"If you're more interested in what you're saying than the person listening to you is, you're the definition of a boring person".

David Foster Wallace, 
quoted in The Guardian

"It's my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain".

Lily Tomlin, 
quoted on Parade.com

"My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don't really know me".

Comedian Garry Shandling, 
quoted in The New York Times

"The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have not viewed the world".

Alexander von Humboldt, 
quoted in The Guardian

"Don't talk unless you can improve the silence".

Jorge Luis Borges, 
quoted in The Economist

"School was probably a lot easier for Shakespeare because they didn't have to study Shakespeare".

Philomena Cunk, 
quoted from BBC Two's Cunk on Shakespeare

"Live every day like it's your last, and one day you'll be right".

A line from the Woody Allen movie, Café Society, 
quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"I prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out".

Orson Wells, 
quoted in GQ Magazine

"Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen".

Disraeli, 
quoted in Condé Nast Traveller

"I've conducted more orchestras than you can shake a stick at".

Mike Batt, 
Composer, quoted in The Times

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies".

Groucho Marx, 
quoted on Politico.com

"My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income".

Errol Flynn, 
quoted in The Times

"It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics".

Fletcher Knebel, Author, 
quoted in the Montreal Gazette

"Television is a device that permits people who haven't anything to do to watch people who can't do anything".

Fred Allen, Comedian, 
quoted in the Associated Press

"When you are done changing, you're done".

Benjamin Franklin, 
quoted in the Billings Gazette, Montana

"The wheel is turning but the hamster is dead".

Australian insult, 
quoted in The Guardian

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, nobody knows what they are".

W. Somerset Maugham, 
quoted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies".

Nelson Mandela, 
quoted in The Times

"Politics is just the art of making the inevitable seem planned".

Quentin Crisp, 
quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"Possessions are generally diminished by possession".

Nietzche, 
quoted in The Independent

"The luxury of doing good surpasses every other personal enjoyment".

Playwright John Gay, 
quoted in The Financial Times

"I could pull the plug. But would the water leave the bath?"

Unnamed Cabinet minister,  when urged to provoke a leadership crisis by resigning,
quoted in The Times

"There's a strange thing goes on inside a bubble. People inside it can't see outside, don't believe there is an outside".

Lucy Prebble, 
quoted in The Independent

"They say it is better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, but how about a compromise like moderately rich and just moody?".

Princess Diana, 
quoted in The Adelaide Advertiser

"A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat".

Katharine Whitehorn, 
quoted in Canada's Waterloo Region Record

"If anyone breaks a window you can answer to her".

Prince William, warning players about the Queen before a football match at Buckingham Palace,
quoted in Business Times

"Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory".

Franklin Pierce Adams, American writer,
quoted in The Independent

"As a child I thought I hated everybody, but when I grew up I realised it was just children I didn't like".

Philip Larkin,
quoted in The Spectator

"There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher ".

Flannery O'Connor,
quoted in Forbes

"Men hate those to whom they have to lie".

Victor Hugo,
quoted in The Nation

"Taking stupid risks is what makes life worth living".

Homer Simpson,
quoted in The Sunday Times

"One thing that annoys me is if people say I'm arrogant. But I am a legend. It's not arrogant. It's a fact.".

Usain Bolt, the Olympic and World champion sprinter,
quoted in Business Times

"He told me his career had gone as far as it could and he was planning on opening a little tobacconist's shop".

Barry Cryer, the comic, remembering when Sir Bruce Forsyth was ready to quit showbiz 50 years ago,
quoted in Business Times

"In theory, theory and practice are much the same. In practice, they are not".

Albert Einstein,
quoted in The Washington Post

"Cash can't bring you happiness, but it comes attached to a better class of problem ".

Woody Allen,
quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"I won't lie to you, fatherhood isn't easy like motherhood ".

Homer Simpson,
quoted in the Daily Express

"Never go to bed angry. Stay up and plot your revenge ".

Bumper sticker,
quoted in The Advertiser

"Most human beings are quite likeable if you don't see too much of them ".

R.W. Lynd,
quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle

"If people did not sometimes do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done ".

Ludwig Wittgenstein,
quoted in The Buffalo News

"Invest in a business that even a fool can run, because some day a fool will ".

Warren Buffett,
quoted in The Observer

"When someone starts a sentence 'I'm not being..', 'they always are' ".

Ian Martin,
quoted in The Guardian

"Memory is a fickle friend, it something something in the end".

Ibid

"The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off".

Abe Lemons, College basketball coach,
quoted in the Montreal Gazette

"There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it".

Mary Wilson Little,
quoted on Forbes.com

"My job is to be president; your job is to keep me humble. Frankly, I think I'm doing my job better".

Barack Obama,to journalists at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner,
quoted in The Times

"Prejudice is a great time-saver. You can form opinions without having the facts".

E.B. White,
quoted in The Observer

"Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person".

Mark Twain,
quoted in The Daily Mail

"A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say".

Michael Winner,
quoted in The Guardian

"I think of the past as a little sister. I love her - but she could benefit from a couple more showers".

Alanis Morissette,
quoted in More

"I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman: ‘Where's the self-help section?’ She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose".

Steven Wright,
quoted in The Wall Street Journal

"I don't have a sex ‘drive’. I have a sex ‘just sit in the car and hope someone gets in’".

C.K. Louis, Comedian
quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but many of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done".

Andy Rooney,
quoted in the Flushing Observer (Mich)

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception".

Groucho Marx,
quoted in The Guardian

"They say hard work never killed anybody, but I say, why take the chance".

Ronald Reagan,
quoted in The FT

"It would have been splendid...if the wine had been as cold as the soup, the beef as rare as the service, the brandy as old as the fish, and the maid as willing as the duchess".

Winston Churchill, when asked about dinner,
quoted in The Observer

"If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money".

Abigail Van Buren,
quoted in The Monterey County Herald (California)

"I believe in the discipline of silence and can talk for hours about it".

George Bernard Shaw,
quoted in The West Australian

"The more I practice, the luckier I am".

Ben Hogan, Golfer,
quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald

"You know you're getting old when the candles cost more than the cake".

Bob Hope,
quoted in The Buffalo News

"In the art world, 'tasteful' is probably a bigger insult than 'tasteless'".

Grayson Perry,
quoted in The Sunday Telegraph

"My relationship with death remains the same. I am strongly against it".

Woody Allen,
quoted in The Times

"Creativity is intelligence having fun".

Albert Einstein,
quoted in Ad Age

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough".

Mae West,
quoted in the Morton Grove Champion, Illinois

"People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do".

Isaac Asimou,
quoted in The Sunday Times

"If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel".

Joe Pasquale,
quoted in The Sun

"If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold".

Warning to users of online services,
quoted in The Independent

"A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something".

Wilson Mizner,
Playwright,
quoted in the Palm Beach Daily News, Florida

"Never invest in any idea you can't illustrate with a crayon".

Peter Lynch,
Wall Street investor,
quoted in The Australian Financial Review

"Never go into a room unless you know how to get out of it".

Margaret Thatcher,
as recalled by Michael Heseltine in The Times

"I like work: It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours".

Jerome K. Jerome,
quoted in The Wall Street Journal

"If, on Monday morning you wake up dreading going to work - by Friday you should have done something about it".

Timothy Ian Bradbury,
in Talk of the Town, SA

"When desire comes in the door, judgement jumps out the window and cracks its skull on the pavement".

Yiddish saying,
quoted in The New Yorker

"Wherever my dad is now, he's looking down on me...Not because he is dead, but because he is very condescending".

Jack Whitehall,
quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"Price is what you pay. Value is what you get".

Warren Buffett,
quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"It's easy to be miserable. Being happy is tougher and cooler".

Thom Yorke, from the band Radiohead,
quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald

"I've learnt one thing, people who know the least anyways seem to know it the loudest".

Andy Capp, Cartoonist,
quoted in The Buffalo News

"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity".

Simone Weil,
quoted in The New York Times

"Fun is like life insurance: The older you get, the more it costs".

Kin Hubbard, Cartoonist,
quoted on Forbes.com

"My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 now, and we don't know where the hell she is".

Ellen DeGeneres,
quoted in The Observer

"If you wish to forget anything on the spot, make a note that this thing is to be remembered".

Edgar Allan Poe,
quoted on Forbes.com

"It takes only one one drink to get me drunk, Trouble is, I can't remember if it's the 13th or 14th".

George Burns,
quoted on BBC News online

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies".

Groucho Marx,
quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"There is only one thing people like that is good for them: a good night's sleep".

Edgar Watson Howe,
Editor,
quoted on Bookreporter.com

"I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life".

Rita Rudner,
US Comedian,
quoted in The Observer

"There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better. But the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more".

Woody Allen, quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I'll never be as good as a wall".

Mitch Hedberg, quoted in the Montreal Gazette

"Be yourself. That's the worst piece of advice you could give an impressionist".

Rory Bremner, quoted in The Times

"When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog, so that someone in the house is happy to see you".

Nora Ephron, quoted in NYTimes,com

"You know you're working class when your TV is bigger than your bookcase".

Rob Beckett, at the Edinburgh Festival, quoted on BBC News online

"Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy".

Adage, quoted in the The Times

"Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion".

Richard Nixon, quoted in the Montreal Gazette

"What is that unforgettable line?".

Samuel Beckett, quoted on BroadwayWorld.com

"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election".

Otto von Bismarck, quoted in The Montreal Gazette

"It is never too late to be who you might have been".

George Eliot, quoted in The Times

"I have never been guilty of method acting, or even any acting".

Roger Moore, (on his career), quoted in the Daily Mail

"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning".

Catherine Aird, quoted in the Savannah Morning

"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness".

Bertrand Russell, quoted in The Courier-Mail

"Television enables you to be entertained in your home by people you wouldn't have in your home".

David Frost, quoted in The Washington Post

"Civilisation begins with distillation".

William Faulkner, quoted in the Los Angeles Times

"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate".

Charles Dickens, quoted in the Peoria, Ill., Journal

"You're not stuck in traffic. You are traffic".

German transport campaign, quoted in The Guardian

"When a man tells you he got rich through hard work, ask him: Whose?".

Don Marquis, quoted in Forbes

"The value of an industry is inversely proportional to the number of awards it gives itself".

Blogger David Burge, quoted in The Weekly Standard

"Accentuate the positives, medicate the negatives".

Actress Amy Sedaris, quoted in The New York Times

"He that doesn't tooteth his own trumpet, doesn't get his trumpet tooteth".

Old Tennessee adage, quoted on RealClearPolitics.com

"Man Finally Put in Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement".

Headline in satirical magazine, The Onion,quoted in The Independent

"Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than bad memory".

Franklin Pierce Adams, Journalist, quoted on NewYorker.com

"A critic is a man who knows the way but can't drive the car".

Kenneth Tynan, quoted in The Times

"Exhilaration is that feeling you get just after a great idea hits you, and just before you realise what's wrong with it".

Rex Harrison, quoted in The Buffalo News

"A journey of self-discovery starts with a single step. But so does falling down a flight of stairs".

Kathy Lette, quoted in The Independent

"Breasts are still our cheapest special effect".

Hollywood saying, quoted in The Guardian

"If you're going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet".

Keith Richards, quoted in The Wall Street Journal

"The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare".

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, quoted in The Buffalo News

"The only difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets".

Will Rogers, quoted in The Times

"Common sense and a sense of humour are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing".

William James, quoted in the St Paul Pioneer Press

"A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing but as a group decide nothing can be done".

Fred Allen, US Humourist, quoted in the Guardian

"Behind every successful man there is a surprised woman".

Maryon Pearson, quoted in the Chicago Tribune

"There are many things in life that are more important than money. And they all cost money".

Fred Allen, quoted on CNN.com

"The only thing statesmen learn from history's past mistakes is how to make new ones".

A.J.P. Taylor, quoted in The Daily Mail

"Any party that takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought".

Dwight D. Morrow, quoted in The Independent

"All progress is based upon universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income".

Samuel Butler, quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"Education is what's left when what has been learnt has been forgotten".

Psychologist B.F.Skinner, quoted in The Independent

"What is the point in growing old if you can't hound and persecute the young?".

Kenneth Clarke, quoted in The Times

"It just seems to me that the left hand don't know what the extreme left hand is doing".

Gordon Brown, on his left-wing rivals, quoted in The Independent on Sunday

"Learn from others mistakes. We don't have time to make them all ourselves".

Eleanor Roosevelt, quoted in The Huffington Post

"If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style".

Quentin Crisp, quoted on CNN.com

"There is no such thing as fun for the whole family: there are no massage parlours with ice cream and free jewellery".

Jerry Seinfeld, quoted in the Denver Post

"Being famous is my job. When I leave the house I'm clocking in".

Noel Gallagher, quoted in The Times

"A radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air".

Franklin D. Roosevelt,, quoted in The Independent

"Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level".

Quentin Crisp, quoted on CNN

"Chess doesn't drive people mad, it keeps mad people sane".

Bill Hartston,
Former British Chess Champion,
quoted in The Guardian

"Never eat more than you can lift ".

Miss Piggy,
quoted in The Times

"The trouble with life in the fast lane is that you get to the other end in an awful hurry".

John Jensen,
Danish Soccer Star,
quoted in Forbes

"It's worse than dog eat dog. It's dog doesn't return other dog's phone calls".

Woody Allen, on Hollywood,
quoted in The Spectator

"History is just one damn thing after another".

Arnold Toynbee,
quoted in The Guardian

"A newspaper is a device unable to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation".

George Bernard Shaw,
quoted in The Independent

"Youth might be wasted on the young but university is definitely wasted on students".

Ian Hollingshead,
quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"Fame is like watching someone ride past very fast on a horse. It looks exciting and you think: 'I want to do that' but the actual experience can be frightening or a substantial pain in the arse".

Grayson Perry,
quoted in The Observer

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see".

Arthur Schopenbauer,
quoted in The Boston Globe

"I support gay marriage because I believe they have the right to be just as miserable as the rest of us".

Kinky Friedman,
quoted in The Times

"If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse".

Henry Ford,
quoted in The Guardian

"Stupidity has a knack of getting its way".

Albert Camus,
quoted in the Daily Mail

"Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?".

Tony Hancock,
quoted in The Independent

"Thanks to my devoted wife, without whose unquestioning faith and support this book was nevertheless written".

Rupert Morgan, a dedication in one of his novels,
quoted in The Guardian

"Winston has devoted the best years of his life to preparing his impromptu speeches".

F.E. Smith,
quoted in The Times

"If it weren't for the fact that the TV and the fridge are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all".

Joey Adams, Comic,
quoted in the New York Post

"Man's feelings are always purest and most glowing in the hour of meeting and of farewell".

Jean Paul Richter, German Writer,
quoted in The Independent

"Politics is an honest effort to misunderstand each other".

Robert Frost,
quoted in the Los Angeles Times

"Success is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm".

Winston Churchill,
quoted in The Daily Telegraph

"When asked what wine he liked, Diogenes replied:'That which belongs to another' ".

quoted in The Times

"Don't be afraid not to follow the herd - because where the herd's gone, the food is already eaten".

Bob Dylan,
quoted on OpenDemocracy.com

"Money will buy you a pretty good dog, but it won't buy you the wag of his tail".

Henry Wheeler Shaw,
quoted in The Times

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

The adage know as Hanlon's Razor,
cited in The Daily Telegraph

"What you have to remember is that civil servants use vagueness and ambiguity with razor-sharp precision.".

Senior Civil Servant,
quoted in letter to The Times

"Whenever I date a guy, I think:'Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?".

Rita Radner, US Comedian,
quoted in The Times

"If anyone tells me I'm fat, I say, "That's because everytime I make love to your wife, she gives me a biscuit".

Clement Freud,
on combating 'fat-ism' on Radio 4's Just a Minute

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you; it's the things you know that ain't so".

Mark Twain,
quoted in The Wall Street Journal

"I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific".

Lilly Tomlin,
quoted in the Calgary Herald

"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness".

Bertrand Russell,
quoted in The Independent

"I always invest in companies an idiot could run, because one day one will".

Warren Buffett,
quoted in The Mail on Sunday

"Men are always asking what women want in bed. The answer is breakfast".

Kathy Lette,
quoted in The Times

"The man who makes no mistakes usually does not make anything".

Theodore Roosevelt,
quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald

"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell you more than he knows".

Dwight Eisenhower,
quoted in the Illawarra Mercury

"I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".

Nick Helm,
Most popular joke at the Edinburgh Fringe

"If the young are not initiated into the village, they will burn it down just to feel its warmth".

African Proverb,
quoted in The Observer

"The thankless task of drowning other people's kittens".

Cyril Connolly's definition of book reviewing,
quoted in The FT

"Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There's just too much fraternising with the enemy".

Henry Kissinger,
quoted in the Illawarra Mercury

"I hate housework. You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again".

Joan Rivers,
quoted in The Independent

"I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes".

Oprah Winfrey,
quoted in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

"Other players are involved in tennis, but I'm committed. It's like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed".

Martina Navratilova ,
quoted in The Times

"The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old".

Writer Jean Kerr ,
quoted on WashingtonPost.com

"The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."

Elizabeth Taylor, quoted in the Guardian

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time"

W. Somerset Maughan, quoted in the Herald, Monterey County, Calif

"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant".

Charles de Gaulle, quoted in the Montreal Gazette

"Success is a great deodorant. It takes away all your past smells".

Elizabeth Taylor, quoted in the Guardian

"Economists have predicted nine out of the last five recessions".

Old Joke, quoted in the Times

"The art of diplomacy is letting the other fellow have your own way".

Anonymous Indian
diplomat, quoted in the Times