109 Wit Quotes

In a world often occupied with the serious and the mundane, a touch of wit can bring much-needed levity and insight. Wit has the unique power to distill wisdom while simultaneously eliciting a smile or a laugh. Whether you're seeking a clever turn of phrase to brighten your day or inspiration for your next social media post, you've come to the right place. Here, we've curated a collection of the top 109 wit quotes that showcase the brilliance of keen observation, sharp intellect, and delightful humor. Dive in and let these witty words give you a fresh perspective on life and a good chuckle along the way.

1. “Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit.” - Oscar Wilde

2. “The covers of this book are too far apart.” - Ambrose Bierce

3. “Cheap editions of great books may be delightful, but cheap editions of great men are absolutely detestable” - Oscar Wilde

4. “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.” - Thomas Pynchon

5. “I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.” - Flannery O'Connor

6. “The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.” - William Shakespeare

7. “The flesh is sad, alas, and I have read all the books.” - Stéphane Mallarme

8. “He drew a circle that shut me out-Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.But love and I had the wit to win:We drew a circle and took him In!” - Edwin Markham

9. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the road less traveled by and they CANCELLED MY FRIKKIN' SHOW. I totally shoulda took the road that had all those people on it. Damn.” - Joss Whedon

10. “Brevity is the soul of wit.” - William Shakespeare

11. “There’s a fine line between support and stalking and let’s all stay on the right side of that.” - Joss Whedon

12. “Writing a book is like sliding down a rainbow! Marketing it is like trudging through a field of chewed bubblegum on a hot, sticky day.” - Betty Dravis

13. “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.” - J.K. Rowling

14. “The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork.” - Oscar Wilde

15. “Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.” - Dorothy Parker

16. “There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous andshallow: Yet it was the schoolboy who said 'Faith is believing what youknow ain't so'.” - Mark Twain

17. “My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.” - G.K. Chesterton

18. “Hey, have you heard that one about the difference between me, Wit, and my loutish cousin, Hilarity? No? Okay, so I walk into a bar, you see, very unassuming, and order a martini. Then the bartender, Hilarity, hauls off and squirts me in the face with a seltzer bottle, ruining my n ice new camel hair suit, dousing my monocle and my watch fob, soaking my cravat. So, do I let him have what for, and blow my top? I do not. I simply say:Sorry, I believe I said 'very dry'.” - Chip Kidd

19. “A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of one who has searched for the leak in life's gas-pipe with a lighted candle.” - P.G. Wodehouse

20. “There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words."[Interview, The Paris Review, Summer 1956]” - Dorothy Parker

21. “It was like orderin a hamburger and getting only the buns"(After Brooke White of season 7 on american idol sang the song 'Hero'by Mariah Carey)” - Simon Cowell

22. “True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'dWhat oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,That gives us back the image of our mind.As shades more sweetly recommend the light,So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.” - Alexander Pope

23. “Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don't forget food. You can go a week without laughing.” - Joss Whedon

24. “I have always been a huge admirer of my own work. I'm one of the funniest and most entertaining writers I know.” - Mel Brooks

25. “I've been so thoroughly incorporated into the California culture that I practice meditation and go to a therapist, even though I always set a trap: during my meditation I invent stories to keep from being bored, and in therapy I invent stories to keep from boring the psychologist.” - Isabel Allende

26. “Don't let the muggles get you down.” - J.K. Rowling

27. “If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.” - Mark Twain

28. “One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.” - Thomas Paine

29. “Yeah, well, wish in one hand, crap in the other, and see which fills up first” - S.A. Bodeen

30. “Lady Placida smiled. “History seldom takes note of serendipity when it records events. And from what I have heard, I suspect an argument could be made that you very much did earn the title.”“Many women have earned titles, Your Grace. It doesn't seem to have been a factor in whether or not they actually received them.”Lady Placida laughed. “True enough. But perhaps that is beginning to change.” She offered her hands. “It is a distinct pleasure to meet you, Steadholder.” - Jim Butcher

31. “They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit," Valkyrie said. China glanced at her. "They've obviously never met me.” - Derek Landy

32. “There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.” - Jane Austen

33. “Don't explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin.” - Robert A. Heinlein

34. “You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.” - Dorothy Parker

35. “This was a lucky recollection -- it saved her from something like regret.” - Jane Austen

36. “Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.” - Oliver Goldsmith

37. “What have you done to your hair?” Mom’s broken voice said, pinning me back to this tiny hospitalroom.“Holy shit!” Icka patted her head as if searching. “You think the nurse stole it? She looked shady.” - Phoebe Kitanidis

38. “Words never fail. We hear them, we read them; they enter into the mind and become part of us for as long as we shall live. Who speaks reason to his fellowmen bestows it upon them. Who mouths inanity disorders thought for all who listen. There must be some minimum allowable dose of inanity beyond which the mind cannot remain reasonable. Irrationality, like buried chemical waste, sooner or later must seep into all the tissues of thought.” - Richard Mitchell

39. “After dinner, at five o’clock, the crew distributed folding canvas cots to the passengers, and each person opened his bed wherever he could find room, arranged it with the bedclothes from his petate, and set the mosquito netting over that. Those with hammocks hung them in the salon, and those who had nothing slept on the tablecloths that were not changed more than twice during the trip.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

40. “She would walk through the kitchen at any hour, whenever she was hungry, and put her fork in the pots and eat a little of everything without placing anything on a plate, standing in front of the stove, talking to the serving women, who were the only ones with whom she felt comfortable, the ones she got along with best.” - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

41. “I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.” - Mark Twain

42. “Now what happens?" asked the man in black. "We face each other as God intended," Fezzik said. "No tricks, no weapons, skill against skill alone.""You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people, is that it?” - William Goldman

43. “We sensible often resist intrusive love and its chaos practically, employing measures to prevent the former for fear of the latter. But for all our wit and work, that desperation for control also prevents the pure, transcendental freedom more often delivered by both.” - Tiffany Madison

44. “Being born in a stable does not make one a horse.” - Arthur Wellesley Wellington

45. “Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.” - Holly Black

46. “Let me be clear. Last I was aware you were neither my husband nor my father nor my King. Therefore, any control you may imagine you hold over me is just that- imaginary” - Sarah MacLean

47. “And now, my poor old woman, why are you crying so bitterly? It is autumn. The leaves are falling from the trees like burning tears- the wind howls. Why must you mimic them?” - Mervyn Peake

48. “Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait.""I always thought that was 'Good things come to those who do the wave,'" said Simon. "No wonder I've been so confused all my life.” - Cassandra Clare

49. “Reason leavened with a little wit (if possible) is the real alternative to hate speech, meaning that there's no better time for it.” - Walter Kirn

50. “Mathilde returned and strolled past the drawing-room windows; she saw him busily engaged in describing to Madame de Fervaques the old ruined castles that crown the steep banks of the Rhine and give them so distinctive a character. He was beginning to acquit himself none too badly in the use of the sentimental and picturesque language which is called wit in certain drawing-rooms.” - Stendhal

51. “He had had much experience of physicians, and said 'the only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd druther not'.” - Mark Twain

52. “Brevity is the soul of wit.” - Alexander Pope

53. “He remembered having said to his uncle (with a solemn dogmatism better befitting a much younger man): "Surely it is possible to love with the head as well as the heart." Mr. Delagardie had replied, somewhat drily: "No doubt; so long as you do not end by thinking with your entrails instead of your brain.” - Dorothy L. Sayers

54. “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

55. “Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.” - Oscar Wilde

56. “I am a mediocre being, a bit cunning.” - Renée Vivien

57. “So you're a Shadowhunter,' Nate said. 'De Quincey told me that you lot were monsters.''Was that before or after he tried to eat you?' Will inquired.” - Cassandra Clare

58. “Caro: "Bite me."Ruby: "I gave that up in kindergarten.” - Kristin Hannah

59. “You know, you're rather amusingly wrong.” - Terry Pratchett

60. “-Oh yes? Can you identify yourself?-Certainly. I'd know me anywhere.” - Terry Pratchett

61. “(About a cookbook...)- What about this one? Maids of Honor?- Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor...but they ends up Tarts.” - Terry Pratchett

62. “A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains.” - Criss Jami

63. “For a poet he threw a very accurate milk bottle.” - Ernest Hemingway

64. “When you have wit of your own, it's a pleasure to credit other people for theirs.” - Criss Jami

65. “Vivid simplicity is the articulation, the nature of genius. Wisdom is greater than intelligence; intelligence is greater than philosobabble.” - Criss Jami

66. “I did not know that mankind were suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.” - Henry David Thoreau

67. “Yes, I'm shallow, I don't mind admitting it. Perhaps I should admit that there's no end to the depths of my shallowness.” - Franny Billingsley

68. “Big words from a guy who's trussed up like a turkey. What are you going to do, wobble over here like an upside- down turtle to snap me in half?""The logistics of breaking you are easy. The only question is when.” - Susan Ee

69. “Paparazzi arrived for Hugh [Grant]. We had to stand under a tree and smile for them.Photographer: 'Hugh, could you look less -- um --'Hugh: 'Pained?” - Emma Thompson

70. “[S]ince you are angry at me without reason, you attack me harshly with, "Oh outrageous presumption! Oh excessively foolish pride! Oh opinion uttered too quickly and thoughtlessly by the mouth of a woman! A woman who condemns a man of high understanding and dedicated study, a man who, by great labour and mature deliberation, has made the very noble book of the Rose, which surpasses all others that were ever written in French. When you have read this book a hundred times, provided you have understood the greater part of it, you will discover that you could never have put your time and intellect to better use!" My answer: Oh man deceived by willful opinion! I could assuredly answer but I prefer not to do it with insult, although, groundlessly, you yourself slander me with ugly accusations. Oh darkened understanding! Oh perverted knowledge ... A simple little housewife sustained by the doctrine of Holy Church could criticise your error!” - Christine de Pizan

71. “Enough about my beauty," Buttercup said. "Everybody always talks about how beautiful I am. I've got a mind, Westley. Talk about that.” - William Goldman

72. “Twelve dead?” I said. “Jesus.” - Dennis Lehane

73. “All men are born with a nose and ten fingers, but no one was born with a knowledge of God.” - Voltaire

74. “Yeah you can have a word," said Harry savagely. "Good-bye.” - J.K. Rowling

75. “His foe was folly and his weapon wit.” - Anthony Hope

76. “Captain Billings," he drawled finally, "if you will pardon my candor, I might remark that you are something of an ass, don't you know.” - Edgar Rice Burroughs

77. “You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need anyone else. I need you, she replied.Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.” - Jodi Picoult

78. “If life is a game... I need new dice!” - Jay Little

79. “Someone once told me that we move when it becomes less painful than staying where we are".” - Anne Hines

80. “You're maybe eighteen. Your mother didn't love you enough so you decided to pierce your lip and brand your body to piss her off. You hang around this band because they make you feel like you belong. And most days you wish you were in a band of your own, but you know that probably will never happen." I met his eyes waiting.I'm twenty. my mother has an assload of tattoos herself, she thinks its art. I have a lip ring because it turns girls on when I do this." He licked his lip, lingering on the metal for a couple intense seconds. My eyes fluttered with nervousness.” - Holly Hood

81. “ONLY' having the Gift, people appreciate this madness as Art. Everybody wants to have Art in their lives, but no body wants to have what the Art came out from in their lives...” - Hiroko Sakai

82. “Wealth can be created. Wit and intelligence can't.” - Nicole Williams

83. “When I'm in love, I can't stand anyone.” - Stefano Benni

84. “Soar with wit. Conquer with dignity. Handle with care.” - Criss Jami

85. “It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed---the two bridemaids were duly inferior---her father gave her away---her mother stood with salts in her hand expecting to be agitated---her aunt tried to cry--- and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant.” - Jane Austen

86. “The bristling eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. Mesmerized, the boy watched them disappear under the hanging thatch of white hair. There, almost coyly, they remained just out of sight for a moment, before suddenly descending with a terrible finality and weight.” - Jonathan Stroud

87. “A witty saying proves nothing.” - Voltaire

88. “I have a different idea of elegance. I don't dress like a fop, it's true, but my moral grooming is impeccable. I never appear in public with a soiled conscience, a tarnished honor, threadbare scruples, or an insult that I haven't washed away. I'm always immaculately clean, adorned with independence and frankness. I may not cut a stylish figure, but I hold my soul erect. I wear my deeds as ribbons, my wit is sharper then the finest mustache, and when I walk among men I make truths ring like spurs.” - Edmond Rostand

89. “Snobbery might sometimes look cool, like smoking, but the end result is usually a repelling one.” - Trent Zelazny

90. “You judge very properly, and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?” - Jane Austen

91. “You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite.” - Jane Austen

92. “What is whiter than snow?' he said. 'The truth,' said Grania.'What is the best colour?' said Finn. 'The colour of childhood,' said she.'What is hotter than fire?' 'The face of a hospitable man when he sees a stranger coming in, and the house empty.''What has a taste more bitter than poison?' 'The reproach of an enemy.''What is best for a champion?' 'His doings to be high, and his pride to be low.''What is the best of jewels?' 'A knife.''What is sharper than a sword?' 'The wit of a woman between two men.''What is quicker than the wind?' said Finn then. 'A woman’s mind,' said Grania. And indeed she was telling no lie when she said that.” - Augusta Gregory

93. “I am a master of foolhardy plans.” - Megan Whalen Turner

94. “Never be less interesting than your refrigerator magnets.” - Demetri Martin

95. “Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and out American colleges will recede in their public importance whilst they grow richer every year.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

96. “You can tell a really wonderful quote by the fact that it's attributed to a whole raft of wits.” - Anna Quindlen

97. “When a man in a forest thinks he is going forward in a straight line, in reality he is going in a circle, I did my best to go in a circle, hoping to go in a straight line.” - Samuel Beckett

98. “Good madonna, give me leave toprove you a fool.” - William Shakespeare

99. “Graham's life is as tense as an overstretched simile.” - Zane Stumpo

100. “She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.” - David Mitchell

101. “Hello, I am Oscar Wilde” - Oscar Wilde

102. “I was going to write a sharp witty email full of devastating one-liners but I suspect you want something nicer than that” - Lucy Robinson

103. “Well then that's our date confirmed. I am excited! Most girls want to know if I have long term plans to start a family; you want to know if I like 80s rap. I think I'm in love with you. Actually, I'm not you have a foul mouth and terrible taste in men by all accounts.” - Lucy Robinson

104. “I am back in London in a couple of days and looking forward to Sunday. Here is what we are doing. 1. Going to see my favourite mad transgender folk singer at the Roundhouse. 2. Then I am going to feed you tapas in a little place by Mornington Crescent. 3. Then we will go home in opposite directions and I will stare at my silent phone for weeks, wondering what happened. Or we will go for a dirty hump on Primrose Hill. Or maybe we will just have an awkward kiss/hug loaded with the promise of more next time.  ” - Lucy Robinson

105. “How do you feel about going on a date with me? I'm abroad for another two weeks; you've got plenty of time to prepare yourself. It will be the best night of your life, of course.” - Lucy Robinson

106. “terrorism n.Violence for political purposes or the politically motivated threat of violence which, either intentionally or unintentionally, challenges the state's monopoly on political violence.” - Leslie Starr O'Hara

107. “You want me to invite him to dinner.” “I want you to invite him to dinner,” she agreed. “You know,” he said, “most gay men don’t have mothers who are this enthusiastic about their love lives.” “That’s probably true,” she said. “You’re one of the lucky ones.” - Matthew Haldeman-Time

108. “Jordan, there isn't a straight woman or gay man alive who wouldn't drop everything to have dinner with you. I've been in this business for all of my life, and I know the difference between people who pretend to like you to get ahead, and people who are actually interested in getting to know you. Patrick wants to get to know you. Preferably naked, but that’s up to you.” “I can’t wait until you’re old enough to be senile and start saying these things in public.” “I’m very lucky to have such a loving son.” - Matthew Haldeman-Time

109. “Look, this is helping me out quite a bit, but could you just get to the punishment part? We're at the end of World War Two in history, and I can't wait to find out who wins.” - Rob Thomas