The Book of Great Funny One-Liners by Frank Allen Read Free Book Online Page B

nothing of the zombie-like expressions she mistakes for acting.
    Elizabeth Taylor has grown so ample that it has become necessary to dress her almost exclusively in a variety of ambulatory tents. On the few occasions when she does reveal her bosom (or part thereof), one breast (or part thereof) proves sufficient to traverse an entire wide-screen frame—diagonally.
    John Simon, Serbian-American critic
    I suspect that Beckett is a confidence trick perpetrated on the twentieth century by a theatre-hating God. He remains the only playwright in my experience capable of making forty minutes seem like an eternity and the wrong kind of eternity at that.
    British critic Sheridan Morley on Irish playwright Samuel Beckett
    One of those inexplicable farces which capture the hearts of countless London-goers, despite plots of appalling banality and dialogue that writers of cat-food commercials might well spurn.
    British critic Sheridan Morley on No Sex Please — We’re British
    If you’re not careful, I’ll play this scene as you want it.
    Claude Raines, American actor on being micro-managed by a director
    Mosquitos see Elizabeth Taylor and shout ‘Buffet!’
    This year Elizabeth Taylor is wearing Orson Welles’ designer jeans.
    Elizabeth Taylor’s so fat, she puts mayonnaise on an aspirin.
    Joan Rivers, American comedian
    Elizabeth Taylor married Larry Fortensky, a man younger than her first wedding dress.
    A.A. Gill, British columnist
    I knew Elizabeth Taylor when she didn’t know where her next husband was coming from.
    American actor Anne Baxter on her fellow actor
    Nature, not content with denying him the art of thinking, conferred on him the gift of writing.
    George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist and critic
    Shaw is the spinster aunt of English literature.
    Kenneth Tynan, British writer
    He hasn’t enough sense to bore assholes in wooden hobbyhorses.
    American journalist Dorothy Parker on an anonymous Hollywood producer
    Awards are like haemorrhoids; sooner or later every asshole gets some.
    Frederic Raphael, Anglo-American screenwriter
    She ran the gamut of emotion from A to B.
    American journalist Dorothy Parker on one of Katherine Hepburn’s performances
    Working with Julie Andrews is like being hit over the head with a Valentine’s card.
    Christopher Plummer on his fellow British actor
    When do you want me to do that little something for which you are paying me all this money?
    British actor Ellen Terry to a director
    Burt Reynolds sings like Dean Martin with adenoids and dances like a drunk killing cockroaches.
    Canadian media personality John Barbour on the American actor
    My movies are the kind they show in prisons and aeroplanes, because nobody can leave.
    Burt Reynolds, American actor
    When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to Bernard Shaw.
    Nigel Rees, British writer and presenter
    Go on writing plays, my boy. One of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his secretary, ‘Is there a play from Shaw this morning? And when she says ‘No,’ he will say, ‘Well, then we’ll have to start on the rubbish.’ And that’s your chance, my boy.
    George Bernard Shaw, Irish dramatist and critic
    They say Tom Mix rides as if he’s part of the horse, but they don’t say which part.
    America playwright and screenwriter Robert Sherwood on the American movie cowboy
    Acting on television is like being asked by the captain to entertain the passengers while the ship goes down.
    Peter Ustinov, British comedian and actor
    Johnny, keep it out of focus. I want to win the foreign picture award.
    Television is a twenty-one inch prison. I’m delighted with it because it used to be that films were the lowest form of art. Now we have something to look down upon.
    Billy Wilder, American film director
    The Birthday Party was like a vintage Hitchcock thriller which has been edited by a cross-eyed studio janitor with a lawnmower.
    American film maker Orson Welles on British playwright Harold Pinter’s work
    When