Funny Subject Quotes & Sayings

If you give a little credit to the concept of the artist, I think you ought to indulge excesses a bit, because that reflects the personality of the writer. Now if a joke is in bad taste or it's not funny, okay, that's awhole different thing, but how you craft a joke is really what the writer's job is, and I don't think that technique should be subject to any editorial constraints. — Bill Watterson

Eddie Murphy said once in an interview that nothing is offensive if it's funny. I sort of agree with that, but if something's funny and you're the subject of it, sometimes it's more offensive. If someone's insulting you, you want them to sound like an idiot. — Artie Lange

The Dimwit's Guide to the Female Mind might assist your efforts in understanding human females. But it must be pointed out that this subject can be a dangerous adventure and should be undertaken with extreme caution. After all, human males have been trying to understand their females for generations, and most of the time they come away from these encounters looking like someone stuck their tails into an electric socket. — Anne Bishop

I haven't watched 'Mad TV' a lot, but I have seen some stuff on there that is truly funny. You have to have some sort of attitude toward the subject, and they seem to have it. It depends on how much blood you want to draw. — Joe Flaherty

The times I've tried not to be funny, it's never worked, and the times I'm trying not to be dark and just be funny, that never works, either. As varied as my subject matter is, I think the worldview is pretty consistent: seeing darkness and seeing humor. — Rebecca Makkai

Divination is turning out to be much more trouble than I could have foreseen, never having studied the subject myself. — J.K. Rowling

Quivering, as if she couldn't decide whether to laugh or frown. I love my mom, and I have no idea how she can find Rafe funny. It must be a gene I missed. "So, are you two excited for your first day?" Mom asked. Changing the subject. Nicely done, Mom. "I can't wait," Rafe and I said together. Only his voice clearly meant "I can wait," while my voice meant "I'm so excited that I'm about to explode! — James Patterson

It's a profoundly different thing to be able to refer to the images you are taking at the time and check them out on a laptop that is plugged into your Hasselblad and go "oh no, do it again, do it again" - all of those a requickly made decisions. The fact that you can see the images right away in a funny way makes the whole relationship more casual. I don't want a casual relationship with my subject. — Bill Henson

Nothing's true that I say, because I don't really want to say anything. I don't think my life's that cool, and I don't think my opinion's that valid. They're just silly jokes. Usually I just take a topic that isn't funny at all, like Shakespeare, and work backwards. I just try to find an unfunny subject. — Bo Burnham

I wish kids at school would quit calling me a porno dork-face, though. There wasn't any sex involved! I got knocked out, I panicked and called the cops. Okay, somewhere along the line everybody's clothes fell off, but that's not exactly a federal crime. Is it? I hope you don't work for the FBI. (You don't, do you?)
- Email Excerpt (Page: 21)
From: Douglas Bracken
To: Dr. Rita I. Milton
Sent: Friday, November 08 - 5:05 PM
Subject: Pressing Concerns — Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson

Abby Von Normal - And I'm like, Don't change the subject, Kung Pao, what I want to know is if you're ready to spend some up-close and personal time with ninety pounds of barbarian woman-flesh! Sorry, I don't know how much that is in kilos. — Christopher Moore

Is everything all right? Is everything all right? Hmm, hold on a minute, let me see ... my mom is going out with my Algebra teacher, a subject I'm flunking, by the way; my best friend hates me; I'm fourteen years old and I've never been asked out; I don't have any breasts; and oh, I just found out I'm the princess of Genovia. — Meg Cabot

Her Majesty is not a subject. — Benjamin Disraeli

As the middle child of the Laurel Canyon Adams Family, Whit was surprisingly chill on the subject of ampire-vays. — M. Beth Bloom

When you step out and do a song in a musical, the easier thing to do is make it funny. But when those transitions become necessary, when they aren't camp, that, to me, is magic. I've done musical comedies and enjoyed them, but subject matter that's deeper and more realistic is always what's appealed to me most. — Kelli O'Hara

Oh, you're an expert in crazy people now?"
"A month with you and I feel I have a master's degree in the subject. — Jennifer L. Armentrout

You don't like Blue, do you?"
"No," Mira said, caught off guard by the change of subject.
"I was worried he was doing his knight-in-tarnished-armor thing and it was winning you over. — Sarah Cross

Mobile phones are the only subject on which men boast about who's got the smallest. — Neil Kinnock

Son, looks to me like you're spending too much time on one subject. — Shelby Metcalf

Don't be so damned patronizing. Your performance so far has been a little less than dazzling."
"I didn't mean no harm," I said and kissed her. "That a new dress?"
"Ah! Changing the subject, you coward. — Dashiell Hammett

I started doing pot jokes, and I noticed that audiences invariably love pot jokes. Even people who don't smoke pot think it's a funny subject. — Doug Benson

I glean a few times a week, and it's all about the subject line. I look for the lyrical, "Billowy Red Scarf Girl" or the funny, "Hipster Chick Who Passed Gas," the unintentionally funny, "Looking for the Hot Girl in Pink Dress," ones that immediately suggest images, "Furry Arms Under a Yellow Umbrella," or the plain odd, "Seeking Girl Who Bit Me Twice ... " I don't think I've ever abandoned one ... the images usually arrive fully formed in my head as soon as I read the message, and I decide whether to draw it or not. — Sophie Blackall

All right, my hope - but I am not saying the rest of it - I have something you need to feel."
She feigned the sound of outrage. "But we barely know each other, sir!"
He laughed softly. "But you must hold it in your hand and feel it change," he urged, in her ear. "I insist. I can wait no longer."
She knew they were on a serious subject, but the flutter of his breath on her skin, the low drawl of his words - heat raced along all her nerve endings. "Will I like it?"
"Well, I do have to apologize for its size. It is rather small." And with that, he pressed something rather small into her hand. — Sherry Thomas

Funny the way it was never enough to swear and promise just the once. You seemed to have to rethink and repromise every time the subject came up. — Diana Wynne Jones

Thermodynamics is a funny subject.The first time you go through it,you don't understand it at all.The second time you go through it,you think you understand it,except for one or two points.The third time you go through it,you know you don't understand it,but by that time you are so used to the subject,it doesn't bother you anymore.. — Arnold Sommerfeld

That's right, you get him, Mary. Don't let him change the subject! — Alexandra Bracken

When you're sending emails, you live and die by your subject line. Making it personal or funny can increase your open rate 10 times or more. At the very least, try to pitch some value rather than pointless bragging. 'Work Faster!' is better than 'Version 10.4 now available!' — John Wall

Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of. — Henry David Thoreau

I actually think the subject of young divorce is pretty funny; I'd like to write a movie about it. — Olivia Wilde

It's funny what you really see when you're the subject of the completely bizarre gossip magazine industry. It's just like, 'WHAT?!?' All this stuff with Emilie [de Ravin, his costar in Remember Me] as well. The tabloids say stuff like 'They went on a date to an Indian restaurant.' We were doing a scene! There's a film crew there! — Robert Pattinson

Like a small business, a novel cannot afford to carry dead weight, even if it is a close family member.
It is likewise unnecessary to introduce a mother and/or father into a narrative - usually through the medium of a long telephone call on the subject of 'How's things?' - to demonstrate that the protagonist does, like all mammals, have parents. — Howard Mittelmark

This isn't the first time I've used this, and the test subject showed no signs of impaired cognitive ability."
"Who was the test subject?" asked Aurora.
"I test everything out on myself before taking it into the field."
She stared at him. "You zapped your own brain?"
"And it didn't do me any harm apart from the dizziness and the vomiting spells and the weirdly persistent ringing in my ears. Also the blackouts and the mood swings and the creeping paranoia. Apart from that, zero side effects, if you don't count the numb fingertips. Which I don't. — Derek Landy

Something is funny, most of all, because it's true, and because the velocity of insight into this truth exceeds our normal standards. Something is funny because it's outside our accepted boundary of decorum. Something is funny because it defies our expectations. Something is funny because it offers a temporary reprieve from the hardship of seeing the world as it actually is. Something is funny because it is able to suggest gently that even the worst of our circumstances and sins is subject to eventual mercy. — Steve Almond

SUBJECT: Real original
Dear Dark Assholes,
I get the point. Showing me that you know how to log onto a computer and utilize Google must've taken some pretty keen strategizing on your part.
Really, really cool trick. Now leave me the hell alone.
-The DL — S.L. Jennings

I find her [Frances Trollope] simply delightful, even in her prejudices and cantankerousness. It is a gift to an author to find a funny, wry, perceptive contemporary observer to whom the subject matter seems almost as different and alien, and requiring as much struggling to understand, as it did to me. — Charles R. Morris

Usually at the core of fiction that has some element of the absurd there tends to be an examination of some societal ills that we should talk about more than we do. And it's funny, of course, so we have that release valve with absurdism. It offers us a safe way to explore difficult subject matter. — Laurie Foos

I hope they make a show like M*A*S*H, which dealt with a lot of difficult subject matter but was very funny. — Joan Severance

Alien Chutney is just what the name suggests it is. Its music that is so funny and quirky and weird that it feels entirely alien to the listener; yet, the content and the subject matter is so Indian and relatable, it's still chutney. — Vir Das

How do you manage for money?' I asked.

I was given two simultaneous replies of 'We get by' from Ian and 'Don't ask' from Neil. I favoured Ian's reply because it had less-sinister connotations. 'Don't ask' left open the possibility that they raised funds by selling hitch-hikers into slavery. I changed the subject. — Tony Hawks

In between bites of banana, Mr. Remora would tell stories, and the children would write the stories down in notebooks, and every so often there would be a test. The stories were very short, and there were a whole lot of them on every conceivable subject. "One day I went to the store to purchase a carton of milk," Mr. Remora would say, chewing on a banana. "When I got home, I poured the milk into a glass and drank it. Then I watched television. The end." Or: "One afternoon a man named Edward got into a green truck and drove to a farm. The farm had geese and cows. The end." Mr. Ramora would tell story after story, and eat banana after banana, and it would get more and more difficult for Violet to pay attention. — Lemony Snicket

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is?
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. — William Shakespeare

The funny thing is that the process of coming up with an idea for a column or a 'Candid Camera' sequence is essentially the same thing. I just live my life with eyes and ears perhaps a little bit wider open than some people. Whatever bothers me or seems off kilter or in need of parody-or on a serious subject, in need of examination-in the past I had done a sequence about it. Now I write a column about it. — Peter Funt

Bizarrely funny ... Rarely is a documentary as well attuned to its subject as Howard Brookner's BURROUGHS, which captures as much about the life, work and sensibility of its subject as its 86 minute format allows. — Janet Maslin

Subject: Sundown
Date: June 14 2011 09:35
To: Christian Grey
Dear Completely & Utterly Smitten
I love waking up with you, too. But I love being in bed with you and in elevators and on pianos and billiard tables and boats and desks and showers and bathtubs and strange wooden crosses with shackles and four poster beds with red satin sheets and boathouses and childhood bedrooms.
Yours
Sex Mad and Insatiable xx — E.L. James

Kissing, said Lesley, ought really to be taught as a school subject, preferably instead of religious studies, which nobody needed. — Kerstin Gier

Aside from the obvious, Francesca, what do you want in return for supplying information?" Bones asked, getting back to the subject. "You to take me," she replied at once. "Not gonna happen!" I spat, squeezing him possessively. Three sets of widened eyes fixed on me. That's when I realized that what I had a firm grip on was no longer his hand. — Jeaniene Frost

The funniest novel you've never read ... Afternoon Men is a revelation to sophisticated readers of every stripe, but especially to a certain kind of artist manqu on the brink of discovering that life is a more difficult business than he ever had reason to expect ... The subject matter is 'relatable,' as my students like to say. Better still, though, is what you can learn about the craft of writing from this marvelous book ... Indeed, if you're looking for a funny, nonportentous Hemingway, then the early Powell is your man. — Blake Bailey

From: Christian Grey
Subject: &*%$&*&*
Date: August 23 2011 11:23
To: Anastasia Grey
Believe me when I say there are a great many things he'd like to do to your ass right now. Firing you is not one of them.
Christian Grey
CEO & Ass man, Grey Enterprises Holdings, Inc. — E.L. James

What makes a good teacher today is what has always made a good teacher: command of a subject, a critical mind, a demanding nature, and an ability to inspire students to pursue knowledge for some end beyond mere financial rewards. A good teacher might be entertaining and funny, but shouldn't set out to be. A good teacher may have broad experience with and skills using technology, but the mere possession of such experience and skills doesn't make one a good teacher. — Peter K. Fallon

From: Beth Fremont
To: Jennifer Scribner-Snyder
Sent: Thurs, 09/30/1999 3:42 PM
Subject: If you were Superman ...
... and you could choose any alter ego you wanted, why the hell would you choose to spend your Clark Kent hours - which already suck because you have to wear glasses and you can't fly - at a newspaper? Why not pose as a wealthy playboy like Batman? Or the leader of a small but important nation like Black Panther? Why would you choose to spend your days on deadline, making crap money, dealing with terminally crabby editors? — Rainbow Rowell

But Carroll's were more convoluted, and they struck me as funny in a new way:
1) Babies are illogical.
2) Nobody is despised who can manage a crocodile.
3) Illogical persons are despised.
Therefore, babies cannot manage crocodiles.
And:
1) No interesting poems are unpopular among people of real taste.
2) No modern poetry is free from affectation.
3) All of your poems are on the subject of soap bubbles.
4) No affected poetry is popular among people of taste.
5) Only a modern poem would be on the subject of soap bubbles.
Therefore, all your poems are uninteresting. — Steve Martin

A last trick is to become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand. In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. This is a very popular trick, because everyone is able to carry it into effect. — Arthur Schopenhauer

I need another drink!" I said as a second attempt to change the subject.
"Shots!" America yelled.
Shepley rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah. That's what you need, another shot. — Jamie McGuire

Bayliss resumed reading. He was one of those readers who, whether their subject be a murder case or funny anecdote, adopt a measured and sepulchral delivery which gives a suggestion of tragedy and horror to whatever they read. At the church he attended, children would turn pale and snuggle up to their mothers when he read. — P.G. Wodehouse