Barry Humphries Quotes

I drift along, thinking about the past a great deal. The past is so reliable, so delightful, and the best place to live. I end up there quite often, you know; it’s very comfortable and dependable.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Art Past Thinking
To live in Australia permanently is rather like going to a party and dancing all night with one’s mother.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Mother Night Party
The truth is deafening, no matter how softly it is spoken.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Defend Matter Spoken Truth
If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Explain Give Up might Satire
I’ve decided the secret of parenting is benevolent neglect.I put my family last. Because if you don’t, if you put them first, they never thank you. You’ll never get a word of thanks from them.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

First Lasts Secret
It’s an old Aboriginal word meaning ‘Let’s get together and have fun’. They gave us the word because they had no further need for it.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Fun Needs Together
Sex is the most beautiful thing that can take place between a happily married man and his secretary.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Beautiful Men Secretary Sex Thing
He’s very, very well-known. I’d say he’s world-famous in Melbourne.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Known Luck Well World
If you can’t laugh at yourself, you may be missing the colossal joke of the century.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Century Joke Laughing Missing
Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Humor Laughing Memorable
New Zealand is a country of thirty thousand million sheep, three million of whom think they are human.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Country Sheep Thinking
I think a lot of people think that we [comedians] are nerveless people in the theatre, that we don’t feel that kind of terror which traditionally anyone who has to do any public speaking feels. It’s worse for actors, because our livelihood depends on it.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Comedian People Thinking
I like people who are slightly unhygienic. A little grubbiness isn’t so bad. BO chic it should be called.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Bad Chic Little People Unhygienic
I’m an immensely shy and vulnerable woman. My husband has never seen me naked. Nor has he expressed the least desire to do so.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Desire Husbands Women
Everyone had a Japanese maple, although after Pearl Harbor most of these were patriotically poisoned, ringbarked and extirpated.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Harbor Nature Pearls
Most of my contemporaries at school entered the World of Business, the logical destiny of bores.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Destiny Satire School Someone World
My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet. She’s now in a maximum security twilight home in Australia
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Friendship Funny Mom
Friendship is tested in the thick years of success rather than in the thin years of struggle.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Struggle Thick Years
I was born with a priceless gift, the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Funny Laughing Priceless
Sport is a loathsome and dangerous pursuit.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Inspirational Sports Pursuit Sports
The past is so reliable, so delightful and the best place to live.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Best Delightful Live Past Place
I have outlived most of my more athletic contemporaries who jogged, golfed and squashed themselves into coronary occlusion.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Athletic Contemporaries Coronary Golf Occlusion
I love Australia – I think.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Country Emotion Love Thinking
Australia is an outdoor country. People only go inside to use the toilet. And that’s only a recent development.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Country Funny Humor
The whole point of art, aside from the aesthetic pleasure it yields, is that it provides a bridge to the past; that seductive land where we all find certainty and consolation. Nothing quite spans this gulf with such immediacy as the art of popular song.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Art Past Point Seductive Song
My parents were very pleased that I was in the army. The fact that I hated it somehow pleased them even more.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Army Children Parent
There is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken seriously.
BARRY HUMPHRIES

Comedian Fate Seriously Taken Terrible

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