Quotes & Sayings About Puns

Also not the kind of place to hide a server."
"Is that another pun?" She asked.
"No! I swear! I didn't mean that one."

~Shell Game, Kingdom Keepers #5 — Ridley Pearson

The Saint whose water can light lamps, the clairvoyant whose lapse in recall is the breath of God, the true paranoid for whom all is organized in spheres joyful or threatening about the central pulse of himself, the dreamer whose puns probe ancient fetid shafts and tunnels of truth all act in the same special relevance to the word, or whatever it is the word is there, buffering, to protect us from. The act of metaphor than was a thrust at truth and a lie, depending where you were: inside, safe or outside, lost. — Thomas Pynchon

Babel is a Biblical term for Babylon. The word is Semitic; Bab means gate and El means Cod, so Babel means 'Gate of God.' But it is probably also somewhat onomatopoeic, imitating someone
who speaks in an incomprehensible tongue. The Bible is full of puns. — Neal Stephenson

Goodreads is actually about fiction not dreading goo. But I have a profile there, anyway... — Michael A. Arnzen

What do they call a collective of ghosts?"
"I don't know. What?"
"A fraid. — Abigail Roux

Graphic design is a visual language uniting harmony and balance, color and light, scale and tension, form and content. But it is also an idiomatic language, a language of cues and puns and symbols and allusions, of cultural references and perceptual inferences that challenge both the intellect and the eye. — Jessica Helfand

I love making puns. — Fred Gwynne

Coincidences are spiritual puns. — G.K. Chesterton

An apple a day feeds the tapeworm to stay. — Brian Spellman

My being a writer and playing Scrabble are connected. If I have a good writing day, I'll take a break and play online Scrabble. My favorite word as a child was 'carrion,' before I knew what it meant. I later created crossword puzzles, which was a lot about puns, and how words would create these strange, strange things. — Meg Wolitzer

If you invited a hedge wizard to a party, he would spend half the evening talking to your potted plant. And he would spend the other half listening. — Terry Pratchett

Heifer cow is better than none, but this is no time for puns — Groucho Marx

Deuce groaned. "Ma, what sort of pie was that?" He was rubbing his stomach.
"Bitter cherry. Lucy Hopewel had one at the potluck a week back, and I thought I might try it. It wasn't good?"
"It was good, Ma," Ty said, voice flat.
"Where do you get bitter cherries?" Deuce asked.
"Disgruntled trees," Ty said. He looked over his shoulder with a smirk. — Abigail Roux

The moment I accept that there's an artistic, redeeming quality in puns, I have a horrible feeling I'll get hooked. — John Oliver

I live and die by puns. — Feist

He that would make a pun would pick a pocket. — Patrick O'Brian

I was in my element, excuse the pun. — Adele Rose

This reliance on puns gives Freud an interpretative freedom which might often be considered licence. — Sigmund Freud

Why does Kubrick always chill our blood, and make us huddled up scared stiff with eyes wide shut? Because even dead he's still "Shinnying" with his old hand and his eye-catching plots. — Ana Claudia Antunes

And he won her freedom by playing beautiful music,' Roland added. 'I think he played a lute. Or maybe it was a lyre.'
'Ach, weel, that'll suit us fine,' said Daft Wullie. 'We're experts at lootin' an' then lyin' aboot it. — Terry Pratchett

How many of us are there?" he demanded in a less than amused tone.
"Legions, surely, don't you think it must be so?"
"How can you joke about even this?" he asked, anger evident in his voice. A rarity that he expressed it, or any other emotion, for that matter. Of course, that didn't mean the emotions weren't there, and I'd experienced every one he'd refused to show.
"Don't knock what you haven't tried, Michel. Trust me when I say my regular routine of self-amusement is a much better prophylactic against insanity than your grueling regimen of nightly self-flogging. — Krisi Keley

That was how we spoke, my mother and I: in puns and games and rhymes. In, you might say, lyrics. This was our tragedy. We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny. We were tinpan alleycats, but the gift of music had been withheld. We could not sing along, though we always knew the words. Still, defiantly, we roared our tuneless roars, we fell off the high notes and were trampled by the low ones. And if bitter ices were the consequence, well, there were worse fates in the world than that. — Salman Rushdie

Let us cry for the spilt milk, by all means, if by doing so we learn how to avoid spilling any more. Let us cry for the spilt milk, and remember how, and where, and why, we spilt it. Much wisdom is learnt through tears, but none by forgetting our lessons. — Maria Amparo Ruiz De Burton

The late bird gets the fish that got the worm. — Brian Spellman

It is made up of one character each from the names of three of the major female protagonists of the novel (P'an Chin-lien, Li P'ing-erh, and P'ang Ch'un-mei) that would literally mean Gold Vase Plum; it can be semantically construed as The Plum in the Golden Vase, or Plum Blossoms in a Golden Vase; and it puns with three near homophones that might be rendered as The Glamour of Entering the Vagina. — David Tod Roy

Yeah 'ear 'ear, said George, with half a glance at Fred, the corner of whose mouth twitched. — J.K. Rowling

I don't mind if smiles come at my expense, I'm a small price to pay. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Kelly glanced at the freezer as they headed for the steps. "Hey, maybe one of them will donate a liver to your dad."
Nick looked over his shoulder at Kelly, his eyes wide.
"I'm just saying. Three perfectly good livers sitting in there," Kelly said, completely deadpan. "Nobody's using them. I'll go get one for you."
Nick gaped at him. "How the hell did you ever pass your psych evals?"
"I cheated off your papers."
Nick rolled his eyes and started up the stairs.
"The Navy gives bubble tests. When in doubt, go with C."
"Kelly."
"Get it? Navy? The sea?"
"Kels, shut up."
"Oh, come on! You love puns."
Nick laughed, unable to stop himself. — Abigail Roux

They talk about human rights until the rights include things they personally do not like as alternatives. There needs to be Frank discussions. And Shirley can join too because the pun works. The ideas of human beings of all demeanor and venues are at stake here. — Leviak B. Kelly

Puns are just another form of sarcasm, which may or may not make you - smile, giggle, or laugh. — Aniruddha Sastikar

I love puns. I've been known to turn the car around just to take advantage of a good pun situation. It really is the highest form of humor. — Karin Slaughter

Soon I learned that the worse the puns and jokes, the funnier they could be, if you knew how to deliver them. — John Lasseter

The early worm gets bird shit. — Brian Spellman

Puns are the droppings of soaring wits. — Victor Hugo

It is no mean happiness ... to be seated in the mean — William Shakespeare

Never speak ill of the dead, insult his kin instead. — Brian Spellman

Puns are the highest form of literature. — Alfred Hitchcock

Moaning about how his own brilliance disadvantaged him was not a recipe for popularity. Stanley was initially as isolated in high school as Shirley would be in Rochester: "miserably lonely, reading prodigiously, hating everyone, and wishing I had enough courage to talk to girls." One day a boy he recognized from class sat down next to him in the locker room. Stanley, trying to make conversation as he best knew how, asked his classmate if he read Poe. "No, I read very well, thank you," came the reply. Stanley responded huffily that he didn't think puns were very clever. "I don't either," said the other boy, "but they're something I can't help, like a harelip. — Ruth Franklin

Hey," Nick grunted. "Marriage is just a word for some people, but for others it's a fucking sentence, okay?"
Zane was holding his side. "Oh my God, marriage puns! Oh my God ... "
Nick was trying not to grin, but he finally couldn't help himself. "Once we established I was the victim, then we had to find a girl with a ring on her finger to figure out which one I'd fucking married."
Ty leaned against Zane's arm, laughing so hard he could no longer sit up straight. "The look on his face!"
"He made a marriage pun," Zane gasped. — Abigail Roux

You make me ride a horse, you get unbridled puns." "That's clever, I approve." "Thank you." Ty said — Abigail Roux

Fozzie Bear has so many bear puns in this script - like, 'Trac is grizzly!' 'This is unbearable!' It's the greatest. — Jason Segel

One of Lucy's admirers took to her, apparently."
"Took to her?" echoes William, his own feelings for Sugar causing him to construe the phrase benignly.
"Yes," said Bodley "With her own riding crop."
"Beat her very severely."
"Particularly about the face and mouth."
"I understand all the fight's gone out of her now."
"Well, as you can imagine," he says. "Madam Georgina doesn't have high hopes. Even if she's willing to wait, there will be scars."
Ashwell, eyes downcast, is picking at the lint on his trousers. "Poor girl," he laments.
"Yes," smirks Bodley. "How are the fighty maulen. — Michel Faber

Vimes thought for a moment and said, 'Well, dear, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a man with a lot of wood must be in want of a wife who can handle a great big
— Terry Pratchett

Anyway, all he's partial to sending is holograms of uniquely perverted unicorns and video clips of him reading puns. Pluto, if anything, has made him stranger. — Pierce Brown

Jasper!" Casey shouts, startling the young woman. "My cargo is talking to me! — Nathan Reese Maher

Never a dull moment," he muttered. They'd been flash and
bang from the first moment they'd met.
"Yeah, well, if you weren't such a dick ... ," Ty murmured with a
small smile.
Zane snickered. "Works out well since you're an asshole."
"We're gonna have to talk about these puns." Ty groaned. — Abigail Roux

May I remind you, Howard, that mens means "the mind" and mensa means "a table"? But I expect in your case the two things are the same. No, no, don't scratch your head, boy. You'll get splinters. — Diana Wynne Jones

Your magic gets me hard," he said, looking like he wished he could be anywhere but where he was. "When you do anything, I get hard, really. Even your ridiculous sex puns. You remember when you wrapped those Dark wizards in stone at the restaurant?"
"Yeah," I managed to say.
"I wanted to tell you that you gave me an e-rock-tion." He bent over and banged his forehead against the table. "Why, why, why did I say that out loud? Please. Someone. Anyone. Kill me."
"Sex puns," I breathed. "Knight Delicious Face said a sex pun. — T.J. Klune

Well, land sakes!" Hiro says. "Lookee here!" He whips his blade sideways, cutting off both of the businessman's forearms, causing the sword to clatter onto the floor.
"Better fire up the ol' barbeque, Jemima!" Hiro continues, whipping the sword around sideways, cutting the businessman's body in half just above the navel. Then he leans down so he's looking right into the businessman's face. "Didn't anyone tell you," he says, losing the dialect, "that I was a hacker?"
Then he hacks the guy's head off. — Neal Stephenson

Mr. Pettifor, I've brought you lunch, Sir." "Leave it on my desk," he grouses. "It's your favorite, Sir, a Reuben with au jus," I say softly. — Ella Dominguez

Delightful, tragic, gloriously elegiac and riddled with puns-Close to Hugh is just like life, only so much more beautiful for being art. — Lynn Coady

... the Chinese have become very good at coming up with puns, alternative words, and memes. For example, they talk about the battle between the grass-mud horse and the river crab. The grass-mud horse, caonima, is the phonogram for "mother-fucker" - what the netizens call themselves. The river crab, hexie, is the phonogram for "harmonisation" or "censorship". So you have a battle between the caonima and the hexie. When big political stories happen, you find netizens discussing them using such weird phrases and words that you can't understand them even if you have a PhD in Chinese. — Michael Anti

I had a dream about you last night... we tried to joke but neither could make any sense. We realized that puns are present in every language, though not shared by any of them. — Marshall Ramsay

I like the old wisdom
puns, riddles, spells, proverbs. — Mason Cooley

The zoo lost its elephant again. It never forgets where to go. I found it in the middle of my room. — Brian Spellman

I said never mix business with pleasure. They said it was a pleasure doing business with me. — Nikhil Sharda

Cynthia had been on friendly terms with an eccentric librarian called Porlock who in the last years of his dusty life had been engaged in examining old books for miraculous misprints such as the substitution of "1" for the second "h" in the word "hither." Contrary to Cynthia, he cared nothing for the thrill of obscure predictions; all he sought was the freak itself, the chance that mimics choice, the flaw that looks like a flower; and Cynthia, a much more perverse amateur of misshapen or illicitly connected words, puns, logogriphs, and so on, had helped the poor crank to pursue a quest that in the light of the example she cited struck me as statistically insane. ("The Vane Sisters") — Vladimir Nabokov

Heh. I think you made your point, Atticus.
Gods Below, Oberon, that was horrendous! You just violated the Schwarzenegger Pun Reduction Treaty of 2010.
What? No, that didn't qualify!
Yes, it did. Any pun related to a weapon's destructive capabilities or final disposition of a victim's body is a Schwarzenegger pun, by definition. That's negative twenty sausages according to the sanctions outlined in Section Four, Paragraph Two.
My hound whined. No! Not twenty sausages! Twenty succulent sausages I'll never snarf? You can't do that - it's cruelty to animals!
You can't argue with this. Your pawprint is on the treaty, and you agreed that Schwarzenegger puns are heinous abominations of language that deserve food-related punishments for purposes of correction and deterrence.
Auggh! I still say it's your fault for renting Commando in the first place! You started it! — Kevin Hearne

I'll take her no mistake no mister no missed her no mist no miss no me no. — Caryl Churchill

Wit and puns aren't just decor in the mind; they're essential signs that the mind knows it's on, recognizes its own software, can spot the bugs in its own program. — Adam Gopnik

For three years, all through junior high, my social death was grossly overdetermined. I had a large vocabulary, a giddily squeaking voice, horn-rimmed glasses, poor arm strength, too-obvious approval from my teachers, irresistible urges to shout unfunny puns, a near-eidetic acquaintance with J.R.R. Tolkien, a big chemistry lab in my basement, a penchant for intimately insulting any unfamiliar girl unwise enough to speak to me, and so on. — Jonathan Franzen

This did not seem to reassure Nico.
"I don't like being in the dark," he muttered.
An odd complaint for a child of Hades, but I understood what he meant. — Rick Riordan

Do they always flirt with biblical quotes?" Asil asked Tad.
In long-suffering tones, Tad said, "They can flirt with the periodic table or a restaurant menu. We've learned to live with it. Get a room you guys. — Patricia Briggs

The lodgings were on the top floor next to the well-guarded premises of a respectable dealer in stolen property because, as Granny had heard, good fences make good neighbors. — Terry Pratchett

I assume therefore I think I think yet still don't know a goddamn thing. — Brian Spellman

It is the observer of the pun that makes it, my dear Brumm. Of course, when the word is distorted, as in Evilution, the most preoccupied notice it, but in this instance which you try to fasten upon me the crime is yours. There is nothing more contrary to the Evolutionary will than puns. Bloodshed and desolation follow in their wake. Their English heyday, which was in the reign of James I, caused the great civil war; in France they flourished most rankly under Louis XV, and produced the French Revolution. I have considered puns, and apart altogether from their hateful effect, as shown in history, it is certain that they are quite unevolutionary, because I, the fittest of men, am unable to make them. You will consult your own welfare, and that of the nation, Brougham, by refraining in future. — John Davidson

Words played an important part in my growing up. Not only the written word ... but words that flew through the air: jokes, riddles, puns. — James Howe

The glass is completely full...of shit. — Brian Spellman

Biers was where the undead drank. And when Igor the barman was asked for a Bloody Mary, he didn't mix a metaphor. — Terry Pratchett

So a sense of humor is not merely a matter of trying to tell jokes or make puns, trying to be funny in a deliberate fashion. It involves seeing the basic irony of the juxtaposition of extremes, so that one is not caught taking them seriously, so that one does not seriously play their game of hope and fear. This is why the experience of the spiritual path is so significant, why the practice of meditation is the most insignificant experience of all. — Chogyam Trungpa

I tried to think of puns that might make my father laugh one more time, and I looked at the stars. — Morgan Matson

I found my destination a few miles outside Swelling: a lone, squat, brown bar called The Inn of the Line...The place looked like a dive. Maybe even a plunge. Hell, it was a drowning accident. — Elliott James

Bite my laughters, drink my tears. Pore into me, volumes, spell me stark and spill me swooning, I just don't care what my thwarters think. — James Joyce

Are you calling for help?" Sophie asked when he had closed the phone.
Saint-Germain shook his head. "Ordering breakfast. I'm famished." He jerked his thumb back in the direction of the Eiffel Tower, which was still erupting fireworks. "Creating something like that- if you pardon the pun- burns a lot of calories. — Michael Scott

Okay, you won our shitty little argument. Pass the world. — Brian Spellman

Cucumbers are technically a fruit and in the same family as pumpkins, melons and squash, so it may benefit those markets, although, to be honest, giant melons don't strike me as potentially that commercial. — Jasper Fforde

There is going to come a day when everyone here is going to need keen observation and wit to ridicule George W. Bush. But when that day comes, all we're going to have are tired puns and goofy looks. Because as you would say, we're suffering from the soft bigotry of low expectorations. — Jon Stewart

Rhyme as an echo not a closing off of sound. Love it. I don't know where the rhymes came from. Or the puns like "no/know" and so on. Just a way my mind start moving toward what seemed urgent to it. I'd like to claim complete rational intent for it all, but it wasn't that way. if you asked me about rhyme thirty years ago, I'd have said: not me, never. And now I done it. — Gregory Orr

What did the mat say to the door? You must be really aDOORable to open up to everyone who knock at you. And I welcome everyone and what do I get? People stepping all over me — Ana Claudia Antunes

An exquisite invention this, Worthy of Love's most honeyed kiss,
This art of writing billet-doux
In buds, and odors, and bright hues! In saying all one feels and thinks In clever daffodils and pinks; In puns of tulips; and in phrases, Charming for their truth, of daisies. — Leigh Hunt

All the shops have been smashed open. There was a whole bunch of people across the street helping themselves to musical instruments, can you believe that?"
"Yeah," said Rincewind. " ... Luters, I expect. — Terry Pratchett

I have mood poisoning. Must be something I hate. — Marilyn Manson

I'm pretty sure that wasn't there before," Nick grumbled.
Kelly laughed harder. "I'm pretty sure it was."
"Shut up."
"You're high."
"Oh, look at the pothead calling the kettle names," Nick said in a singsong voice as he settled onto the wide chaise beside Kelly. — Abigail Roux

People may claim to hate puns, but most true word lovers have groaned to like them. — Jay Heinrichs

Okay, brace yourselves for a really hilarious joke here: Being a vampire sucks. — Tamara Summers

It's unpleasantly like being drunk."
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"You ask a glass of water. — Douglas Adams

I never knew an enemy to puns who was not an ill-natured man. — Charles Lamb

What does Karl Marx put on his pasta? Communist Manipesto! — Stephen Colbert

Over the years, I have been subjected to many indignities, all for the sake of Art. If I ever catch him, I'm going to kill the guy. — Bob Hope

This Byrd wants a Wren. — Leslea Tash

My puns are not trivial. They are quadrivial — James Joyce

Every swamp has a silted lining. — Brian Spellman

Would I laugh?"
"Matter of fact, you would," says Zeb. "Heart like shale. What you need is a good fracking. — Margaret Atwood

The day I can't pull something useful out of my ass is the day I quit sticking things up my ass. — Sean Gibson

Puns are little plays on words that a certain breed of person loves to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of the first day even if they have plenty of food and water. — Dave Barry

Xingu!" she scoffed. "Why, it was the fact of our knowing so much more about it than she did - unprepared though we were - that made Osric Dane so furious. I should have thought that was plain enough to everybody! — Edith Wharton

All literary style, especially national style, is made up of such coincidences, which are a spiritual sort of puns. That is why style is untranslatable ... — Gilbert K. Chesterton

I like Jacques Derrida; I think he's funny. I like my philosophy with a few jokes and puns. I know that that offends other philosophers; they think he's not taking things seriously, but he comes up with some marvellous puns. Why shouldn't you have a bit of fun while dealing with the deepest issues of the mind? — Alan Moore

Another phenomenon, still more strikingly modern, was a package of lucifer matches, which, in old times, would have been thought actually to borrow their instantaneous flame from the nether fires of Tophet. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

I do not, in fact, use many puns. Certainly there are far fewer than people believe. But I suspect the ones I do occasionally use tend to hang around in people's memories for a while. — Terry Pratchett