Madison Wisconsin State Journal
December 28, 1987
Words of wit are much more entertaining than words of wisdom. We’ll leave the wisdom for another day. Here’s a choice selection from “Hammer and Tongues: The Best of Women’s Wit and Humor” (St. Martin’s Press, $14.95) by Michele Brown and Ann O’Connor.
Mrs. Alfred Kinsey: I don’t see much of Alfred any more since he got interested in sex.
Bette Midler on Princess Anne: Such an active lass. So outdoorsy. She loves nature in spite of what it did to her.
Madeline Talmadge Astor on being helped over the rail of the Titanic: 1 rang for ice, but this is ridiculous.
Dorothy Parker on the man she was divorcing: Â Oh, don’t worry about Alan. . . . Alan will always land on somebody’s feet.
Mae West: I feel like a million tonight – but one at a time.
Mrs. Woodrow Wilson: When Woodrow proposed to me I was so surprised I nearly fell out of bed.
Joan Rivers: Princess l)i wears more clothes in one day than Gandhi wore in his entire life.
Fran Lcbowitz: Radio news is bearable. This is due to the fact that while the news is being broadcast the disc jockey is not allowed to talk.
Bette Davis: Would I consider remarriage? If I found a man who had $15 million, would sign half of it to me before marriage and guaranteed he’d be dead within a year.
Jayne Mansfield: I got married and we had a baby nine months and 10 seconds later.
Jane Russell: Sometimes the photographers would pose me in a low-necked nightgown and tell me to bend down and pick up the pails. They were not shooting the pails.
Brooke Shields: What does “good in bed” mean? When I’m sick and slay home from school propped up with lots of pillows watching TV and my mom brings me soup – that’s good in bed.
Princess (Grace on an enormous emerald and ruby ring she always wore: I like to know which is my starboard and port side.
Hermionc Gingold: I’ve discovered that what, we in England call drafts you in America call cross-ventilation.
Barbra Streisand on the furor over casting her with Egyptian-born Omar Sharif in “Funny Girl” during the Six Day War: You think Cairo was upset – you should have seen the letter I got from my Aunt Rose.
Elizabeth Taylor on rumors she would be posing for Playboy: Oh, sure – and next month I’m dressing up as a sea bass for the front cover of Field and Stream.
Excerpted by Rick Daily News. Selvin, Philadelphia
