Humor Quotes

Night falls over Machu Picchu to the sound of Abba's 'Dancing Queen'.

~ Michael Palin

The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and call him brother. I shall always delight to meet an ass after my own heart when I have finished my travels.

~ Mark Twain

The desert doesn't care who you are, and neither does anyone or anything who lives in it.

~ Deanne Stillman

By the time I had finished my coffee and returned to the streets, the rain had temporarily abated, but the streets were full of vast puddles where the drains where unable to cope with the volume of water. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would think that if one nation ought by now to have mastered the science of drainage, Britain would be it.

~ Bill Bryson

For me, boviscopophobia (=the morbid fear of being seen as bovine) is an even stronger motive than semi-agoraphobia for staying on the ship when we're in port.

~ David Foster Wallace

It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream - till you got a bite.A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass and kill the scorpion; and the next to bathe the bitten place with alcohol or brandy; and the next to resolve to keep out of the grass in the future. Then came an adjournment to the bedchamber and the pastime of writing up the day's journal with one hand and the destruction of mosquitoes with the other - a whole community of them at a slap. Then, observing an enemy approaching - a hairy tarantula on stilts - why not set the spittoon on him? It is done, and the projecting ends of his paws give a luminous idea of the magnitude of his reach. Then to bed and become a promenade for a centipede with forty-two legs on a side and every foot hot enough to burn a whole through a raw-hide. More soaking with alcohol, and a resolution to examine the bed before entering it, in future. Then wait, and suffer, till all the mosquitoes in the neighborhood have crawled in under the bar, then slip out quickly, shut them in and sleep peacefully on the floor till morning. Meantime, it is comforting to curse the tropics in occasional wakeful intervals.

~ Mark Twain

Celebrities are like infants. Neither can wipe their own ass.

~ Michael Brian

Statuettes of drunken sailors, velvet pictures of island maidens, plastic seashell lamps made in Taiwan. What contempt the people who think up souvenirs have for other people.

~ Diane Johnson

...being a weatherman in Ireland is about the biggest scam going.

~ Rachel Friedman

When we told our guide that we didn't want to go to all the tourist places he took us instead to the places where they take tourists who say that they don't want to go to tourist places. These places are, of course, full of tourists.

~ Douglas Adams

The logic underlying the truism that one should always travel on a plane with a book is also precisely why bed-and-breakfast culture is to be avoided if at all possible. Namely, you might have to talk to someone.

~ David Rakoff

It's like rock n' roll for your eyes.

~ Paul Howard

Albatrosses and penguins are the last birds I'd want to murder.

~ Bruce Chatwin

I bought the wrong face soap. Why? Because it says smooth face cleanser on it. I put it on my face and I'm fairly certain it's lotion. I also bought something that says Body soufflé. What is that? Is it a lotion? Is it shower gel? Am I supposed to eat it?

~ Heather Jonasson

The last we heard of him was a picture postcard from Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, containing a message of two words: Hello - Goodbye! and no address.

~ Tennessee Williams

We believed Paris was the start of us. It's the kind of city that makes you think of beginnings, or even juicy middles. Paris is a book to savor, in whole or in part, at any time and in any season. At age ninety or at thirty-four, you can open any chapter and read from there.

~ Michelle Gable

Elvira, as befitting one who represented a magazine, registered first and demanded a room and bath. She pronounced it bawth. The clerk seemed aghast at the request. However, in that hotel, any lady got whatever she asked for. It was her unquestioned right, as a lady. But there was no bath in the hotel, nor running water for that matter. The clerk faltered out something about a nice bowl and pitcher in every room, and said he thought they could provide a foot tub. He was sorry; there was no bath. Elvira couldn't grasp the situation. She thought the clerk was stupid--a hotel without a bath was a contradiction in terms. When she explained that she wanted something for complete immersion, the clerk seemed embarrassed. At his wits' end, he suggested (blushing like fire) that the colored boy could bring up the hog scalder.

~ Beatrice Fairfax

I would advise the curious reader to keep in mind the old adage “truth is stranger than fiction.” Expect the most outlandish, fantastic and unbelievable elements of this story to be true, and the more low-key elements to be fudged.

~ Dan Grajek

Life is way too short to get lost, so follow the script the way it comes and keep changing the checkpoints on every page.

~ Neetesh Dixit

I wish I were rich enough to endow a prize for the sensible traveler: £10,000 for the first man to over Marco Polo’s outward route, reading three fresh books a week, and another £10,000 if he a drinks a bottle of wine a day as well. That man might tell one something about the journey. He might or might not be naturally observant. But at least he would use what eyes he had, and would not think it necessary to dress up the result in thrills that never happened and science no deeper than its own jargon.

~ Robert Byron

The drive to Santa Fe on I-25 is midly zen. There are public road signs that say Gusty Winds May Exist. This seems more like lazy philosophy than travel advice.

~ Chuck Klosterman

The website increases my excitement when I read, “Hark, the pies are calling!” My excitement is short-lived, however. I read the page again and realize that it is “pipes” that are calling, not “pies” as I had hoped. I am disappointed. I personally react better to the call of pies.

~ Aefa Mulholland

Why you’ll never see a woman with a bomb in her shoe: we have too much respect for shoes.

~ Carolyn V. Hamilton

Veni, vidi, vici. That was easy for Julius Caesar to say; he crossed Italy in a chariot, not on a stupid bike. - Vivia

~ Leah Marie Brown

Walk your own path and be yourself

~ Joanne Nussbaum

It was one of those situations I often find myself in while traveling. Something's said by a stranger I've been randomly thrown into contact with, and I want to say, Listen. I'm with you on most of this, but before we continue, I need to know who you voted for in the last election.

~ David Sedaris

Leor smiled. “Merci, Monsieur Rusé.” “De rien.” Jean replied, and then he checked his watch. “Our flight will be leaving soon. Are you ready for that adventure? Can you brave the terrors of second class?” Leor laughed. “It depends if I get the window seat.

~ Zechariah Barrett

Make sure your not followed! Don’t go anywhere

~ Benny Bellamacina

If you think it's bad now, my friend, wait till we reach a town!' He shook his head and brushed at his tattered, dirty shirtsleeve. 'Do try to remember we're visitors-and not welcome ones-if you should feel moved to reason with anyone.

~ David Weber

I've never understood people who just go out for one drink. Once I have one drink, I want all the drinks.

~ Vicki Lesage

I'll pretty much try any cheese, but I have found that I prefer young goats and old cows. I don't like gray areas.

~ Nichole Robertson

Separating fact and fiction in Inca history is impossible, because virtually all the sources available are Spanish accounts of stories that had already been vetted by the Inca emperors to highlight their own heroic roles. Imagine a history of modern Iraq written by Dick Cheney and based on authorized biographies of Sadam Hussein published in Arabic, and you'll get some idea of what historians face.

~ Mark Adams

Man, you should write a book.’‘I know. You couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?

~ Stephanie Wood

It is the right of a traveller to vent their frustration at every minor inconvenience by writing of it to their friends.

~ Susanna Clarke

My need to parent is so much bigger, sometimes, than my children’s need for parenting.

~ Margot Page

Occasionally, merely for the pleasure of being cruel, we put unoffending Frenchmen on the rack with questions framed in the incomprehensible jargon of their native language, and while they writhed, we impaled them, we peppered them, we scarified them, with their own vile verbs and participles.

~ Mark Twain

You can find your way across this country using burger joints the way a navigator uses stars.

~ Charles Kuralt

A hotel room all to myself is my idea of a good time.

~ Chelsea Handler

We checked our bags and got on line with some of our fellow passengers. Judging from the looks of them, it was clear that they were members of a different income bracket from the people I preferred to surround myself with. But since I also wasn't from the income bracket I preferred, I held off on voicing my initial feelings of despair.

~ Chelsea Handler

Though most tourists accepted the occasional comic misadventure, it was important to them that overall their vacation should be pleasant. When you spend money on a holiday you are essentially purchasing happiness: if you don't enjoy yourself you will feel defrauded.

~ Alison Lurie