Humor e Ironia

[ When asked about the most beautiful words in the English language :] The ones I like . . . are “cheque” and “inclosed.”

That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can’t say No in any of them.

[ Her suggested epitaph for herself :] Excuse My Dust.

[ Of Ernest Hemingway :] He has a capacity for enjoyment so vast that he gives away great chunks to those about him, and never even misses them. . . . He can take you to a bicycle race and make it raise your hair.

It may be that this autobiography [Aimee Semple McPherson’s] is set down in sincerity, frankness, and simple effort. It may be, too, that the Statue of Liberty is situated in Lake Ontario.

[ Reviewing A. A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner in her “Constant Reader” column :] Tonstant Weader Fwowed up.

Salary is no object; I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.

Take me or leave me; or, as is the usual order of things, both.

For my own part I don’t object to old jokes—indeed, I reverence them. When sea-sickness and adultery have ceased to be funny, western civilization will have ceased to exist.

Never mind the bottle, as long as it gets you drunk.

I like to enjoy myself, but rest assured that I can be as serious as anyone else can.

Il faut manger pour vivre et non pas vivre pour manger .

Wilson Mizner . . . recalls his embarrassment when he first came into the world, and found a woman in bed with him.

Life may not exactly be pleasant, but at least it is not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband’s clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.

I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul’s good to do each day two things they disliked . . . it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.

[ Explaining his resignation from the Hollywood chapter of the Friars Club :] I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.

I’ve been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.

[ Question asked of losers on quiz show so that they would go away with some money :] Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?

I never forget a face—but I’m going to make an exception in your case.

[ Responding to a woman contestant who, explaining why she had twenty-two children, said “because I love children, and I think that’s our purpose here on earth, and I love my husband” :] I love my cigar too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.

[ J. Cheever Loophole, played by Groucho Marx, speaking :] I bet your father spent the first year of your life throwing rocks at the stork.

[ J. Cheever Loophole, played by Groucho Marx, after being told that “the bottom of your shoe creates a suction that holds you up in the ceiling” :] No, no, I’d rather not. I have an agreement with the houseflies. The flies don’t practice law and I don’t walk on the ceiling.

[ Gordon Miller, played by Groucho Marx, speaking :] Room service? Send up a larger room.

[ Chicolini, played by Chico Marx, speaking :] Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?