Miscellaneous is always the largest category.
—JOEL ROSENBERG
I thought they said “omelette” and since I was really hungry I nodded. I wound up playing Hamlet.
—PAUL GROSS
Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion.
—KATE REID
I’m a pro: I’m never late. I try to control flatulence.
—DONALD SUTHERLAND
Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté.
—MARGARET ATWOOD
The life of an author is tragic: the more we proceed, the farther we have to go and the more there is to say, the less time we have to say it.
—GABRIELLE ROY
A man does not write poems about what he knows, but about what he does not know.
—ROBIN SKELTON
There is only one way to defeat the enemy, and that is to write as well as one can. The best argument is an undeniably good book.
—SAUL BELLOW
To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.
—ROBERTSON DAVIES
Cloning is great. If God made the original, then making copies should be fine.
—DOUGLAS COUPLAND
The first attempts at cloning a snake led to the discovery of the sausage.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
Royalty is either going to do very well with cloning, or it’s going to disappear completely.
—DOUGLAS COUPLAND
My conscience aches but it’s going to lose the fight.
—ALLANAH MYLES
If our subconscious was attractive, we wouldn’t have to bury it down deep within us.
—DOUGLAS COUPLAND
I don’t diet. I just don’t eat as much as I’d like to.
—LINDA EVANGELISTA
Dye changes the outside.
Diet changes the inside.
—FLOYD MAXWELL
I haven’t put on a lot of weight: I used to be only seven pounds two ounces.
—JOHN MALONEY
I was standing on the corner of the street, as quiet as quiet could be. When a great big ugly man came up—and tied his horse to me.
—BEATRICE LILLIE
Diet advice—control thighself.
—O.A. BATTISTA
It may be those who dream, most do most.
—STEPHEN LEACOCK
A man’s best friend is a bottle of beer with a twist stop.
—ART LINKLETTER
Nothing ever tasted any better than a cold beer on a beautiful afternoon with nothing to look forward to but more of the same.
—HUGH HOOD
Hangovers are temporary; memories are forever. Unless you were too drunk to remember them, that is.
—BRIAN TOBIN
My dad has a weird hobby: he collects empty bottles, which sounds so much better than alcoholic.
—STEWART FRANCIS
An alcoholic spends his life committing suicide on the installment plan; that is, he drinks like a fish but not the same thing.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
You are only an alcoholic when everybody knows it.
—JACQUES SAVOIE
It took a lot of bottle for him to own up to his alcoholism.
—IAN WRIGHT
Distilling is a science, blending an art.
—SAMUEL BRONFMAN
Whisky drowns some troubles and floats a lot more.
—ROBERT C. EDWARDS
A good cure for a hangover is to drink black coffee the night before instead of the morning after.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot.
—JONI MITCHELL
When a person stands on his dignity, it’s probably because he has a very insecure footing.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Few people can see genius in someone who has offended him.
—ROBERTSON DAVIES
The difference between a genius and a lunatic is that the genius has proof.
—DOMINIQUE BOUCHARD
If God had intended for us to go to concerts, He would have given us tickets.
—JOHN FARROW
If God had intended us to fly, he wouldn’t have invented Spanish air traffic.
—LINWOOD BOOMER
Cliffs are for climbing. That’s why God invented grappling hooks.
—PAUL HAGGIS
If you don’t count some of Jehovah’s injunctions, there are no humorists in the Bible.
—MORDECAI RICHLER
I knew a mathematician who said, “I do not know as much as God. But I know as much as God knew at my age.”
—MILTON SHULMAN
God punishes us mildly by ignoring our prayers and severely by answering them.
—RICHARD J. NEEDHAM
There is nothing quite so powerful as an idea whose time has passed.
—DAVID FRUM
Comedy and sausages are the two things that if you know how they’re made they affect the appetite.
—MIKE MYERS
The three best ways to remind people about saving trees: newspapers, magazines and posters.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it, and the rest of us.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
There are two sorts of losers—the good loser and the one who can’t act.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
There are only two kinds of economic forecasters—those who don’t know, and those who don’t know they don’t know.
—JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
There are three things that are as unfathomable as they are fascinating to the masculine mind: metaphysics, the feminine heart and golf.
—ARNOLD HAULTAIN
There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.
—DOUGLAS EVERETT
My mother’s two categories: nice men did things for you, bad men did things to you.
—MARGARET ATWOOD
Ever notice that when you’ve lost 20 pounds, someone asks if you’ve had a haircut?
—SANDI WASEMAN
Ever notice that when you’re on a 1,000-calories-a-day diet, you use them up by 10am?
—SANDI WASEMAN
Ever notice that a one-size-fits-all item fits everyone but you?
—SANDI WASEMAN
Is it a bigger crime to rob a bank or to open one?
—TED ALLAN
I myself have 12 hats, and each one represents a different personality.
Why be just yourself?
—MARGARET ATWOOD
Does the grass feel hurt when people tramp on it?
—O.A. BATTISTA
Isn’t it strange? The same people who laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously.
—JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
And after all, why should I go to bed every night?
Sleep is only a habit.
—WILLIAM CORNELIUS VAN HORNE
If you are not prepared to die, how can you possibly live?
—CHARLES DE LINT
What nature of being are we that even our dreams can be compromised?
—ALEX TAN
Has it ever occurred to you that there might be a difference between having an open mind and having holes in one’s head?
—RICHARD SCHULTZ
Who is the designer genius who puts frosted glass in the toilet windows of airplanes?
—HARRY SCOTT
Have you ever gotten so drunk you use a barstool as a walker to get home?
—WINSTON SPEAR
How would companies lie to us about products if they didn’t run advertisements?
—FLOYD MAXWELL
If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?
—LAURENCE J. PETER
What’s black and white and brown and looks good on a lawyer?
A doberman.
—MORDECAI RICHLER
You know what the trouble about real life is? There’s no danger music.
—JIM CARREY
What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public.
—VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON
An optimist expects his dreams to come true; a pessimist expects his nightmares to.
—LAURENCE J. PETER
Optimism tends to expand until the available space is full.
—EDWARD MERROW
All it takes to upset a serious golfer is one high ball.
—O.A. BATTISTA
The reason they call it golf is that all other four-letter words were used up.
—LESLIE NIELSEN
All city-dwellers would like to live in the open countryside—and they would prefer an 18-hole golf course.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
Anybody who can keep his eye on the ball is bound to be a success, especially if he likes golf.
—O.A. BATTISTA
Golf may be played on a Sunday, not being a game within the view of the law, but being a form of moral effort.
—STEPHEN B. LEACOCK
A sportsman is a man who, every now and then, simply has to get out and kill something. Not that he’s cruel. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s not big enough.
—STEPHEN LEACOCK
Nothing improves a golfer’s disposition like finding a better ball than he went looking for.
—O.A. BATTISTA
Unless you understand that the spectators at a tennis match know what’s going on, they give rather a negative impression.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
All hockey players are bilingual.
They know English and profanity.
—GORDIE HOWE
Some people skate to the puck. I skate to where the puck is going to be.
—WAYNE GRETZKY
People tell me there are a lot of guys like me, which doesn’t explain why I’m lonely.
—MORT SAHL
We only really understand loneliness when we are forced into it.
—JEAN-PAUL PINSONNEAULT
The difference between the psychiatrists and the patients at a mental hospital is that the patients eventually get better and go home.
—ALEX TAN
Feeling better is not actually being better.
—JAMES RANDI
My therapist says I have a preoccupation with vengeance. We’ll see about that.
—STEWART FRANCIS
On the difference between reading a book on physical medicine and one on psychiatry: In the first case, the reader thinks he has all the symptoms; in the second, he thinks his friends are typical examples.
—WALTER RIDDELL
There are many of remedies for which there is no disease.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
A remedy for the common cold: Go to bed. Put a hat on the bedpost. Drink whiskey until you see two hats.
—WILLIAM OSLER
With the help of a simple balloon an acupuncturist can find out whether or not his patient suffers from a heart-disease.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
A cure for agoraphobics is just around the corner.
—STEWART FRANCIS
Note to self: “Buy wart medicine for giant wart on ass.”
—NORM MCDONALD
Nothing encourages a man to put his tongue in his cheek like finding a new cavity in a back tooth.
—O.A. BATTISTA
I think dentists have more faith than anybody. It’s a miracle that more of them don’t get their fingers bitten off.
—O.A. BATTISTA
The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.
—WILLIAM OSLER
The magazines were invented months before the waiting rooms.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
The FDA has approved a drug used for anti-depression to help people quit smoking. Though it should be noted, the drug is crack.
—NORM MCDONALD
Apart from the fact that it is mobile, the modern telephone causes cancer. But you have to smoke whilst you are using it.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
Of all the breath-taking inventions of man, the cigarette is by far the most successful… and the most deadly.
—O.A. BATTISTA
A new study suggests one puff on a cigarette could be enough to get you hooked. If true, this makes cigarettes as addictive as crack cocaine, heroin and Chunky Monkey ice cream.
—BRAD OSBERG
There is no better cure for cigarette smoking than attending a younger brother’s funeral who just died from lung cancer.
—O.A. BATTISTA
I was walking along the ocean. That’s generally where you’ll find the beach. Looking for ashtrays in their wild state.
—RON GRAHAM
I owe a lot to my teachers and mean to pay them back some day.
—STEPHEN LEACOCK
Television is teaching all the time. Does more educating than the schools and all the institutions of higher learning.
—MARSHALL McLUHAN
How anybody dresses is indicative of his self-concept. If students are dirty and ragged, it indicates they are not interested in tidying up their intellects either.
—S.I. HAYAKAWA
If everything goes according to plan, they will have a Time Machine ready last year.
—PIERRE LÉGARÉ
It was Einstein who made the real trouble. He announced in 1905 that there was no such thing as absolute rest. After that, there never was.
—STEPHEN B. LEACOCK
Travel, they say, broadens the mind but in my experience it is the other end of the anatomy that feels the effect.
—BEATRICE LILLIE
Any motorist who can fold up a road map correctly could surely be an accordion player.
—ANDRÉ VERCHUREN
The trouble with some people who claim they have an open mind is they give you the impression they’ve filled it up mostly with junk.
—O.A. BATTISTA
The trouble with a lot of childish errors is they are made by adults.
—O.A. BATTISTA
The trouble with some of the most charitable people I know is that they are deeply in debt.
—O.A. BATTISTA
The trouble with morning is that it always comes at such an ungodly hour.
—DOMINIC CLEARY
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
—BRUCE COCKBURN
The trouble with having a place for everything is how often it gets filled up with everything else.
—DON FRASER
A little humility is arrogance.
—BILL GRAY