Witty Work Quotes & Sayings

If you took half the energy you devote to being witty and channeled it into your work, I daresay you could be one of the greatest scholars of our age. — Brandon Sanderson

What is it about this book - essentially a military history of the first month of the First World War - which gives it its stamp and has created its enormous reputation? Four qualities stand out: a wealth of vivid detail which keeps the reader immersed in events, almost as an eyewitness; a prose style which is transparently clear, intelligent, controlled and witty; a cool detachment of moral judgment - Mrs. Tuchman is never preachy or reproachful; she draws on skepticism, not cynicism, leaving the reader not so much outraged by human villainy as amused and saddened by human folly. These first three qualities are present in all of Barbara Tuchman's work, but in The Guns of August there is a fourth which makes the book, once taken up, almost impossible to set aside. Remarkably, she persuades the reader to suspend any foreknowledge of what is about to happen. — Barbara W. Tuchman

Valkyrie stood there and waited for her to start making sense.
"There is a vegetable-plant hybrid we've been working on, modifying the genes and receptors, mutating the proteins and acids so that they are, in effect, neurotransmitters. Our work on the synapses alone has been quite illuminating."
Valkyrie stood there and waited for her to start making sense. — Derek Landy

I appreciate my my sleep In sleep my conversation is witty My home is dusted My office work is up to date The dog is even well behaved And food is on the table on time But then when I'm asleep I don't have you to clutter and confuse My hungry heart — Nikki Giovanni

Ear demons are totally real," Cody said. "They're what make microphones like these ones work. They're also what tell you to eat the last slice of pie when you know Tia wanted it. — Brandon Sanderson

Madame Maxime was with him, we've been in touch with her and she says they got separated — J.K. Rowling

All my friends are funny, witty, fun-loving people. As are my parents, and the people I work with. I get at least a couple of good laughs in every day. — Toks Olagundoye

In my life, I've dealt with tragedy. — Leona Lewis

why moral and political arguments are so frustrating: because moral reasons are the tail wagged by the intuitive dog. A dog's tail wags to communicate. You can't make a dog happy by forcibly wagging its tail. And you can't change people's minds by utterly refuting their arguments. Hume diagnosed the problem long ago: And as reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles.49 — Jonathan Haidt

I ... I don't, I don't think I can do this."
"Do what?"
It didn't answer.
"Do the tests?"
"I can't work with you when you're like this!" it blurted. "To every one of my specimens, I am the last thing they see! Terrror is what I am used to
terror is what I like! I prefer my subjects to scream and beg, not ask to see results!"
"I'll scream my questions, if that helps."
"It won't," it said sadly. "I'll know you're only trying to make me feel better. — Derek Landy

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

A witty vicar once said that a good marriage is like a pair of scissors with the couple inseparable joined, often moving in opposite directions, yet always destroying anyone who comes between them. The trick is for the blades to learn to work smoothly together, so as not to cut each other. — Mary Jo Putney

Your eyes need to be opened wider than your heart, when love is blinder than your eyes. — Munia Khan

A man must have something to cling to. Without that he is as a pea vine sprawling in search of a trellis ... I was all asprawl, clinging to Beauty, which is a very restless trellis. — E.B. White

In Korean, my lyrics are witty and have twists. But translated into English, it doesn't come over. I've tried writing in English, just for me, but it doesn't work. I've got to know everything about a culture, and I don't. — Psy

They caught up with each other's news casually, leaving long, cosy gaps of silence in which to go to work on their muffins and coffees. Jerome - after two months of having to be witty and brilliant in a strange town among strangers - appreciated the gift of it. People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two lovers, but this too was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. ~ on the comforts of home. — Zadie Smith

Product investment, quality management, and all the things that are key for a car company - great, there has been no compromise in those aspects. But I feel there's a lot we could do on communication, particularly from a Chinese perspective. — Li Shufu

Like Hemingway and Faulkner, but in an entirely different mode, Fitzgerald had that singular quality without which a writer is not really a writer at all, and that is a voice, a distinct and identifiable voice. This is really not the same thing as a style; a style can be emulated, a voice cannot, and the witty, rueful, elegaic voice gives his work its bright authenticity. — William Styron

When you go to work, if your name is on the building, you're rich. If your name is on your desk, you're middle class. And if your name is on your shirt, you're poor. — Rich Hall

I still had this idea that there was a whole world of marvelous golden people somewhere, as far ahead of me as the seniors at Rye when I was in the sixth grade; people who knew everything instinctively, who made their lives work out the way they wanted without even trying, who never had to make the best of a bad job because it never occured to them to do anything less then perfectly the first time. Sort of heroic super-people, all of them beautiful and witty and calm and kind, and I always imagined that when I did find them I'd suddenly know that I Belonged among them, that I was one of them, that I'd been meant to be one of them all along, and everything in teh meantime had been a mistake; and they'd know it too. I'd be like the ugly duckling among the swans. — Richard Yates

For a split second, I wondered if he were some type of sexy sorcerer, who was able to remove my clothing by the force of his will alone. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on the buttons of his shirt, willing them to pop off.
It didn't work. Then again, it was pretty hard to focus while he was touching me, so maybe under different circumstances, I too could be a sexy sorcerer. Watch out world. — M.C. Lavocat

I'm shy. I am. I mean, if I get around, you know, in a room of a bunch of people especially I - you know, I don't know or - it takes me a while to warm up. I'm - and the real me, I'm not as witty as, you know, as the comic Wanda. The comic, she's had time to work on some things. — Wanda Sykes

Fancy 'avin' to say you work for the Murder Squad, eh, Miss? Don't exactly warm folk to you, does it? — Jacqueline Winspear

Only humans can hurt one another, Ada thought; only humans falter and betray one another with a stunning, fearsome frequency. As David's family had done to him; as David had done to her. And Ada would do it too. She would fail other people throughout her life, inevitably, even those she loved best. — Liz Moore

The biggest defeat in every department of life is to forget, especially the things that have done you in, and to die without realizing how far people can go in the way of crumminess. When the grave lies open before us, let's not try to be witty, but on the other hand, let's not forget, but make it our business to record the worst of the human viciousness we've seen without changing one word. When that's done, we can curl up our toes and sink into the pit. That's work enough for a lifetime. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

You're beautiful, lovely, wonderfully unique. Don't spend your energy on being upset, spend it on being a glowing star in happy wonders. Because you are a star, even in the darkest moments, your glow is impervious. — Kevin Jones

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