50 Witty Quotes

When life gets a bit too serious, there's nothing like a clever quip or a sharp wit to lighten the mood. Whether you're seeking a chuckle, a bit of inspiration, or simply a moment of levity, witty quotes offer a delightful way to see the world from a fresh perspective. Here, we’ve curated a collection of the top 50 witty quotes that are sure to amuse and inspire. From the clever musings of literary giants to the humorous observations of modern-day comedians, these gems are bound to bring a smile to your face. So sit back, relax, and enjoy these nuggets of wisdom and wit!

1. “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

2. “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

3. “I am not absentminded. It is the presence of mind that makes me unaware of everything else.” - G.K. Chesterton

4. “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

5. “To have a viable civilization, people have to have a benign government, a semblance of education, spare time, imagination, and manners” - Jonathan Chamberlain Williams

6. “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

7. “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

8. “In less than a year, the Bush administration will strut out of office, leaving the country in roughly the same condition a toddler leaves a diaper.” - Graydon Carter

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

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

11. “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

12. “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

13. “I'm myself, not a label.” - John Brunner

14. “Ack!" I said.Fearless master of the witty dialogue, that's me.” - Jim Butcher

15. “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

16. “If I be waspish, best beware my sting.” - William Shakespeare

17. “Only one English word adequately describes his transformation of the islands from worthless to priceless: magical.” - Kurt Vonnegut

18. “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

19. “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

20. “He had a reputation in society as a man with a lively wit, whose gaiety was pleasant and formidable – which all gaiety must be in a society which would despise you if, while amusing it, you did not make it tremble a little. ("A Woman's Vengeance")” - Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

21. “Here comes Mamma Vauquerr, fair as a starrr; and strung up like a bunch of carrots. Aren't we suffocating ourselves a wee bit?' he asked, placing a hand on the top of her corset. 'A bit of a crush in the vestibule, here, Mamma! If we start crying, there'll be an explosion. Never mind, I'll be there to collect the bits--just like an antiquary.''Now, there's the language of true French gallantry,' murmured Madame Vauquer in an aside to Madame Couture.” - Honoré de Balzac

22. “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

23. “If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.” - Thomas De Quincey

24. “I had such plans for this evening. The pursuit of blind drunkenness and wayward women was my goal. But alas, it was not to be. No sooner had I consumed my third drink in the Devil than I was accosted by a delightful small flower selling child who asked me for twopence for a daisy. The price seemed steep, so I refused. When I told the girl as much, she proceeded to rob me.”“A little girl robbed you?” Tessa said.“Actually, she wasn’t a little girl at all, as it turns out, but a midget in a dress with a penchant for violence, who goes by the name of Six-Fingered Nigel.” - Cassandra Clare

25. “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

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

27. “Rebecca was an academic star. Her new book was on the phenomenon of word casings, a term she'd invented for words that no longer had meaning outside quotation marks. English was full of these empty words--"friend" and "real" and "story" and "change"--words that had been shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks. Some, like "identity" and "search" and "cloud," had clearly been drained of life by their Web usage. With others, the reasons were more complex; how had "American" become an ironic term? How had "democracy" come to be used in an arch, mocking way?” - Jennifer Egan

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

29. “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

30. “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

31. “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

32. “[I]f you seek in every way to minimise my firm beliefs by your anti-feminist attacks, please recall that a small dagger or knife point can pierce a great, bulging sack and that a small fly can attack a great lion and speedily put him to flight.” - Christine de Pizan

33. “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

34. “He wasn't aware of it but when he smiled he looked like an amiable bear. When he didn't smile he didn't look amiable” - Emma Goldrick

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

36. “You can con God and get away with it, Granny said, if you do so with charm and wit. If you live your life with imagination and verve, God will play along just to see what outrageously entertaining thing you'll do next.” - Dean Koontz

37. “The best way to measure the loss of intellectual sophistication - this "nerdification," to put it bluntly - is in the growing disappearance of sarcasm, as mechanic minds take insults a bit too literally.” - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

38. “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

39. “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

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

41. “I can't believe you just did that! Are you crazy?"I gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Why do people keep asking me that?"He turned to stare at me, his eyes worried. "Who else keeps asking you that? Are any of them doctors?” - Janette Rallison

42. “Well, well," said he, "do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them.” - Jane Austen

43. “If water was beer I'd be a teetotaler” - Benny Bellamacina

44. “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

45. “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

46. “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

47. “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

48. “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

49. “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

50. “The problem is you make the tricks look good. You are a brilliant acrobat, and a witty comedian. You are skillful. People want a fool to be foolish--trip on banana peels and grin and spout nonsense. These men want fools to make them feel better about themselves, not to remind them what they lack.” - Kelli Swofford Nielsen