own attention.
I know for a fact that Mr Reagan is not clear about the difference between the Medici and the Gucci. He knows that Nancy wears one. --- Gore Vidal
I am not offended at all, because I know I am not a dumb blonde. I also know I'm not a blonde. --- Dolly Parton [so Dolly, the only reason that you're not a dumb blonde is that you're not blonde?]
She says I called her a whore. I probably would have, but I didn't have time. -- Maria Osmena, on being slashed by broken glass by Dewi Sukarno, Indonesia's First Lady.
The Metropolitan Police Force is abbreviated to Met to give more members a chance of spelling it. --- Mike Barfield.
There are three types of intelligence. The intelligence of man, the intelligence of animals and the intelligence of the military. In that order. --- Gottfried Reinhardt
Sandra Harris: Have English class barriers broken down?
Barbara Cartland: Of course they have, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here talking to someone like you.
Denise Robbins: I've just written my 87th book.
Barbara C: I've written 145.
DR: Oh I see, one a year.
Who among us has not gazed thoughtfully and patiently at a painting of Jackson Pollock and thought "What a piece of crap?" -- Rob Long
The only proof of taste Beckford has shown with his collection is getting rid of it. --- William Hazlitt on the donation of the William Beckford art collection to a museum:
It's great to be with Bill Buckley because you don't have to think. He takes a positino and you automatically take the opposite and you know you are right. -- J.K.Galbraith on the editor of New Republic.
Mocking Hugh Hefner is easy to do, and in my mind should be made easier. --- Clive James
She resembles the Venus de Milo: she is very old, has no teeth and has white spots on her yellow skin. --- Heinrich Heine
The signs of the Vietnam War protestors said "Make Love not War!" It didn't seem to me that they were capable of either. --- Ronald Reagan.
The Pentagon has five sides on every issue. --- anon Russian.
The idea of Prince Charles conversing with vegetables is not quite so amusing when you remember that he's had plenty of practice chatting to members of his own family. -- Jaci Stephens
I think she's come to London to get a pair of pliers to get the splinters from her husbands' backside, he's sat on the fence so long. --- Terry Dicks on Jordan's King Hussein's wife Queen Noor visit to London soon after the Gulf War.
I'm free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally. --- W.C.Fields
If you're not a rogue you should take a libel action against your face.
Pity the sword didn't slip and hack that S.O.B.'s jugular. --- on Sir Freddy Laker's knighthood.
To know him was to like him. Not to know him was to love him. -- Bert Kalmar
You make Al Capone look like a petty shoplifter. --- Cynthia Israel to Ralph Halpern, CEO of the Burton Group
His computers take twice the gestation period of an elephant to load up... he has the looks and charm of a warthog long since ostracised by polite warthog society... --- on Alan Sugar, Chairman of Amstrad Computer Co.
If you live in Birmingham, then being awake is not necessarily a desirable state. --- Tony Wilson
It is not necessary to have relatives in Kansas City to be unhappy -- Groucho Marx
I asked the Scottish Football Association if San Marino was a republic or a principality. They said it was a technicality. --- Roddy Forsythe, BBC Radio, 1991.
He's the only guy I know whom Dale Carnegie would hit in the mouth --- Bill Veeck
He doesn't know the meaning of the word 'fear'. Of course, there are lots of words he doesn't know the meaning of. --- Sid Gilman
He's as big as a gorilla and as strong as a gorilla. If he was as smart as a gorilla he'd be fine. --- Sam Bailey
He looks like King Edward --- the potato, not the monarch. --- on Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye.
No self-respecting fish would want to be wrapped in a [Rupert] Murdoch newspaper... --- George Royko.
Like her Hambro namesake, Cindy Crawford seems so plastic and perfect [what about that stupid mole?] I had this insatiable urge to pull down her trousers to see if she had any reproductive organs. --- Nicola Davidson.
Concerning no subject would [George Bernard] Shaw be deterred by the minor accident of total ignorance from penning a definitive opinion. -- Roger Scruton
If she was cast as Lady Godiva the horse would steal the show.
Bette [Davis] and I are good friends. There's nothing I wouldn't say to her face - both of them. --- Tallulah Bankhead
You'd be a overweight neurotic fighter too if your name was Shirley Crabtree. --- on the British wrestler Big Daddy.
John Hurt looks like Joan of Arc, after she's burnt at stake.
She did not so much cook food as assasinate food --- Storm Jameson
If you said 'irony' to Clay, he'd look down at his shirt and think it needed pressing. --- Denis Leary on Andrew Dice Clay.
If you are one of Bono's brain cells, you'll be lonely. -- Tom Mekons
Noel Edmonds looks just the sort of person to chip in "You can tell it's only ketchup" halfway through a horror movie. --- Craig Brown.
Bob Geldof is a loss to the road-sweeping profession, as well as actually looking like something swept up. --- Jilly Parkin
Mike Smith --- living proof of the need for ejector seats in helicopters. --- Victor Lewis-Smith
Barbara Walters is said to sleep standing so that the silicone won't move. --- Taki
Gerald Kaufmann had a bald head, wore tinted glasses and looked remarkably like Kermit the Frog... --- Gordon Greig
They are big in Canada, which sums them up really. --- David Stubbs on a pop group.
"How do we hate thee David? Let us count the ways." --- same magazine, on same person.
He hasn't just lost the plot, he's lost the whole f***ing library! --- still the same magazine [I ought to start subscribing]] on Michael Jackson's 1992 Wembley Stadium concert.
Anyone might become homosexual after seeing Glenda Jackson naked. --- Auberon (W)augh
She would go to the opening of an envelope. -- on Sylvia Miles
I am full of the milk of human kindness, damn it. My trouble is that it gets clotted so easily." -- Gilbert Harding
"I'm not as nice as all that. .. in fact I swore only last week." -- Gary Lineker. [Gary I wouldn't employ you as my lawyer if I was trying to avoid a 20p fine.]
Michael Jackson looks like a Barbie doll that has been whittled at by a malicious brother.
The essence of humour is surprise; that is why you laugh when you see a joke in Punch. --- A.P.Herbert on the now dead satirical gazette which was the epitome of British punchlines in the days of Tenniel.
The Sun has the class of a polyester shirt and the soul of a Colombian hit-man. --- Washington Post, 1989.
Elizabeth Taylor's so fat, she puts mayonnaise on an aspirin --- Joan Rivers
I'm writing Kylie Minogue's biography. It's called Superstar -- Jesus Christ! --- Barry Cryer
"I want to do it till my belly rumbles" mumbles the lead nerd of East 17. I guess that passes for romance in Walthamstow. --- Dave Jennings
The want to play the blues so badly and that's how they play it --- badly! --- Sonny Boy Williamson
I had no idea Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much as this. --- Ernest Newman on Igor's "Symphony of Wind instruments" in memory of Debussy.
Schoenberg states: "I write what I feel in my heart." If this is really so, we can only assume that that from 1908 or so he has been suffering from some unclassifiable and particularly virulent form of cardiac disease.
His face shining like Moses, his teeth like the ten commandments -- all broken. -- Sir Harry B. Tree
Her face is not likely to turn on many voters. Except perhaps those who are members of the British Horse Society. -- John Junor.
One of those bands who make you want to stamp your feet ... all over them.
May your soul rest in eternal piss.
You're slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through chunky peanut butter.
He's more boring than a pneumatic drill.