The Comedy Quote Dictionary

Looking for a comprehensive and incomparable overview of modern English-language humor? Need a relevant riposte to brighten a speech presentation? Or just in the market for a few thousand good laughs? The Comedy Quote Dictionary provides all this and more, in an uproarious compilation of over 2,000 quips, quotes, jokes, one-liners, and epigrams from the funniest men and women of the twentieth century. The more than 600 sources featured in the Dictionary span the whole spectrum of contemporary wit and wisdom, from the classic humorists who enlivened stage, page, and screen in the first half of the century (Robert Benchley, W. C. Fields, George S. Kaufman, Dorothy Parker, Groucho Marx) to the performers who perfected the art of stand-up comedy in nightclubs and on television (Mort Sahl, Rodney Dangerfield, Lenny Bruce, Joan Rivers). Here, too, are the words of cartoonists (Charles Addams, Don Marquis, Johnny Hart), writers (Woody Allen, Russell Baker, Lewis Grizzard, Fran Lebowitz, P. J. O'Rourke), British humorists (David Frost, Spike Milligan), the new giants of comedy (Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, Robin Williams), and the hot new comedians of the 1990s (Richard Lewis, Rita Rudner, Jerry Seinfeld, and Emo Phillips, to name only a few). Writer and comedy expert Ronald L. Smith has mined books, recordings, live performances, and personal interviews to compile this essential comic compendium, which covers topics ranging from airplanes to zoophytes, banks to bullfighting, puberty to paranoia. Arranged by subject and indexed by source, The Comedy Quote Dictionary is a new classic - a riotous reference that is as hip and hilarious as it is timeless and indispensable.