Quip Quotes & Sayings

The Canteen Boy, the reason you feel bad for him and you can laugh is because he, and I guess a lot of my characters, they don't notice they're getting made fun of. So they'll say something back that's not that great a quip, but in their mind they won the argument. — Adam Sandler

But you've never drunk fresh blood. Have you?"
Simon raised his eyebrows in response.
"Well, aside from mine, of course," Jace said. "And I'm sure my blood is fan-tastic. — Cassandra Clare

Mary's reading list betrayed her passion for forensics and detective novels. There were so many scientific journals and books randomly strewn around her little one-room apartment that it looked like the Great White Hurracane had struck inside.

It's all part of my decorating scheme Mary would quip. This may look like the work of a slob, but if you look closer, you'll realize it's my way of giving color to an awfully drab floor. — Lawrence H. Levy

I once heard Don DeLillo quip that a fiction writer starts with meaning and then manufactures events to represent it; a memoirist starts with events, then derives meaning from them. — Mary Karr

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 man's brow. — Ovid

Doctors most commonly get mixed up between absence of evidence and evidence of abense — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

She [Gypsy Rose Lee] was a sophisticated self-satirist with a contagious delight in the comedy of sex. She was coy; she was sly; she always had a witty quip; she had an intensely dramatic presence. — Karen Abbott

It's the Queen's English now,' observed Peter mildly.

'Is there a difference?' asked Oundle rhetorically. 'I fervently hope not.'

'There will be in time,' said Peter.

'That will be deplorable,' replied Oudle. 'I shall not myself deviate by a syllable from correct usage.'

'My language is foul, and yours is Fowler?' said Peter, and added one of his sudden quirky smiles, 'or know your Onions.'

This quip crossed the barrier of the table, because the man sitting nearly opposite Peter laughed.

'Onions?' said Oudle.

'C.T. Onions, I imagine,' said the man opposite. 'Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary.'

'Oh, I see,' said Oudle. 'Very droll. — Jill Paton Walsh

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. — Dean Norris

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. — James Taranto

In what appears to have been an unplanned quip, Wilberforce asked Huxley if he thought he was descended from an ape on his father's or mother's side. Huxley retorted that he would rather have simian relatives than claim kinship with a man who used his charisma and authority to quash free debate. — Jonathan Clements

Obi sits on the cot and ties my ankles together. I'm tempted to make a quip about requiring dinner and a movie before getting so kinky, but I don't. — Susan Ee

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! — Joan Rivers

[T]hat question is like asking what color Tuesday was. It's meaningless. — James S.A. Corey

Once is never. Twice is always. — James S.A. Corey

Gut?"
"General Unified Theory." Kohler quipped. "The theory of everything. — Dan Brown

Ya writin' a book? Hey great. Need some help? Want some of my quips? Hey, we could do it together. We'd quip 'em to death. Give 'em quiplash hee hee hee. — Ken Dryden

Stephen Morillo, one of the leading military historians of Anglo-Norman England, rejected the "great man" approach in his introduction to a series of extracts and articles on the Battle of Hastings. Noting that William had benefited from a contrary wind that delayed his attack until Harold Godwineson had been drawn north by a threat from a third claimant, Harald Hardrada of Norway, Morillo invoked the idea of chaos theory, which describes how small, even random, factors can sometimes have a huge effect on larger systems. Drawing on the quip of another scholar, John Gillingham, he wondered if William, who was sometimes called William the Bastard, due to his illegitimate birth, ought really to be known as William the Lucky Bastard.2 — Hugh M. Thomas

I could see why she felt attracted to Sam K. Barrows. Birds of a feather, or rather lizards of a scale. — Philip K. Dick

No," Jack struggled to quip, "but — Linda Lael Miller

Look, I asked you here for a reason. Much as I hate to admit it, vampire, we have something in common."
"Totally awesome hair?" Simon suggested. — Cassandra Clare

T.V. has brought murder back into the home where it belongs. — Alfred Hitchcock

If we adopted Jack," I quip, "we'd have to give him combat pay for an allowance — Daven Anderson

Look on the bright side," said Simon, "If they need a human sacrifice, you can always offer me. I'm not sure the rest of you qualify anyway. — Cassandra Clare

So that's how you charm the cobra," I quip. He smiles devilishly. "If you really want to see what effect you have on my snake, I'd be happy to show you. — M. Leighton

I don't quite hear what you say, but I beg to differ entirely with you. — Augustus De Morgan

This isn't the time for bravado, Mr. Orsini,' he said.
Brentford couldn't help himself. 'No, it isn't,' he said. 'Perhaps you could come back later? — Jean-Christophe Valtat

Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: 'You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself - educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society. — Doris Lessing

tomorrow's gone-we'll have tonight! — Dorothy Parker

It doesn't hurt."
"But my eyes do," said a coolly amused voice from the doorway. Jace. He had come in so quietly that even Simon hadn't heard him; closing the door behind him, he grinned as Isabelle pulled Simon's shirt down. "Molesting the vampire while he's too weak to fight back, Iz?" he asked. "I'm pretty sure that violates at least one of the Accords."
"I'm just showing him where he got stabbed," Isabelle protested, but she scooted back to her chair with a certain amount of haste. — Cassandra Clare

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. — Earl Scruggs

I just always remember there being an ability to amuse schoolmates. Not in a kind of 'dance-around-at-the-front-of-the-room-with-his-trousers-off' way, but probably with a sardonic quip. I remember getting a school report that said something like, 'Steve's good, but he tries to see the funny side in everything.' — Stephen Merchant

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. — Ashton Kutcher

I've always wondered though," Orn mused aloud, "what does God need with a starship?"
"Are you going to make that stupid quip every time we pass a missionary ship?"
"Until they learn a new position. — Sabrina Zbasnik

The New York Times editorial page is like a Ouija board that has only three answers, no matter what the question. The answers are: higher taxes, more restrictions on political speech and stricter gun control. — Ann Coulter

What's your angle?" I asked, trying to sound more playful than demanding.
"Isosceles," Jack quipped. — Amanda Hocking

As much as it hurts, I would rather miss someone than hit someone. — Brian Celio

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. — Kurt Vonnegut

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. — Stephen Jay Gould

Louella remarked that when foreign nations had intercourse with this country they knew they had been intercoursed. — Jack Woodford

I'm not sure you're quite sensible of the honor I'm doing you," Jace said. "you'll be the first mundane who has ever been inside the Institute."
"Probably the smell keeps the rest of them away. — Cassandra Clare

This one incident I will not allow you to shrug off!"
"I wasn't planning to," Jace said. "I can't shrug anything off. My shoulder's dislocated."
-Hodge & Jace, pg.296- — Cassandra Clare

In a recent interview, General Norman Schwartzkof was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harboured and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America. His answer ... I believe that forgiving them is God's function. Our job is simply to arrange the meeting. — Norman Schwarzkopf

My father had been from Glasgow; my mother, from Los Angeles. They had both enjoyed the quip that the difference between an American and a European was that to an American, a hundred years was a long time, and to a European, a hundred miles is a big journey. — Mercedes Lackey

It is an heretic that makes the fire,
Not she which burns in't. — William Shakespeare

I recall the story of the philosopher and the theologian... The two were engaged in disputation and the theologian used the old quip about a philosopher resembling a blind man, in a dark room, looking for a black cat - which wasn't there. 'That may be,' said the philosopher, 'but a theologian would have found it. — Julian Huxley

The Feynman quip is not without a philosopher's tu quoque: "most scientists tend to understand little more about science than fish about hydrodynamics" (Lakatos 1978:62 n.2). — Robert Nola

Well, I can hardly lick champagne off your dazzling personality, now can I? — Mora Early

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. — Michael Parenti

He drew in an answering breath, and she waited to hear the quip, the joke, the dab of levity for the most intense moment they'd ever shared. But he only dropped his head into the crook of her neck and laid his mouth over her leaping pulse as they found their unhurried rhythm in the dark. — Jessica Lemmon

It must have been around that time that I discovered an essay by Ralph Wiley in which he responded to Bellow's quip. "Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus," wrote Wiley. "Unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership." And there it was. I had accepted Bellow's premise. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I'm glad you think this is funny."
"You're not happy to see me, then?" Jace asked. "I have to say, I'm surprised. I've always been told my presence brightened up any room. One might think that went doubly for dank underground cells. — Cassandra Clare

Quip fast, die young. — Cassandra Clare

When Nero, with a casual quip, declared 'mushrooms to be the food of the gods, since it was by means of a mushroom that Claudius has become a god',66 it — Tom Holland

Thad: "But this is a boy, and you need to think of your reputation if you're spending time alone with him - "

Ari: "Learning how to put a man's eye out or take him down at the knees. Very romantic stuff, Thad. Very romantic. Oh, and we also hid a body together, so we're practically engaged. — C.J. Redwine

The heart has its reasons which reason knows not. — Blaise Pascal

Something girls never understood about poker night. The real point of the card play was to razz. Razzing calls forth unbridled farm-boy humour, earthy by some standards. The best quip involves belittling someone else's penis, or turning it back on the sayer, or both. — Allan Dare Pearce

It must be an odd person indeed that can say for certain they are normal. — Initially NO

Because I am about to be devoured by poodles," I quip. "Remember me always, my love. — Holly Black

Il n'est pas certain que tout soit incertain.
(Translation: It is not certain that everything is uncertain.) — Blaise Pascal

'What i you're the Big Bad Wolf?' he managed to quip.

Neal's eyes widened. 'Then you'd better be Little Red Riding Hood, son.' — Rachel Wilder

Eternity is a ham and two people" (also given as "Eternity is two people and a ham") is an old quip from the days when a ham was huge - far more than two people could finish. Irma Rombauer mentions this line in her famous cookbook, The Joy of Cooking. — Dorothy Parker

Well, She's (She-Hulk) quippy. I'm quippy. When we get together, we quip. And, quipwise, I think that makes me a better quipper. -Spiderman — Dan Slott