"Humorous" Quotes from Famous Books
... dread of going out of doors by night (they have a proverb which runs, di notte, non parlar forte; di giorno, guardati attorno), their lack of humour. For humour is essentially a product of ease, and nobody can be at ease in unquiet times. That is why so few poets are humorous; their restlessly querulous nature has the same effect on their outlook ... — Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... contain serious additions for each of the eighteen benedictions of the Amidah prayer, and equally serious paraphrases of Esther, some of them in Aramaic, abound among the Genizah fragments in Cambridge. Besides these, however, are many harmlessly humorous jingles and rhymes which were sung in the synagogue, admittedly for the amusement of the children, and for the child-hearts of adult growth. For them, too, the Midrash had played round Haman, reviling him, poking fun at him, covering him with ridicule rather than execration. ... — The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... putting a pretty ring of gold, with a humorous affectation of gallantry, on the fat finger of Mistress Deborah Debbitch. Hers was a soul of a kind often to be met with, both among the lower and higher vulgar, who, without being, on a broad scale, accessible ... — Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... just as they are, though they were not likely to catch any glimpse of that greater world where objects cannot be focussed sharply. Yet in them, an odd contradiction, there lurked a possibility of humorous twinkling. The man was capable perhaps of the broad tolerance of the great humorist, certainly of very acute perception of life's minor incongruities. His thin lips were habitually pressed together, giving a suggestion of strength to the set of his mouth. A man with such a mouth can think and ... — Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... he had once occupied. Thus it is almost possible, by judiciously selecting from his works, and using such keys as we possess, to construct as it were a kind of autobiography. Nor, if we make due allowance for the great writer's tendency to idealize the past, and intensify its humorous and pathetic aspects, need we at all fear that the self-written story of his life should convey a ... — Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
|