"The history of humorous writing discloses everchanging trends. Our fast-paced modern living is too impatient for the lengthy light verse and the leisurely essays of our forefathers."

React to this quote

More by Evan Esar

“An alert copyreader on a newspaper couldn’t believe it when he read a reporter’s account of the theft of 2025 pigs. That’s a lot of pigs, he thought, and called the farmer to check the copy. “Is it true that you lost 2025 pigs?” he asked. “Yeth,” lisped the farmer. “Thanks,” returned the copyreader, and corrected the story to read “two sows and 25 pigs.”

“Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing.”

“The personal comparative is marked by epigrammatic self-satire. It implies that everyone thinks himself better than anyone else, but only the egoist says so.”

“Many a man who falls in love with a dimple make the mistake of marrying the whole girl.”

“Zoo: An excellent place to study the habits of human beings.”

“An epigram is the marriage of wit, and wisdom; a wisecrack, their divorce.”

Resonant Thoughts

"I tell him you are lucky I am not a jealous woman, because look at the women he's worked with: Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Thalia, Madonna. These very sexy women. I trust him."

— Gloria Estefan

Music1957

#humor

"Maybe so, but something is going on with the primes."

— Carl Pomerance

Mathematics1944

#humor

"The people were divided into the persecuted and those who persecuted them. That wild beast, which lives in man and does not dare to show itself until the barriers of law and custom have been removed, …"

— Ivo Andrić

Literature1892–1975

#life

"The Sultan is not slack in jihad. He never lets go of his spear or bridle in pursuing jihad by land and sea routes. This is his main occupation which engages his eyes and ears. He has spent vast sums …"

— Muhammad bin Tughluq

1290–1351

#writing