# funniest sentence in literature, IMO **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 9, 2007, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946 "2007-08-09T02:02:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![633squadron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/6/ee59a6/32.png) [@633squadron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/633squadron)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2007, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/81 "2007-08-11T13:38:42Z")
[QUOTE=Dinsdale] One that comes readily to mind is from Breslin’s **Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight.** paraphrased from memory, it describes a gangster who “died of natural causes. His heart stopped beating, after someone slipped into his bedroom while he was sleeping and stuck an icepick into it several times.” Maybe not that hysterical, but a funny enough turn of phrase to have stuck with me for 20-30 years. [/QUOTE] I remember it as “died when his heart stopped. It stopped because several men went into his bedroom and stuck knives in it.” ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2007, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/82 "2007-08-11T15:13:29Z")
[QUOTE=singular1] [hijack] This thread spurred me to finally (through the benefit of having extra cash from way too much overtime) acquire the Discworld series. But Amazon has me thoroughly confused. Can someone please direct me to a chronological list of the series? Thanks! [/hijack] [/QUOTE] Try [http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/terry-pratchett/](http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/p/terry-pratchett/). Good site for lists and other info info on most SF/Fantasy authors’ books. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2007, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/83 "2007-08-11T18:26:55Z")
[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th] Crap. There’s an order to them? I just bought my first Pratchett book yesterday. Having no idea where to start, I picked Small Gods. Was this an error? [/QUOTE] You would probably not be surprised that this has been discussed here before. [Discworld reading order](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=344716&highlight=discworld+order) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2007, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/84 "2007-08-11T18:46:45Z")
[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th] Crap. There’s an order to them? I just bought my first Pratchett book yesterday. Having no idea where to start, I picked Small Gods. Was this an error? [/QUOTE] Short answer: No, it’s not an error. That’s as good a one to start with as any. ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2007, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/85 "2007-08-11T18:55:12Z")
[QUOTE=rackensack] (emphasis added) Hwæt?! [/QUOTE] Wottest thou not myn geste, freke? [sub]Keep up, will you? Anything prior to 1800 is unreadable high brow old English. Modern, Middle, Old, whatever.[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Ryle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8dc957/32.png) [@Mark\_Ryle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Ryle)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2007, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/86 "2007-08-11T19:07:51Z")
[QUOTE=singular1] [hijack] This thread spurred me to finally (through the benefit of having extra cash from way too much overtime) acquire the Discworld series. [/hijack] [/QUOTE] All items mentioned in this thread, most of which I was unaware, duly added to my reading list. Thanks for all the suggestions and excerpts! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/87 "2007-08-12T22:39:54Z")
[This may well have been written by a Doper.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=5766362&postcount=11) ETA: but even if it wasn’t, it’s a great sentence. ---
**Author:** ![leucanthemum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7bcc69/32.png) [@leucanthemum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leucanthemum)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2007, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/88 "2007-08-12T22:40:17Z")
My favorite pair of lines comes from Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, on the very first page, as Lorelei writes in her diaries: “So this gentleman said a girl with brains ought to do something else with them besides think. And he said he ought to know brains when he sees them, because he is in the senate and he spends a great deal of time in Washington, d. c., and when he comes into contact with brains he always notices it.” ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/89 "2007-08-13T01:01:00Z")
[QUOTE=Hoopy Frood] You forgot the sperm whale. The missiles were turned into a bowl of pentunias being carried along inside a sperm whale. The Hitchhiker game, while not exactly canon, but written by Douglas Adams and Steve Mertzkey for Infocom, explains that the bowl of petunias were the radar guidance system of the missiles, which themselves became the whale. [/QUOTE] Perhaps in the game, but in the books they were quite separate. One missile turned into the whale, and one into the flowers. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/90 "2007-08-13T01:16:23Z")
I’m surprised no one has mentioned this passage from HHG (I know, it’s not a single sentence): “Come,” called the old man, “come now or you will be late.” “Late?” said Arthur. “What for?” “What is your name, human?” “Dent. Arthur Dent,” said Arthur. “Late, as in the late Dentarthurdent,” said the old man, sternly. “It’s sort of a threat, you see.” Another wistful look came into his tired old eyes. “I’ve never been very good at them myself, but I’m told they can be very effective.” Even better heard on the original radio play. ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/91 "2007-08-13T04:53:56Z")
No love for Mark Twain? Sheesh. I don’t have time to look up the exact quote, but one my favorites is his classic where he tells the newspaper reporter that everyone had always thought it was his twin brother who’d drowned in the bath, but they were wrong. He’s got another in (I think) “A Hardboiled Detective Story” where he comes up with a real snorer sentence that contains the phrase “with the winged esophogi floating effortlessly on the breeze” or some such. Well, sure, as written that’s a bit strange - and a critic called him on it - but Twain invited the critic to re-read the entire sentence. As Twain noted, if he’d just used a different noun, probably NO ONE would have ever noticed that the sentence makes NO SENSE AT ALL under any circumstance. Whoosh, indeed. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/92 "2007-08-13T05:35:30Z")
Most people fail to miss the ground, and if they are really trying properly, the likelihood is that they will fail to miss it fairly hard. Another one from the same series, although I can’t remember the phrase. I’m going to sound stupid. "The men of whatever will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. This was proven correct when an updated copy of the guide fell through a time portal and it said, ‘the men of whatever were the first up against the wall when the revolution came.’’ Yeah, I screwed that up royally. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/93 "2007-08-13T05:38:56Z")
I posted this in another quote thread a while back. I still laugh every time I read it, so here it is again. “I will make no metaphors to describe the pain in my head, because the brain, which makes metaphors, should not be forced to be clever at its own expense. My ribs ached like a kingdom that has lost a war, and my stomach swelled with the nausea of all the seas, but my head, well, it hurt. It really hurt.” - from _Memoir from Antproof Case_ by Mark Helprin ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/94 "2007-08-13T06:03:11Z")
[QUOTE=Civil Guy] No love for Mark Twain? Sheesh. [/QUOTE] How about the bit from the essay on the literary offenses of Fenimore Cooper? One of my favorites: > [@](#): > > There are nineteen rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction – some say twenty-two. In _Deerslayer_ Cooper violated eighteen of them. These require: > . . . > They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship’s Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a Negro minstrel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the _Deerslayer_ tale. And while it’s not really literature, there are few things that make me laugh to the point of tears, no matter how many times I read it, like Mr. Clemens’ letter to the gas company of Feb. 12, 1891. It’s available in the Viking _Portable Mark Twain_, and at only one paragraph of only four sentences it’s hard to quote enough to give a flavor of it without exceeding “fair use”, but trust me it’s worth seeking out if you don’t know it. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/95 "2007-08-13T06:07:37Z")
[QUOTE=RandMcnally] "The men of whatever will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. This was proven correct when an updated copy of the guide fell through a time portal and it said, ‘the men of whatever were the first up against the wall when the revolution came.’’ Yeah, I screwed that up royally. [/QUOTE] The “men of whatever” would, of course, be the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, aka "a bunch of mindless jerks who will be . . . " etc. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/96 "2007-08-13T08:53:59Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] That’s actually a parody of an old story I read in T.H. White’s _The Sword in the Stone_ (and probably much older than that): A merchant of Jerusalem was walking in the bazaar one day and was surprised to see Death; what’s more, Death seemed equally surprised to see him. The merchant hurried off and sought out a wise man to explain the omen. He was told, “It means Death has come here for you.” The merchant decided to flee before the appointment. He hired a fast horse and rode hard all night until he reached Damascus, a feat no one had ever managed before. The next day he was walking in the bazaar and Death plucked his sleeve and said, “I have come for you.” The merchant, astonished, cried, “But I saw you in Jerusalem just yesterday!” Death replied, “And I was quite surprised to see you there, for I was told to seek you here, today, in Damascus.” [/QUOTE] Not _The Sword in the Stone_. I didn’t think it was, and having way too much time on my hands over the weekend I reread the book. The above story isn’t in there. /mr picky ---
**Author:** ![The\_Them](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@The\_Them](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Them)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/97 "2007-08-13T11:22:23Z")
**Winterhawk** beat me to _Good Omens_ , and I’ve lost my copy (but notice my SN). Still… Humans are smart, and past a certain point, assume that anything present is supposed to be there, and offered no confrontation. But machines are stupid, and they went off like _anything._ Also winging it on the quote: So he searched the dashboard inch by inch, knowing the steering wheel had to be there _somewhere_; when he reached the farther side, he concluded someone had stolen it. From _Slaughterhouse Five._ ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Ryle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8dc957/32.png) [@Mark\_Ryle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Ryle)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/98 "2007-08-13T12:00:15Z")
[QUOTE=Civil Guy] No love for Mark Twain? Sheesh. [/QUOTE] One of my favorites is from _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_: > [@](#): > > Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him till he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. Twain placed the punch line at the end, the place the German verb would be. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/99 "2007-08-13T12:35:07Z")
[QUOTE=Civil Guy] He’s got another in (I think) “A Hardboiled Detective Story” where he comes up with a real snorer sentence that contains the phrase “with the winged esophogi floating effortlessly on the breeze” or some such. Well, sure, as written that’s a bit strange - and a critic called him on it - but Twain invited the critic to re-read the entire sentence. As Twain noted, if he’d just used a different noun, probably NO ONE would have ever noticed that the sentence makes NO SENSE AT ALL under any circumstance. Whoosh, indeed. [/QUOTE] It’s "A Double Barrelled Detective Story. The opening to Chapter Four : ``` * Chapter 4 ``` **No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies.** It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and flashing in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind Nature for the wingless wild things that have their homes in the tree-tops and would visit together; the larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of the woodland; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose upon the swooning atmosphere; far in the empty sky a solitary œsophagus slept upon motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of God.\* Entire story is available [here,](http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/54/1003/frameset.html) as well as a commentary by Twain, and an editorial comment, at the end of Chapter Four. ---
**Author:** ![Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e79b87/32.png) [@Boulter\_s\_Canary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boulter_s_Canary)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2007, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946/100 "2007-08-13T15:21:03Z")
“Money couldn’t buy friends but you got a better class of enemy.” - Spike Milligan, Puckoon. And another Terry Pratchett: “It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funniest-sentence-in-literature-imo/414946.md?page=6)