Very Witty Quotes & Sayings

Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness, one of the first synoptic articles to come out of his collaboration with Christof Koch at Caltech. I felt very privileged to see this manuscript, in particular their carefully laid-out argument that an ideal way of entering this seemingly inaccessible subject would be through exploring disorders of visual perception. Crick and Koch's paper was aimed at neuroscientists and covered a vast range in a few pages; it was sometimes dense and highly technical. But I knew that Crick could also write in a very accessible and witty and personable way; this was especially evident in his two earlier books, Life Itself and Of Molecules and Men. So I now entertained hopes that he might give a more popular and accessible form to his neurobiological theory of consciousness, enriched with clinical and everyday examples. — Oliver Sacks

I would like to have a child. A very wise and witty little girl who'd grow up to be the woman I could never be. A very independent little girl with no scars on the brain or the psyche ... A little girl who said what she meant and meant what she said. A little girl who was neither bitchy nor mealy-mouthed ... What I really wanted was to give birth to myself - the little girl I might have been in a different family, a different world. - Erica Jong, Fear of Flying — Anonymous

I can't sing very well but I'd like to try. — Elvis Presley

And why would I be hiding from Master Chubb in his own kitchen?" Halt challenged. Again, Horace shrugged innocently.
"Well, there was a tray of freshly made pies airing on the windowsill, wasn't there? And you're quite fond of pies, aren't you, Halt?"
Halt drew himself up very straight in the saddle. "Are you accusing me of sneaking into that kitchen to steal the pies for myself? Is that it?"
His voice and body language simply reeked of injured dignity.
"Of course not, Halt!" Horace hurried to assure him, and Halt's stiff-shouldered form relaxed a little.
"I just thought I'd give you the opportunity to confess," Horace added. — John Flanagan

Even Mademoiselle Neubahr can't make me believe in hell. It doesn't seem a very - witty - solution of the crime-and-punishment situation, does it? — Frances Noyes Hart

I am not shy about admitting my modest talents. For example, I am happy to admit that I am better than average at clever remarks, and I also have a flair for getting people to like me. But to be perfectly fair to myself, I am ever-ready to confess my shortcomings, too, and a quick round of soul-searching forced me to admit that I had never been any good at all at breathing water. As I hung there from the seat belt, dazed and watching the water pour in and swirl around my head, this began to seem like a very large character flaw. — Jeff Lindsay

I have been lately introduced to the famous Thomas Paine, and like him very well. He is vain beyond all belief, but he has reason to be vain, and for my part I forgive him. He has done wonders for the cause of liberty, both in America and Europe, and I believe him to be conscientiously an honest man. He converses extremely well; and I find him wittier in discourse than in his writings, where his humour is clumsy enough. — Wolfe Tone

Penny was a very pretty, witty and brave girl, as bold as a Marine platoon storming Iwo Jima. — John C. Wright

The trouble with Grace, she thought, is that she is so literal. But that was the trouble with most people, when it came down to it; there were very few who enjoyed flights of fantasy, and to have that sort of mind
one which enjoyed dry with and understood the absurd
left one in a shrinking minority. — Alexander McCall Smith

I know you are incredibly bright, because when you are not being a smartarse your comments in class are very insightful, and when you ARE being a smartarse you are witty and clever and you make me laugh even when I want to slap you. — Amy Harmon

You're not enjoying yourself," Syl said. "You're starting to sound a lot like my mother." "Captivating?" Syl said. "Amazing, witty, meaningful?" "Repetitive." "Captivating?" Syl said. "Amazing, witty, meaningful?" "Very funny." "Says the man not laughing," she replied, folding her arms. — Brandon Sanderson

There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times. — Edmund Burke

Phil Hartman was brilliant, and Dave Foley is a really funny guy. Phil Hartman was actually even funnier offstage than he was onstage because he would say nasty things. Dave Foley's very funny, very witty guy, very quick. — Joe Rogan

The habit of getting up early, which I had formed when the children were young, now became my choice. I am not very bright or very witty or very inventive after the sun goes down. — Toni Morrison

It is always tedious when someone tells you that if you don't stop crying, they will give you something to cry about, because if you are crying then you already have something to cry about, and so there is no reason for them to give you anything additional to cry about, thank you very much. — Lemony Snicket

Well, if only I wasn't too much the gentleman to flay your spirit with a witty and cutting retort, madam, you'd be ... thoroughly ... um, wittily retorted at this very instant. - Locke Lamora — Scott Lynch

Day was about five inches shorter than him, but they complimented each other perfectly. Day was quick, witty, smart, skilled, and very dangerous. — A.E. Via

What I need is a woman who is something, anything: either very beautiful or very kind or in the last resort very wicked; very witty or very stupid, but something. — Alfred De Musset

Now, where does my comedy come from, like, as a human being? Yeah, when I was a kid I was dyslexic and had to go to special-ed every day and felt stupid about that and got very witty to defend myself. — Dax Shepard

This is one of his most human and most amusing and witty novels. The characters are very Indian. I decided that I wanted to do a comedy, so this was just the right one. — Ismail Merchant

He asked what I made of the other students, so I told him. They were OK, but they were all very similar; they struggled to have different opinions because they'd never failed at anything or been nobodies, and they thought they would always win. But this isn't most people's experience of life. He asked me what could be done about it. I told him the answer was to send them all out for a year to do some dead-end job like working in a chicken-processing plant or spreading muck with a tractor. It would do more good than a gap year in Peru. He laughed and thought this tremendously witty. It wasn't meant to be funny. — James Rebanks

She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. — F Scott Fitzgerald

When you paint late at night, drinking beer or wine or both, you gotta be very careful to watch what you are doing ... — Hiroko Sakai

It would be easy, however, to exaggerate the havoc wrought by such artificial conditions. The monotony we observe in mankind must not be charged to the oppressive influence of circumstances crushing the individual soul. It is not society's fault that most men seem to miss their vocation. Most men have no vocation; and society, in imposing on them some chance language, some chance religion, and some chance career, first plants an ideal in their bosoms and insinuates into them a sort of racial or professional soul. Their only character is composed of the habits they have been led to acquire. Some little propensities betrayed in childhood may very probably survive; one man may prove by his dying words that he was congenitally witty, another tender, another brave.But these native qualities will simply have added an ineffectual tint to some typical existence or other; and the vast majority will remain, as Schopenhauer said, Fabrikwaaren der Natur. — George Santayana

If you ever get married again, don't tell your husband anything. Do you hear me?'

'Why?' said Mary Jane.

'Because I say so, that's why,' said Eloise. 'They wanna think you spent your whole life vomiting every time a boy came near you. I'm not kidding, either. Oh, you can tell them stuff. But never honestly. I mean never honestly. If you tell 'em you once knew a handsome boy, you gotta say in the same breath he was too handsome. And if you tell 'em you knew a witty boy, you gotta tell 'em he was kind of a smart aleck, though, or a wise guy. If you don't, they hit you over the head with the poor boy every time they get a chance.' Eloise paused to drink from her glass and to think. 'Oh,' she said, 'they'll listen very maturely and all that. They'll even look intelligent as hell. But don't let it fool you. Believe me. You'll go through hell if you ever give 'em any credit for intelligence. Take my word. — J.D. Salinger

My mother was a terrific force in my life. Wartime-generation woman, hadn't gone to university but should have done. Was very funny, very verbal, very clever, very witty. — Ian Hislop

You're starting to sound a lot like my mother." "Captivating?" Syl said. "Amazing, witty, meaningful?" "Repetitive." "Captivating?" Syl said. "Amazing, witty, meaningful?" "Very funny. — Brandon Sanderson

People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't want it. — Ogden Nash

The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating. The man who insists on high and serious pleasures is depriving himself of pleasure; he continually restricts what he can enjoy; in the constant exercise of his good taste he will eventually price himself out of the market, so to speak. Here Camp taste supervenes upon good taste as a daring and witty hedonism. It makes the man of good taste cheerful, where before he ran the risk of being chronically frustrated. It is good for the digestion. — Susan Sontag

Honesty is the foundation of a sound character and the keystone of all other virtues. It is the cement without which all other redeeming features are fractured and without anchor. A dishonest person may be kind, witty, and very capable, but the strength of character simply isn't there. Honesty does not come by degrees. A person is either all honest or he is dishonest. You can be true or you can be false, but you can't be both at the same time. — William Grant Bangerter

Not having a moustache, he was in the habit of twirling his eyebrows. "Why do you keep twirling your eyebrows?" a young lady asked him one day. "We all twirl the hairs we have, depending on our age and sex," Tito replied. The young lady thought him very witty and fell in love with him. She — Pitigrilli

I've attended seven schools in ten years," I explain. "So you can rest assured I know you. You're the girl who thinks being cruel is the same thing as being witty. You think being loud is the same thing as being right. And, most of all, you're the girl who is very, very pretty. And also very, very ... common. trust me. There's at least one of you in every school." I watch her features shift. "Oh. Wait. Did you think you were unique? — Ally Carter

Pickup lines never work ... I think someone clever, witty and funny is very attractive. — Kate Upton

As soon as she gets her divorce one of us is going to marry her. We don't know which. She is about as beautiful a woman as I ever saw, and very witty and well-informed, but it would cost a good deal to keep her in diamonds. — Richard H. Davis

Thus the aristocracy took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new master, and whispering in his ears sinister prophecies of coming catastrophe.
In this way arose feudal Socialism; half lamentation, half lampoon; half echo of the past, half menace of the future, at times by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart's core, but always ludicrous in its effects, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history. — Karl Marx

A St. Trinian's girl would be sadistic, cunning, dissolute, crooked, sordid, lacking morals of any sort and capable of any excess. She would also be well-spoken, even well-mannered and polite. Sardonic, witty and very amusing. She would be good company. In short: typically human and, despite everything, endearing. — Ronald Searle

If you were smart," Genghis said, "you would have borrowed the silverware of one of your friends."
"We never thought of that," Klaus said. When one is forced to tell atrocious lies, one often feels a guilty flutter in one's stomach, and Klaus felt such a flutter now. "You certainly are an intelligent man."
"Not only am I intelligent," Genghis agreed, "but I'm also very smart. — Lemony Snicket

Spread the glad tidings that it will not disappoint Miss Heyer's many admirers. Judging from the letters I've received from obviously feeble-minded persons who do so wish I would write another These Old Shades, it ought to sell like hot cakes. I think myself I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it's questionably good escapist literature and I think I should rather like it if I were sitting in an air-raid shelter, or recovering from flu. Its period detail is good; my husband says it's witty
and without going to these lengths, I will say that it is very good fun. — Georgette Heyer

Bill Gallagher's new version of 'The Prisoner' is an enthralling commentary on modern culture. It is witty, intelligent and disturbing. I am very excited to be involved. — Ian McKellen

I've been enjoying 'Life on the Mississippi' by Mark Twain that I picked up at the airport randomly. It's very witty and interesting to read about his time as a steamboat pilot. — Roman Coppola

It was great fun to hang around the Beatles. They had amazingly fast minds, and they were incredibly amusing and funny and witty. They were great. There was a very high energy surrounding them. — Pattie Boyd

His friend laughed. 'You missed your calling, Freddie,' he said. 'You should have been one of the aforementioned clergy. Is this what marriage does to you? One shudders at the very idea. — Mary Balogh

Plainly, this unwillingness to give ground even on unimportant disagreements is the symptom of some deepseated insecurity, as was my one-time fondness for making teasing remarks (which I amended when I read Anthony Powell's matter-of-fact observation that teasing is an unfailing sign of misery within) and as is my very pronounced impatience. The struggle, therefore, is to try and cultivate the virtuous side of these shortcomings: to be a genial host while only slightly whiffled, for example, or to be witty at the expense of one's own weaknesses instead of those of other people. — Christopher Hitchens

Todd's mother had several children by different fathers, and Todd [Willingham] had been abandoned in California ... He's a good-looking man. He was a witty man, you know? Funny, caring. He wasn't arrogant, but he was kind of set in his ways. If he thought something, it was one way. You could show him an alternative, but he was still going to stick by his particular view. But I could see how to women he could be a very charming, good-looking guy, especially when he was younger. — Elizabeth Gilbert

And when she's at the door, Mark stops her and he says, "I like you, very much. Just as you are."
It's ridiculous that I love this so much. It's so simple. It's not a witty, perfectly phrased, Ephron-y declaration by our charming, neurotic hero. It's so ... plain. But the idea is the most beautiful thing in the world. So, obviously, it makes me cry. — Mindy Kaling

I don't think there's any harm at all in allowing a kid to fantasize. In fact, I think to stop people from fantasizing is a very destructive thing indeed. — J.K. Rowling

I had to have her, and I did. She got on her knees when I told her to. She slipped easily into play and out again, becoming her witty, intelligent self seamlessly. She wasn't intimidated by me. She teased and challenged me. She kissed like she meant it, and from the very first night, she enjoyed fucking without reservation or shame. Monica was, in a word, perfect. — C.D. Reiss

It's all a matter of habit. There's no right or wrong in it. Nobody means anything by it. And it's so quaint, and gives such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very witty. I find the new small talk delightful and quite innocent. — George Bernard Shaw

I think that Obama is very cool. And I think he's clever, and I think he can be witty. But I don't think he's funny in either the way that Reagan was funny - or John McCain and Dick Cheney are both funny in that ruthless, kind of mean way. — Mo Rocca

I was brought up by very witty people who were dealing with quite difficult things: disease and death ... I was brought up by people who tended to giggle at funerals. — Emma Thompson

Every Brit I met had the best sense of humor. They're hilarious: very dry and witty. — Merritt Patterson

You write poetry?" Klaus asked.
He had read a lot about poets but had never met one.
"Just a little bit," Isadora said modestly. "I write poems down in this notebook. It's an interest of mine."
"Sappho!" Sunny shrieked, which meant something like, "I'd be very pleased to hear a poem of yours! — Lemony Snicket

You won't be able to do it wrong, Durnik
any more than you'd be able to lie or cheat or steal. It's built into you to do it right, so don't worry about it."
"That's all very well for you to say, Mistress, Pol," he replied, "but if you don't mind, I will worry about it just a bit
privately of course. — David Eddings

I would be a liar if I said I don't care [about my appearance]; yes, I care. I found it very difficult, when I first became well known, to read criticism about how I look, how messy my hair was, and how generally unkempt I look. The nastiest thing ever written was written by a man, and I do remember that. I wasn't looking for it either, it was just simply in the newspaper I was reading. — J.K. Rowling

I feel like there's an obsession with pace right now in theater, with things being very fast and very witty and very loud, and I think we're all so freaked out about theater keeping audiences interested because everybody's so freaked out about theater becoming irrelevant. — Annie Baker

My notepad resting on my lap takes the scribbles of unspoken truth: effeminate men are very witty, whereas macho men are duller than death. — Morrissey

He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. — Leo Tolstoy

My childhood was lonely. Both my parents were away a lot, working, and the maid basically raised me. And I think that's where a lot of my comedy comes from. Not only was the maid very funny and witty, but when my mother came home I'd use humour to try and get her attention. If I made mommy laugh, then maybe everything would be all right. I think that's where it [my comedy] all started. — Robin Williams

When you talk yourself, you think how witty, how original, how acute you are; but when another does so, you are very apt to think only - What a crib from Rochefoucauld! — Ouida

Just play the moment, that's the fun of it. You just play the moment. It's great writing and very clever writing, I think it's witty. And I have those great clothes. You have a great, witty, intelligent script and you look like a million dollars, because we have a great costumer, and it's a pretty good place to begin. — Glenn Close

I'd discovered, after a lot of extreme apprehension about what spoons to use, that if you do something incorrect at table with a certain arrogance, as if you knew perfectly well you were doing it properly, you can get away with it and nobody will think you are bad-mannered or poorly brought up. They will think you are original and very witty. — Sylvia Plath

My father could be very witty, even if the humor was always on the darker side of irony. — Maurice Sendak

The voice of Thich Nhat Hanh-friendly, patient, steadfast, confident, contemporary, and often witty-seems, to me, an intermediary big brother talking directly to me on every page saying, 'Look! It's right there in you,' the very wisdom that leads to compassion. — Sylvia Boorstein

Satirical writers and speakers are not half so clever as they think themselves, nor as they are thought to be. They do winnow the corn, it is true, but it is to feed upon the chaff. I am sorry to add that they who are always speaking ill of others are also very apt to be doing ill to them. It requires some talent and some generosity to find out talent and generosity in others, though nothing but self-conceit and malice are needed to discover or to imagine faults. It is much easier for an ill-natured man than for a good-natured man to be smart and witty. — James Sharp

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

Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice
they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim."
"And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed.
The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty."
"But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered.
"Learn the guitar. — Henry H. Neff

Forgive me. It was stupid of me to think you might need company, when clearly all you required was that decanter."
"It was not stupid. It was very kind. Quite soft, actually. A very warm, womanly gesture. I am touched." He smiled softly. "However, if you truly want to help, if you really want to distract me, there are better ways. When I saw that dress, I dared hope you had realized that. — Madeline Hunter

We are the girls with anxiety disorders, filled appointment books, five-year plans. We take ourselves very, very seriously. We are the peacemakers, the do-gooders, the givers, the savers. We are on time, overly prepared, well read, and witty, intellectually curious, always moving ... We pride ourselves on getting as little sleep as possible and thrive on self-deprivation. We drink coffee, a lot of it. We are on birth control, Prozac, and multivitamins ... We are relentless, judgmental with ourselves, and forgiving to others. We never want to be as passive-aggressive as our mothers, never want to marry men as uninspired as our fathers ... We are the daughters of the feminists who said, "You can be anything," and we heard, "You have to be everything. — Courtney Martin

Wit in women is a jewel, which, unlike all others, borrows lustre from its setting, rather than bestows it; since nothing is so easy as to fancy a very beautiful woman extremely witty. — Charles Caleb Colton

I don't know if I'm particularly funny, I mean one of my legs is shorter than the other one, it makes everything look very awkward, so I can just pretty much look like an idiot, but I don't know whether I can be like witty. It could be a problem. — Robert Pattinson

Anger will make a dull man witty, but very little money. — Elizabeth I

I'm p-paralyzed with happiness. - She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. — F Scott Fitzgerald

It's very witty and it's great to see teenage characters have control that way. And you can actually hear about sex and pot and it's okay, it's not completely bad and you can't say that to teenagers. — Caroline Dhavernas

But Marisa already knew the answer and it was too late for recrimination. The chance of even a rational discussion of the problem was forever shut out of Mama's brain. A brutal bastard was steadily sucking the intelligence and the very life from the mother who had once been witty, wise and loving. The scourge had a name Marisa had come to equate with hell: Alzheimer's Disease. — Anna Jeffrey

When I was born ... the doctor came out to the waiting room and said to my father ... I'm very sorry. We did everything we could ... but he pulled through. — Rodney Dangerfield

The advantage of growing up with siblings is that you become very good at fractions. — Robert Brault

Courtship is to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.
(quoted in Life After Life) — William Congreve

I always say that I only wish to have three sorts of people as my friends, those who are very rich, those who are very witty, and those who are very beautiful. — Christopher Isherwood

My manager, who is a very timid person, often tells me that I should think before I speak. I tell her that she should actually have the guts to speak up about the things she thinks. — Miley Cyrus

She charmed and sparkled and said witty things, but she knew very well she was being charming and sparkling and witty while she was doing it, which somehow felt wrong. — Julie Anne Long

A rollicking good read-THE HUNTER is steampunk with a Wild West feel. Theresa Meyers is an entertaining and witty writer with a fresh, new voice in the genre. THE HUNTER is a fun-filled ride through a world of demons, vampires, and things that go bump in the night, and kept me turning pages until the very end. — Yasmine Galenorn

Freighter pilot Hal Spacejock has a life to die for: His very own cargo ship, a witty and intelligent flight computer ... and a debt so big it makes the GFC look like a rounding error. Hal's an upright sort of guy, and he won't take jobs from gun runners, drug smugglers or politicians. On the other hand, the finance company's brutal enforcer is on his doorstep, and Hal has barely twenty-four hours to pay him off. Miss the deadline and he - and his ship - will go under. Way, way, under. — Simon Haynes

One morning the girl was very thoughtful, and answered at random, and did not seem to Toad to be paying proper attention to his witty sayings and sparkling comments.

'Toad,' she said presently, 'just listen, please. I have an aunt who is a washerwoman.'

'There, there,' said Toad graciously and affably, 'never mind; think no more about it. I have several aunts who ought to be washerwomen. — Kenneth Grahame

The wittiest authors raise the very slightest of smiles. — Friedrich Nietzsche

And it's really very difficult to kill someone when all your inner instincts would oblige you to take off your hat first! — Susan Kay

I'm almost finished," said Wilhelm, wiping out a line with his sleeve and drawing over it.
"I never doubted you for a moment," said Vex, then looked at Aurora and spoke more softly. "I actually doubted him the whole time. He's really not very good."
Wilhelm turned. "I'm standing right in front of you. I can hear literally every sound you make."
"Wilhelm, please," said Vex, "this is a private conversation. — Derek Landy

Nyx's quasar eyes burned. "Of course not. I would not let my horses eat you, any more than I would let Akhlys kill you. Such fine prizes, I will kill myself!"
Annabeth didn't feel particularly witty or courageous, but her instincts told her to take the initiative, or this would be a very short conversation.
"Oh, don't kill yourself!" she cried. "We're not that scary."
The goddess lowered her whip. "What? No, I didn't mean - "
"Well, I hope not!" Annabeth looked at Percy and forced a laugh. "We wouldn't want to scare her, would we?"
"Ha, ha," Percy said weakly. "No, we wouldn't. — Rick Riordan

The army slew a thousand and showed little pity
The king ordered fealty from the conquered city
The prince charmed its people with words wise and witty
And the queen sat on a couch, looking very pretty — Shannon Hale

Marianne would have thought herself very inexcusable had she been able to sleep at all the first night after parting from Willoughby. She would have been ashamed to look her family in the face the next morning, had she not risen from her bed in more need of repose than when she lay down in it. But the feelings which made such composure a disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with an head-ache, was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough! — Jane Austen