Canadian Humor Quotes & Sayings

The thing you don't realize, my dear girl, is that I have been forced by the economic realities to start taking publishing very seriously. For example, it has been brought to my attention that our ability to continue to pay the hordes of people employed by M&S (God knows how many mouths have to be fed) depends directly on the number of copies of your new book [Life Before Man] that we are able to sell between September and Christmas. In past I have been able to treat this whole thing as a fun game. I have never been troubled by the cavalier explanations about lost manuscripts and fuck-ups of various sorts. Now I have learned that this is a deadly serious game. I don't laugh at jokes about the Canadian postal service. I cry. (in a letter to author Margaret Atwood, dated February, 1979) — Jack McClelland

We had more great times than bad times together, but they've moved on, I've moved on. I have a new team now and I have a new focus. — Shaquille O'Neal

Canadian cities looked the way American cities did on television. — William Gibson

Anybody have any money?"
Frank checked his pockets. "Three denarii from Camp Jupiter. Five dollars Canadian."
Hedge patted his gym shorts and pulled out what he found. "Three quarters, two dimes, a rubber band and - score! A piece of celery."
He started munching on the celery, eyeing the change and the rubber band like they might be next. — Rick Riordan

Comcast NBCUniversal has an incredible array of brands and ways to deliver those brands and experiences for consumers. — Brian L. Roberts

The truth is Canada is a cloud-cuckoo-land, an insufferably rich country governed by idiots, its self-made problems offering comic relief to the ills of the real world out there, where famine and racial strife and vandals in office are the unhappy rule. — Mordecai Richler

Heard you told him that you'd love him 'til the end of time. Now that's the same thing that you told me. — Willie Nelson

If you don't want to be a victim, don't act like one. — Ally Carter

It has been our experience that American houses insist on very comprehensive editing; that English houses as a rule require little or none and are inclined to go along with the author's script almost without query. The Canadian practice is just what you would expect
a middle-of-the-road course. We think the Americans edit too heavily and interfere with the author's rights. We think that the English publishers don't take enough editorial responsibility. Naturally, then, we consider our editing to be just about perfect. There's no doubt about it, we Canadians are a superior breed! (in a letter to author Margaret Laurence, dated May, 1960) — Jack McClelland

I think Canadian humor is a little less broad than American humor. — Scott Thompson

One of the main reasons I don't like leaving the house is because I might find myself face to face with a Canadian. — Maria Semple

I stared. Canadian Satanists? You're sending me to a group of Canadian Satanists? — Richelle Mead

Vince is about to open the house door when it flies open and a huge black amplifier almost wipes both Paeng and him out.

"Hey, hey! Sorry! S'cuse us!" Vince yelps, backpedalling and pulling Paeng with him.

Paeng chuckles. "Somebody tries to flatten us, and you apologize to him."

Vince shrugs and grins. "How Canadian of me. — Jess Molly Brown

As the van door starts to close, Brad suddenly realizes that the instant the doors close completely, the van interior will become the terrifying bland gray space he's heard about all his life, the place one goes when one has been Written Out.
The van interior becomes the bland gray space.
From the front yard TV comes the brash martial music that indicates UrgentUpdateNewsMinute.
Animal rights activists have expressed concern over the recent trend of spraying live Canadian geese with a styrene coating which instantaneously kills them while leaving them extremely malleable, so it then becomes easy to shape them into comical positions and write funny sayings in DryErase cartoon balloons emanating from their beaks, which, apparently, is the new trend for outdoor summer parties.
— George Saunders

The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity - and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand. — Richard P. Feynman

I am a candid interview and I have a dark and dry sense of humor - a very Canadian sense of humor and I am only learning now stupidly that you can't read tongue. When I say something funny in a newspaper and I meant it to be funny, it doesn't read that way. — Michael Buble

I'm Canadian, so I'm an expert at mundane fatalism. — MCM

I think the Canadian sense of humor is dryer than America's and juicier than Britain's. I think it's a cross between the two of them, really. — Scott Thompson

two orbs of flesh? — Robin LaFevers

Also, my humor is really dry-witted, Canadian humor, so some people get it and some people don't. I'd be great on "The Office." I would like to be on that show. And, I could see me doing romantic comedy films, and stuff like that. — Tinsel Korey

You can imagine anything at all. And real life is never what you imagine. — Arkady Strugatsky

Nate had been born and raised in British Columbia, and Canadians hate, above all things, to offend. It was part of the national consciousness. "Be polite" was an unwritten, unspoken rule, but ingrained into the psyche of an entire country. (Of course, as with any rule, there were exceptions: parts of Quebec, where people maintained the "dismissive to the point of confrontation, with subsequent surrender" mind-set of the French; and hockey, in which any Canadian may, with impunity, slam, pummel, elbow, smack, punch, body-check, and beat the shit out of, with sticks, any other human being, punctuated by profanities, name-calling, questioning parentage, and accusations of bestiality, usually-coincidentally- in French.) — Christopher Moore

Strange, how in all those apocalyptic movies, when their society breaks down into lawlessness and anarchy, Canada is always the haven of safety, the place people want to escape to. — Jenifer Mohammed

The three cardinal tenets of rum drinking in Newfoundland. The first of these is that as soon as a bottle is placed on a table it must be opened. This is done to "let the air get at it and carry off the black vapors." The second tenet is that a bottle, once opened, must never be restoppered, because of the belief that it will then go bad. No bottle of rum has ever gone bad in Newfoundland, but none has ever been restoppered, so there is no way of knowing whether this belief is reasonable. The final tenet is that an open bottle must be drunk as rapidly as possible "before all to-good goes out of it. — Farley Mowat

I've got everything ready to go," I said once he was finally awake and dressed.
All the tenderness and vulnerability was gone from his face when he said, "Go where?"
"America?"
His eyes narrowed. "This is America."
"This is Canada."
"Which is in North America."
Silly Canadians wanting be part of the Cool Kids Club. — Tammy Blackwell

Novels and gardens," she says. "I like to move from plot to plot. — Bill Richardson

A lot of the stories were highly suspicious, in her opinion. There was the one that ended when the two good children pushed the wicked witch into her own oven ... Stories like this stopped people thinking properly, she was sure. She'd read that one and thought, Excuse me? No one has an oven big enough to get a whole person in, and what made the children think they could just walk around eating people's houses in any case? And why does some boy too stupid to know a cow is worth a lot more than five beans have the right to murder a giant and steal all his gold? Not to mention commit an act of ecological vandalism? And some girl who can't tell the difference between a wolf and her grandmother must either have been as dense as teak or come from an extremely ugly family. — Terry Pratchett

The lonely, wistful revisionism of memories is as gratingly repetitive as snow and ice in Canada. I avoid them both at all costs - memories and Canada. — Brian D'Ambrosio

I was taught that peace is the absence of war. But I wonder if these days we've simply replaced conventional war with a war of paper. I'm not sure which is better. — Robert Jackson Bennett

Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She then asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them. — Molly Ivins

Fear is like fire; it can be helpful if you know how to use. If not, you'll get burned. — Mike Tyson

My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring roaring diving, and then buried in mud. And why? What's this passion for? — Virginia Woolf

As a kid in New Zealand, you play cricket in summer and rugby in winter. I played cricket and hockey. Not rugby. I wasn't brawny enough for it. Or silly enough, perhaps. — Glenn Turner

Keeping religion immune from criticism is both unwarranted and dangerous. — Lawrence M. Krauss

I frankly felt like the reception we received on the way in from the airport was very warm and hospitable. And I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave
with all five fingers
for their hospitality. — George W. Bush

now i am old
older enough to have known the world
and i am sad — Roseville Nidea

Read my little fable: He that runs may read. Most can raise the flowers now, For all have got the seed. — Alfred Lord Tennyson