Witty Quotes - page 8

Life is extraordinarily suave and sweet with certain natural, witty, affectionate people who have unusual distinction and are capable of every vice, but who make a display of none in public and about whom no one can affirm they have a single one. There is something supple and secret about them. Besides, their perversity gives spice to their most innocent occupations, such as taking a walk in the garden at night. (Marcel Proust)
The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling the comic story and the witty story upon the matter. View quote
Mark Twain
The Law is a grim, unsmiling thing. Not Justice, though. Justice is witty and whimsical and kind and caring. View quote
Rohinton Mistry
This is one of his most human and most amusing and witty novels. The characters are very Indian. I decided that I wanted to do a comedy, so this was just the right one. View quote
Ismail Merchant
A French critic cleverly wrote that "with Autumn Sonata Bergman does Bergman." It is witty but unfortunate. For me, that is. View quote
Ingmar Bergman
Melancholy men are of all others the most witty. View quote
Aristotle
He was an extraordinary man – a colorful bird against the background of academic gray. A scholar and erudite, he was witty, malicious, surprising, uncompromising and courageous. His knowledge and talent for lecturing made him a valued popularizer of neuroscience. He could simplify even very complex phenomena, showing their essence and meaning. Non-standard interpretations of the reality that he presented at the lectures were witty, but also deep and attracted fascinated youth. He loved Krakow – he knew everything about it and was a great guide. There is grief and anger in us that he was driven over at the pedestrian crossing by a delivery van. View quote
Jerzy Vetulani
An ambiguity, in ordinary speech, means something very pronounced, and as a rule witty or deceitful....any verbal nuance, however slight, which gives room for alternative reactions to the same piece of language. View quote
William Empson
No man in this fashionable London of yours," friend Sauerteig would say, "speaks a plain word to me. Every man feels bound to be something more than plain; to be pungent withal, witty, ornamental. His poor fraction of sense has to be perked into some epigrammatic shape, that it may prick into me;-perhaps (this is the commonest) to be topsyturvied, left standing on its head, that I may remember it the better! Such grinning inanity is very sad to the soul of man. Human faces should not grin on one like masks; they should look on one like faces! I love honest laughter, as I do sunlight; but not dishonest: most kinds of dancing too; but the St.-Vitus kind not at all! A fashionable wit, ach Himmel, if you ask, Which, he or a Death's- head, will be the cheerier company for me? pray send not him! View quote
Thomas Carlyle
Gregory David Roberts: "She was so unfussy. I think the thing about Madonna is that she's tremendously intelligent. She's fiercely intelligent; she's very sharp, very funny, very witty, very quick and will not accept second best. She will pick you up immediately in a conversation and defend her position and will put it forward with a rigorous intelligence. I think it's intimidating to a lot of people - I love it! For me it can't get any better than that, so I loved that about her, but I do think a lot of people are intimidated by her and reading it as something that it's not. It's simply a fierce intelligence. She's one of the smartest people you could ever meet." View quote
Madonna (entertainer)
My father was as proud of his eloquence as MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO could be for his life, and and for aught I am convinced of to the contrary at present, with as much reason: it was indeed his strength - and his weakness, too. - His strength - for he was by nature eloquent - and his weakness - for he was hourly a dupe to it; and provided an occasion in life would but permit him to shew his talents, or say either a wise thing, a witty, or a shrewd one - (bating the case of a systematic misfortune)- he had all he wanted.- A blessing which tied up my father's tongue, and a misfortune which let it loose with a good grace, were pretty equal: sometimes, indeed, the misfortune was the better of the two; for instance, where the pleasure of the harangue was as ten, and the pain of the misfortune was as five - my father gained half in half, and consequently was as well again off, as if it had never befallen him. (Laurence Sterne)
... Ursula Le Guin is witty, strong, emphatic and empathic, wise, knowledgeable, easygoing and electric, seraphic, gracious, sanguine and sane. Without sacrificing the finest scintilla of femininity she dominates a group with her not inconsiderable strengths as an individual; it is Ursula Le Guin, as a model, I'm sure, women's liberationists are most striving to emulate. In short, she's dynamite. View quote
Harlan Ellison
A witty woman once told me something which may well be the genuine secret of her sex: that in choosing a lover each one of her kind takes more account of how other women regard him than of how she regards him herself. View quote
Nicolas Chamfort
No true reader who has read as much as a single story by Raphael Aloysius Lafferty needs to be told that he is our most original writer. ... Just about everything Lafferty writes is fun, is witty, is entertaining and playful. But it is not easy, for it is a mingling of allegory with myth, and of both with something more ... In fact, he may not be just ours, but the most original writer in the history of literature. View quote
R. A. Lafferty