Browsing Topic Best Quip Quotes

I intend to live forever, or die trying.

If Big Brother (of Orwell’s 1984) comes to America, he will not be a fearsome, foreboding figure with a heart-chilling, omnipresent glare as in 1984. He will come with a smile on his face, a quip on his lips, a wave to the crowd, and a press that (a) dutifully reports the suppressive measures he is taking to save the nation from internal chaos and foreign threat; and (b) gingerly questions whether he will be able to succeed.

One of my most often repeated quips was the one I made when former Presidents Carter, Ford and Nixon stood by each other at a White House event. ‘There they are,’ I said. ‘See no evil, hear no evil, and . . . evil.’

Whether you like it or not, the digital age has produced a new format for modern romance, and natural selection may be favoring the quick-thumbed quip peddler over the confident, ice-breaking alpha male.

I don’t quite hear what you say, but I beg to differ entirely with you.

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right person’s brow. When innovations are in the exploration stage, they need a champion to take them through the rest of the developmental stages. Otherwise the bureaucracy, politics, and people who can only see the fledgling and potential innovation through today’s glasses will smother it or let it quietly die from malnourishment.

If you ask the fish whether they’d rather have an oil spill or a season of fishing, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d vote for another blowout.

As a matter of fact, I am an uncle. I have nine nephews and nieces. I’m not sure if they think I’m all that quick with a quip. But I’m quick with a spank.

Statistics: The only science that enables different experts using the same figures to draw different conclusions.

DOCTOR. Always preceded by ‘The good’. Among men, in familiar conversation, ‘Oh! balls, doctor!’ Is a wizard when he enjoys your confidence, a jack-ass when you’re no longer on terms. All are materialists: ‘you can’t probe for faith with a scalpel.’

In France everything is a matter for jest. People make quips about the scaffold, about Napoleon’s defeat on the banks of The Beresina, and about the barricades of our revolutions. So, at the assizes of the Last Judgment, there will always be a Frenchmen to crack a joke.

COLD. Healthier than heat.

He [Earl Scruggs] was really cool because he was very quiet, and he wouldn’t say much, but then he would come out with a quip that was like so perfect and so brilliant, very smart.

Some libs took offense at my David Broder quip earlier. In my own defense, I was taught in college it’s OK to disrespect dead white males.

The brain is an island in an osmotically homogeneous sea.

I think actual death will be a lot easier than dying on stage. Cause – you know – if you do [actual death] right, you can go looking good. Maybe with a little quip [like]: ‘I loved everybody.’ But dying on stage…Oh, God!

Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful Jollity, Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles, Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles, Such as hang on Hebe’s cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek; Sport that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter holding both his sides.

Quips and Cranks and wanton Wiles, Nods and Becks and wreathèd Smiles.

I like quips. I like whiffs of cynicism and I think they can be witty. But I don’t really know where wittiness is constructive.

I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

When someone abuses me I can defend myself, but against praise I am defenceless.

People are clever, but almost no one ever devises an optimal quip precisely at the needed moment. Therefore, virtually all great one-liners are later inventions – words that people wished they had spouted, but failed to manufacture at the truly opportune instant.

If I have seen further than others, it is because I am surrounded by dwarfs.