Wit Quotes - Page 3

There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words."

[Interview, The Paris Review, Summer 1956]

A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.

Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat.

Ack!" I said.

Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me.

There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and
shallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said 'Faith is believing what you
know ain't so'.

Yeah you can have a word," said Harry savagely. "Good-bye.

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.

When men have come to the edge of a precipice, it is the lover of life who has the spirit to leap backwards, and only the pessimist who continues to believe in progress.

I'm so honest, that in order to compliment you, I'd improve you first.

If you change who you are to suit other people, you may end up dressed for the wrong occasion

One says the things which one feels the need to say, and which the other will not understand: one speaks for oneself alone.

A bunch of bad songs, make an awful whine.

I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.

Snobbery might sometimes look cool, like smoking, but the end result is usually a repelling one.

I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.

Art is art. You can take it or leave it. Liking it or not liking it does not make you a better person, and who you like or dislike results in the same thing.

Frame everything and some of it will become art.

He wasn't aware of it but when he smiled he looked like an amiable bear. When he didn't smile he didn't look amiable

... fantasy is not practice for what is real - fantasy is the opiate of women.