“Bob Hope: Let's not do any jokes we didn't plan on, eh.”
Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor
The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)
East Enders Wives.
Ten Stories
“Bob Hope: Let's not do any jokes we didn't plan on, eh.”
Jack Benny (1894–1974) comedian, vaudeville performer, and radio, television, and film actor
The Jack Benny Program (Radio: 1932-1955), The Jack Benny Program (Television: 1950-1965)
James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician
The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)
“The jokes of the gods are long in the telling.”
Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer
Volume 3, Ch. 1
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)
“Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.”
Hermann Hesse book Steppenwolf
Source: Steppenwolf (1927), p. 97
Context: You should not take old people who are already dead seriously. It does them injustice. We immortals do not like things to be taken seriously. We like joking. Seriousness, young man, is an accident of time. It consists, I don't mind telling you in confidence, in putting too high a value on time. I, too, once put too high a value on time. For that reason I wished to be a hundred years old. In eternity, however, there is no time, you see. Eternity is a mere moment, just long enough for a joke.
Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist
Source: Esther: A Novel (1884), Ch. VII
Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States
"Back to the Dump" (p.414)
There's a Country in My Cellar (1990)