This is just hilarious and a reminder that being able to use words well is not the same as being witty. True wit has an a comic edge to it. Enjoy!
Art of the one-liner: wit and grit for a deadly hit
And why the late, great Carrie Fisher deserves to join Oscar Wilde, Groucho Marx and Dorothy Parker as one of the genre’s most brilliant exponents
It alerted me to the dimmer bulbs in the chandelier. “Your tagline makes no sense. What could be quicker than instant?” Blocked!
But: “Great Postcards from the Edge quote there” = date request!
Alas, that led to little success so I’m again taking Fisher’s advice, as echoed by Meryl Streep this month: “Take your broken heart, make it into art.” The art I’ve decided to make is to discover the world’s best one-liner. This one’s for you, Carrie:
Some one-liners are so great, they’ve become their own cliches. Some characters deserve their own category for speaking almost exclusively in them – take a bow, Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Groucho Marx, Mae West, Mark Twain, Maya Angelou.
Straight-up humour isn’t enough: the funniest one-liners have a sardonic, sarcastic or even bitchy undertone. The dreamier ones need a tinge of sadness or bitterness. Those offering guidance need to insinuate it’s advice the author of the phrase wistfully – or bitterly – wishes they’d taken themselves. Concision is essential.
Some wordplay will make the ‘inspirational’ one liner forgivable for its linguistic merit. Don’t state the bleeding obvious: tell us something counterintuitive, or something that reveals the grit of your struggle and how you’ve mastered words as your response.
Retorts are out; if you need someone to rack up a line for you to knock down, then strictly speaking that isn’t a one-liner. It should include all its wit, grit and tips in that standalone line. Metaphors, self-deprecation and genuine poignancy are in.
With those criteria in mind, here’s my – unapologetically subjective – stab at the shortlist of the world’s greatest one-liners of all time:
Self-deprecating
“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap” – Dolly Parton
“I used to be Snow White, but I drifted” – Mae West
“My face looks like a wedding cake left out in the rain” – WH Auden
Wordplay
“I can resist everything, except temptation” – Oscar Wilde
“Better to be looked over than overlooked” – Mae West
“There are two kinds of people in the world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t” – Robert Benchley
Perceptive
“If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself” – Albert Einstein
“Faith: not wanting to know what is true” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung” – Voltaire
“Copy from one, it’s plagiarism; copy from two, it’s research” – Wilson Mizner
“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo” – HG Wells
Sardonic
“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it” – Groucho Marx
“Every love’s the love before in a duller dress” – Dorothy Parker
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography” – Ambrose Bierce
“If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me” – Alice Roosevelt Longworth (and Olympia Dukakis in Steel Magnolias, of course)
Underrated
“Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length” – Robert Frost
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance” – Derek Bok
Just brilliant
“You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think” – Dorothy Parker
“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about” – Oscar Wilde
Advice
“When someone shows you who they are believe them; the first time” – Maya Angelou
“When you’re going through hell, keep going” – Winston Churchill
“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off” – Coco Chanel
Poignant
“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple” – Dr Seuss
“At 18 our convictions are hills from which we look; at 45 they are caves in which we hide” – F Scott Fitzgerald
Inspirational
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars” – Oscar Wilde
“It is never too late to be what you might have been” – George Eliot
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“If everything is under control, you are going too slow” – Mario Andretti
I can relate
“Being a writer is like having homework every night for the rest of your life” – Lawrence Kasdan
I’d best wrap this up because:
“He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink” – John Ray
And finally, take all these with a pinch of salt because:
“The aphorism is a personal observation inflated into a universal truth, a private posing as a general” – Stefan Kanfer
What do you think is the world’s best one-liner?
Gary Nunn is a regular contributor to Mind your language. Twitter: @garynunn1
A few more favourites:
“My one regret in life is that I’m not someone else”
“The only thing standing between me and greatness is me”
Those were by Woody Allen, back when he was funny, and not cringe-inducing. Alas, I will stop here. If I keep going, I’m afraid I will hear this:
“I bet you spend a lot of time on your own at parties. Sorry. I bet you spend a lot of time on your own.”