Wordplay Quotes

“Why it's simply impassible!
Alice: Why, don't you mean impossible?
Door: No, I do mean impassible. (chuckles) Nothing's impossible!”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

“Many people die at twenty five and aren't buried until they are seventy five.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Don't look at me in that tone of voice.”
― Dorothy Parker

“Tell him I was too fucking busy-- or vice versa.”
― Dorothy Parker

“This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it."

[Women Know Everything!]”
― Dorothy Parker

“(Media question to Beatles during first U.S. tour 1964)
"How do you find America?"
"Turn left at Greenland.”
― Ringo Starr

“Brevity is the soul of lingerie.”
― Dorothy Parker, While Rome Burns

“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say 'No' in any of them.”
― Dorothy Parker, While Rome Burns

“Arthur: If I asked you where the hell we were, would I regret it?
Ford: We're safe.
Arthur: Oh good.
Ford: We're in a small galley cabin in one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet.
Arthur: Ah, this is obviously some strange use of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

“Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
― Mark Twain

“Ducking for apples -- change one letter and it's the story of my life.”
― Dorothy Parker

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”
― Benjamin Franklin

“I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”
― Dorothy Parker

“Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.”
― Oscar Wilde

“He: "Whale you be my valentine?" She: "Dolphinitely.”
― Adam Young

“Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fires, what do freedom fighters fight?”
― George Carlin

“Your friends are all the dullest dogs I know. They are not beautiful: they are only decorated. They are not clean: they are only shaved and starched. They are not dignified: they are only fashionably dressed. They are not educated: they are only college passmen. They are not religious: they are only pewrenters. They are not moral: they are only conventional. They are not virtuous: they are only cowardly. They are not even vicious: they are only “frail.” They are not artistic: they are only lascivious. They are not prosperous: they are only rich. They are not loyal, they are only servile; not dutiful, only sheepish; not public spirited, only patriotic; not courageous, only quarrelsome; not determined, only obstinate; not masterful, only domineering; not self-controlled, only obtuse; not self-respecting, only vain; not kind, only sentimental; not social, only gregarious; not considerate, only polite; not intelligent, only opinionated; not progressive, only factious; not imaginative, only superstitious; not just, only vindictive; not generous, only propitiatory; not disciplined, only cowed; and not truthful at all: liars every one of them, to the very backbone of their souls.”
― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

“Look after the senses and the sounds will look after themselves”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“I'd call him a sadistic, hippophilic necrophile, but that would be beating a dead horse.”
― Woody Allen

“I think a man's "wordplay" can be so fucking sexy!!! I love a good mind fuck!!”
― Junnita Jackson

“Whenever I think of something but can't think of what it was I was thinking of, I can't stop thinking until I think I'm thinking of it again. I think I think too much.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Save your explanations, I got some questions for you first and you'd better answer them!' [slurred Hellian.]
'With what?' [Banaschar] sneered. 'Explanations?'
'No. Answers. There's a difference-'
'Really? How? What difference?'
'Explanations are what people use when they need to lie. Y'can always tell those,'cause those don't explain nothing and then they look at you like they just cleared things up when really they did the opposite and they know it and you know it and they know you know and you know they know that you know and they know you and you know them and maybe you go out for a pitcher later but who picks up the tab? That's what I want to know.'
'Right, and answers?'
'Answers is what I get when I ask questions. Answers is when you got no choice. I ask, you tell. I ask again, you tell some more. Then I break your fingers, 'cause I don't like what you're telling me, because those answers don't explain nothing!”
― Steven Erikson, The Bonehunters

“Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word.”
― Julio Cortázar, Around the Day in Eighty Worlds

“Love flies out the door when money comes innuendo.”
― Groucho Marx

“Everyone lives in two worlds,” Maggie said, speaking in an absentminded sort of way while she studied her letters. “There’s the real world, with all its annoying facts and rules. In the real world, there are things that are true and things that aren’t. Mostly the real world s-s-s-suh-sucks. But everyone also lives in the world inside their own head. An inscape, a world of thought. In a world made of thought—in an inscape—every idea is a fact. Emotions are as real as gravity. Dreams are as powerful as history. Creative people, like writers, and Henry Rollins, spend a lot of their time hanging out in their thoughtworld. S-s-strong creatives, though, can use a knife to cut the stitches between the two worlds, can bring them together. Your bike. My tiles. Those are our knives.”
― Joe Hill, NOS4A2

“There was no Lo to behold.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“tomorrow's gone-we'll have tonight!”
― Dorothy Parker, The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker

“Committee - a group of men who keep minutes and waste hours.”
― Milton Berle