Ordinary people can be drop dead funny.

Human speech is directly responsible for almost every thought and emotion we have throughout life's journey. The complexity of language and the complex messages we use it to communicate leave the possibilities wide open for just about anything. Among other things, people can say things that are funny. We pay good money to see comedians say funny things, and a lot of them come through. But due to the nature of the human comic sense, the deliberateness of a comedian can dilute the potential for humor.

This page features humor that bypasses that. The humor here is, for the most part, unrehearsed and unintentional. Hundreds of quotations are listed. There are lines spoken by people intending to say something else. There are lines spoken by people who misunderstood something or other. They may or may not have known any better. The intricacies of human language may have fouled them up, or perhaps unfortunate slips of the tongue led them to ignominy. Whatever the case, there's a lot to laugh at.

• Accident Reports -- Descriptions of accidents as written on insurance claim forms.
• Excuse Letters -- Letters from parents to teachers, excusing their children from school.
• Courtroom Quotations -- Lawyers take ridiculous steps to be thorough.
• Resume Quotations -- Unwise statements made on resumes and cover letters.
• Patient Charts -- Doctors' remarks on patient charts.
• Church Bulletins -- Unfortunately phrased announcements in church bulletins.
• Classified Ads -- Classified ads that don't necessarily say what they were intended to.
• News Reports -- Newspapers, radio, and television garble news reports.
• Restaurants -- Blundered lines, signs, and menus at restaurants.
• Spoonerisms -- Quotes with words with sitched swounds.
• Words Without Thought -- Bungling the English language.
• The Language Barrier -- When learning English, sometimes being close is still very far away.
• Fortune Cookies -- Bizarre lines taken from actual fortune cookies.

• Forest Service Feedback -- City folk suggest improvements to the outdoors.
• River Guide Feedback -- People without common sense go rafting.
• Tourism Follies -- People without geographic sense.
• Questions Asked of Park Rangers -- Tourists who just don't get it.
• Questions Asked of Librarians -- Readers who just don't get it.
• Questions Asked of Cruise Ship Pursers -- Vacationers who just don't get it.
• Tenant Complaints -- Tenants complain to their landlords but don't proofread.

• Kids' Ideas About Love -- 5 to 10 year olds expound on love and marriage.
• Kids' Ideas About Science -- 5th and 6th graders illustrate scientific principles for the layman.
• Kid Quotes -- Young children make hilarious observations.
• Exams and Papers -- 7th through 12th graders give creative wrong answers to exams.
• Classroom Discussion -- Quotes from college kids, spoken during classroom discussions.

• Warning Labels -- In today's litigious society, products need ridiculously obvious instructions.
• Employee Performance Evaluation Quotes -- Evaluating the performance of the less proficient employees.
• Bad Predictions -- Famous last words about science and technology.
• Twins -- Some people have comic ideas about what being a twin is all about.
• Anecdotes of Stupidity -- In the general public, you can't hide from stupidity.

• Yogi Berra -- Verbal blunders from one of baseball's legends.
• Samuel Goldwyn -- Verbal blunders from the famous movie mogul.
• Eugene Ormandy -- Verbal blunders from the famous orchestra conductor.
• Murray Walker -- Verbal blunders from the famous motor racing commentator.
• John Madden -- Verbal blunders from the famous football commentator.
• Dan Quayle -- Verbal blunders from a notorious former Vice President.
• Other Famous People -- Verbal blunders from an assortment of other celebrities and political figures.

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Things People Said is a RinkWorks production. We invite you to visit our other features.

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Currently we are NOT accepting new submissions, as we are backlogged and have little hope of catching up any time in the near future. Thank you for your understanding. If you have any kind of feedback to give other than new quotations, please feel free to send it.

Legalese

The quotations and anecdotes original to this site have been released into the public domain. All other quotations and anecdotes are, to the best of my knowledge, in the public domain. All other material on this site, including logos and other text, is Copyright © 1998-2014 by Samuel Stoddard.