A.A. Gill, British columnist
The best thing about the rain forests is that they never suffer from drought.
Dan Quayle, American Vice-President
Sex is just the mathematics urge sublimated.
M.C. Reed, British mathematician
82% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Vic Reeves, British comedian
Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
James Thurber, American cartoonist
The Internet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhoea—massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.
Gene Spafford, American computer scientist
If builders built buildings the way computer programmers write programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
Reede Stockton, American writer
Many snakes are actually quite short if you don’t count the tail.
John Thompson, American sportsman
To you I’m an atheist. To God, I’m the loyal opposition.
As the poet said, ‘Only God can make a tree,’ probably because it’s so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.
Woody Allen, American film maker, comic and writer
Mathematics was always my bad subject. I couldn’t convince my teachers that many of my answers were meant ironically.
Calvin Trillin, American journalist
The only reason we had a son was to get someone to work the video. For ten years we used it as a night light.
Adrian Walsh, British comedian
God and Other
Imponderables
A survey revealed that 96% of Americans believe in a God. 90% pray regularly. 71% believe in an afterlife and 41% attend church once a week. Another poll found that 3% believe they are God.
James Adams, American theologian
Being a Catholic doesn’t stop you from sinning. It just stops you from enjoying it.
Cleveland Amory, American writer
Methodism is not really a religion. It’s just a sort of insurance policy in case there turns out not to be a God.
Peter Barr, Australian barrister
A Christian is one who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book, admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbours.
Ambrose Bierce, American writer
What a pity that Noah and his party didn’t miss the boat.
Mark Twain, American writer
He stopped sinning suddenly. He died.
Elbert Hubbard, American writer
A Calvinistic Presbyterian believes that all Catholics will be damned because they are predestined to be damned; an ordinary Presbyterian believes that all Catholics will be damned on their merits.
John Bartley, American cinematographer
His was the sort of career that made the Recording Angel think seriously about taking shorthand.
Nicholas Bentley, British writer
I know God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish he didn’t trust me so much.
Albanian Nun Mother Teresa
God made everything out of nothing. But the nothingness shows through.
Paul Valéry, French essayist
It is the function of vice to keep virtue within reasonable bounds.
British writer Samuel Butler
Ilka Chase, American actor
The one thing father always gave up for Lent was going to church.
Clarence Day, American writer
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, where does that leave God?
George Deacon, British oceanographer
A 62-year-old friend of mine went to bed at night and prayed, ‘Please, God, give me skin like a teenager’s.’ Next day, she woke up with acne.
Phyllis Diller, American comedian
It is no accident that the symbol of a bishop is a crook and the symbol of an archbishop is a double-cross.
Gregory Dix, British monk
Almost all religions agree that God is fond of music, sometimes dancing and always of processions.
Robert Morely, British actor
More people have been driven insane through religious hysteria than by drinking alcohol.
The average minister should be unfrocked immediately and prevented, by force if necessary, from communicating any ideas to persons under 35.
W.C. Fields, American actor
An Anglican clergyman is invisible 6 days a week and incomprehensible on the 7th.
Dean Inge, British clergyman
Lutherans are like Scottish people, only with less frivolity.
Garrison Keillor, American humorist
The most scandalous charges against the Pope were suppressed. His Holiness was accused only of piracy, rape, murder, sodomy and incest.
Edward Gibbon on Pope John XXII
Only a vegan nun who has taken a vow of silence lives without hurting anyone.
Tim Rayment, British journalist
There are three sorts of country parson in my diocese. Those who have gone out of their minds. Those who are going out of their minds. And those who have no minds to go out of.
Edward King, British cleric
Woody Allen has the sort of face that convinces you that God is a cartoonist.
Jack Kroll, American critic
Lest O Lord this prayer be too obscure, permit thy servant to illustrate it with an anecdote.
Allan Laing, British magistrate
Walking in a churchyard I have often asked myself, ‘Where are all the bad people buried?’
Charles Lamb, English essayist
I am half-Catholic and half-Jewish. When I go to confession, I bring my lawyer with me.
Ed Mann, American dramatist
The good Lord never gives you more than you can handle—unless you die of something.
Steve Martin, American comedian
Metaphysics is an attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible.
H.L. Mencken, American journalist and political commentator
Almost all religions agree that God is fond of music, sometimes dancing and always of processions.
Robert Morely, British actor
Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.
James Thurber, American cartoonist
There is nothing so stupid as an educated man, if you get him off the thing he was educated in.
Will Rogers, American humorist
I once asked a man what he thought would happen to him after he died. He replied that he believed he would inherit eternal bliss, but didn’t want to talk about such unpleasant subjects.
F.W. Myers, American businessman
One goldfish told another that he intended to become an atheist. ‘Don’t be crazy,’ the other goldfish replied. ‘Of course there’s a God. Who do you think changes the water every day?’
Richard Needham, British politician
Tiny Tim, American musician
If I ever come face to face with my maker I shall say ‘God why did you make the evidence for your existence so insufficient?’
Bertrand Russell, British economist
I have to believe in the Apostolic Succession. There is no other way of explaining the descent of the Bishop of Exeter from Judas Iscariot.
Sydney Smith, British cleryman
In the beginning there was nothing and God said, ‘Let there be light!’ and there was still nothing, but everyone could see it.
Dave Thomas
Every human being commits 630,720,000 sins by the age of
30.
Augustus Toplady, Anglican clergyman
The primary function of a priest is to keep his congregation awake.
Peter Ustinov, British comedian and actor
You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I were not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.
Evelyn Waugh, British writer
I admire the Pope. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can tour without an album.
Rita Rudner, American comedian
Sailors ought never to go to church. They ought to go to hell, where it is much more comfortable.
H.G. Wells, British writer
I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for his reputation if he didn’t.
Jules Renard, Fench writer
I read The Book of Job last night. I don’t think that God comes well out of it.
Virginia Woolf, British author
One half of the world does not believe in God, and the other half does not believe in me.
Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright and wit
The Trials of Life
Our family was so poor we used to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken and lick other people’s fingers.
Lenny Banks, American humorist
Our terraced house was so small the mice walked about on their hind legs.
Les Dawson, British comedian
Blood is thicker than water and much more difficult to get out of the carpet.
What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying.
Woody Allen, American film maker, comic and writer
Most human problems can be solved by an appropriate charge of high explosive.
Blaster Bates, British demolitionist
A Freudian slip is when you say one thing when you’re really thinking about a mother.
Cliff Claven, American humorist
The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Albert Einstein, German physicist
We must believe in luck, for how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
Jean Cocteau, French film-maker
They tell you that you’ll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don’t tell you is that you won’t miss it very much.
Malcolm Crowley
The secret of creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Albert Einstein, German physicist
Have you ever been in therapy? No? You should try it. It’s like a really easy game show where the correct answer to every question is: ‘Because of my mother’.
Robin Greenspan, American actor
I performed badly in the Civil Service examinations because evidently I knew more about economics than my examiners.
J.M. Keynes, British Economist
Juries scare me. I don’t want to put my faith in people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.
Monica Piper
When guests stay too long, treat them like the rest of the family. If they don’t leave then, they never will.
Martin Ragaway, American screenwriter
Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.
Jules Renard, French writer
The efficacy of our criminal jury system is marred only by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who do not know anything and cannot read.
Mark Twain, American writer
This year one third of the nation will be ill-nourished, ill-housed and ill-clad. Only they call it summer vacation.
Joseph Salak, American writer
If God had intended us to fly, he would have made it easier to get to the airport.
Jonathan Winters, American comedian
You know when you put a stick in the water and it looks like it’s bent but it really isn’t? That’s why I don’t take baths.
Steven Wright, American comedian
Making a Dying
Life is anything that dies when you stamp on it.
Dave Barry, American author and humorist
Epitaph for a Hollywood actress: She Sleeps Alone At Last.
Robert Benchley, American humorist
Everyone seems to fear dying alone and I have never understood this point of view. Who wants to die and be polite at the same time?
Quentin Crisp, British writer and ‘Great Stately British Homo’
The great comfort of turning 49 is the realisation that you are now too old to die young.
Paul Dickson
I laid my wife
Beneath this stone
For her repose
And for my own
Chief Ottawa, American tribal chief
If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.
Brooke Shields, American actress
Life is anything that dies when you stamp on it.
Dave Barry, American author and humorist
I’m not afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
I have a fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it’s being held.
Woody Allen, American film maker, comic and writer
If ghosts can walk through walls, how come they don’t fall through the floor?
Steven Wright, American comedian
If this is dying, then I don’t think much of it.
British writer Lytton Strachey, who died on 31 January 1931 from the effects of undiagnosed stomach cancer.