Literature / Funny

Curling up with a good book is hard to do when you're laughing so hard that milk is coming out of your nose.

The following books have enough hilarious moments to warrant their own pages:

Authors:

Books:

Examples without pages:

The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls is not what anyone would call a happy book, being that it is equal parts the autobiography of a woman's time in a monstrously incompetent and unpleasant psyche ward and the fictional story of a poor Victorian girls time in a Bedlam House that would put Arkham to shame. That said, there are still genuinely funny moments throughout. Emilie ranting about the injustice of only having a crayon to write with in her arly diary entries, ending with the glorious "A pox on crayons" always makes this troper giggle.
- Bi-Polar Bear. That is all.
John Moore's Heroics for Beginners has a scene where the protagonist, Kevin is talking to a soothsayer. She starts giving him an ominous, cryptic warning about danger and to 'beware of the man in black,' to which Kevin scornfully lampshades how useless the supposed prophetess is being. The ensuing conversation is funnier than it sounds.
Soothsayer: 'Goodness, you're a picky one. What is it? You want quatrains? I'll give you quatrains. Pay attention. "You shall not defeat the man in black/That which you seek, you won't bring back/The guards will falter when they attack/And you will...you'll...um..."what's another word that rhymes with black?'
Danny Wallace's book Join Me had me rolling around on the bed laughing at one stage. I can't actually remember what part caused that, but I think it was the dreadfully badly written (or possibly badly translated) Belgian newspaper article. Or possibly the 'sorry. My leg hurts' scene.
- On meeting some Belgians he had planned ahead to avoid looking stupid and had asked a Belgian what the Flemish is for 'cheers!' Unfortunately the Belgian misheard him and gave him the word for 'cheese'. Hilarity Ensues.
The sequel Yes Man is pretty much a Crowning Book of Funny, but possibly the best bit is Danny repeatedly poking a monk in the ribs. The fact that the books are actually autobiographical is probably what makes parts like that, which would only be mildly amusing otherwise, into pure hilarity.
Dave Gorman's book Are You Dave Gorman? (the result of a drunken bet between himself and the aforementioned Danny Wallace about how many people share the name 'David Gorman') has many laugh out loud moments. Do not read this book on public transport! Its genius, however, is at the end of the book, they hold a party for all the David Gormans they have met on their travels... and make them all wear name tags.
- After Danny has gotten into trouble with his girlfriend Hanne for going on too many Dave Gorman-meeting trips with Dave, Dave hatches a Zany Scheme to placate Hanne by having her come along to one of their live shows and have the whole audience sing 'Happy Birthday' to her. It works. Then he carries on with his routine and carelessly mentions the part where Danny chatted up a Miss USA contestant while they were in New York. Ooooops...
- The Incredible Disappearing Albanians in New York.
- After going through endless security checks to get into Israel to meet the country's five Dave Gormans, they find out that in fact it has one Dave Gorman with five phone numbers.
- At one point Danny falls out with Dave after finding that he brought them to the Isle of Wight on false pretences to meet another Dave Gorman. Dave tries to repair their friendship by buying him a gift. A brightly-coloured children's kite.
  Dave: It was all they had!
A particularly wonderful bit occurs at the end of the second short story in Last Watch. Anton has been locked in a particularly fast-paced and deadly duel with Edgar, and the old and not-very-powerful magician Afandi hid behind Anton's shields to recite a rather complicated spell. After his foe escapes, Anton asks Afandi precisely what he did, and is informed (in a tone more fitting to a gleeful six-year-old) that Afandi put an irreversible spell of impotence on Edgar.
The Canterbury Tales has many extended funny moments, but the first would have to be the Miller's Tale. All of it. Including the fight with the Reeve and his response story. Second would have to be the tale of Sir Thopas, especially at the point where the host cuts Chaucer off and yells at him to stop telling it.
Ogden Nash's retort to the famous Dorothy Parker couplet "Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses," is as follows:
A gal who is bespectacled,
May never get her nectacled,
But safety pins and bassinets
Await the girl who fassinets.
In The Wise Man's Fear, Elodin's explanation of how to learn Naming, after he becomes frustrated with Kvothe pestering him to teach him more (and Kvothe being frustrated by Elodin's Cloudcuckoolander teaching style, which is actually the only way you can learn naming). He brings Fela and Kvothe up in front of the class, and describes it as akin to catching a pretty girl's eye, and realizing there is a slight spark between you, and what to do? He lists A. trying to express what they feel directly, which will fail, B. carefully coaxing the spark into greater life through dating and conversation, and C. Kvothe's way - taking the simplest and most direct route and grabbing her breasts. And then, just as you (and the class, in-story) are coming down from laughing at this, Elodin follows up with "I am trying to seduce you into understanding. I am trying to teach you. Quit grabbing my tits.''
In Sterne's Tristram Shandy, prim Uncle Toby deals with his wartime groin-wound by admitting he was wounded, but leaving the anatomical details vague. But when the seductive Widow Wadman asks him where he was hurt, glancing at his crotch as she does, he replies without hesitation. He gently puts her finger on the place where he was shot... on a map.
The Complete World Knowledge series is quickly becoming the bible for fans of deadpan humor.
- The Areas of My Expertise - "'You know what?' I say. 'Fuck you.'"
- More Information Than You Require - The List of Shitty Aphorisms. "It takes three men to kick a dog to death, but only one to raise it poorly."
In Finder's Bane Athar guide preached his doctrine to Finder. Recently ascended and temporarily depowered god traveling incognito with his priest (though in the place normally off-limits for deities). Naturally, that made them both quite happy even despite the troubles they were in.
Adenu: On this tour, I'll be showing you all the darks uncovered by our leaders, darks which prove the wisdom of the Athar's teachings — the gods are charlatans, beings of false power and false promises.
(Jedidiah begins to chuckle. Adenu shoots the older man a chill look.)
Jedidiah: I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at your philosophy. It's just that the irony is killing me.
Adenu: Irony?
Jedidiah: It's not important...
In Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, when FDR is told his opponent in the election will be Charles Lindbergh, he comments:
By the time this is over, the young man will be sorry not only that he entered politics but that he ever learned to fly.
Any of the Alex Barnaby or Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. That woman is a GENIUS. There's a classic moment in "Lean Mean Thirteen" when Stephanie and Lula are trying to find a guy in his house. The house is one giant marijuana plantation, and they can't find the guy. They open a cupboard and find him. Lula squeezes off a shot that hits an ethyl bottle, which then hits the stove and they narrowly make it to the back door. Next minute... boom. And they're lying behind the house while marijuana ash is falling around them like snow. Take it from me, they are as high as kites.
- One warning, however. Start from the beginning of the series, or at least read an earlier book before trying Lean Mean Thirteen, because otherwise it's hard to get the characters.
- The fact that Stephanie always gets a car blown up in every book.
- All the Plum books are funny (especially when Grandma's involved in the action), but Carl's antics in Plum Spooky have me gasping for air between bursts of laughter. Even non-human characters (Carl's a monkey) are hilarious in this series.
Most Neal Stephenson books contain at least one of these every few chapters.
- Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse's off topic musings on subjects such as the mathematics of horniness or the Great Ejaculation Control conspiracy come to mind.
- Randy's example of a generic corporate business plan. [1]
- "Reapeat after me: Fuck the Aztecs!"
- And Bobby's last words: "Fuck you, Waterhouse!"
Dave Barry. Extensive usage of A Good Name for a Rock Band and Inherently Funny Words, among other things.
- His explanation for how electricity works from Dave Barry in Cyberspace is brilliant, along with the rest of the book.
  - In particular, his list of emoticons. They included such gems as "Person vomiting a series of Slim Jims", "Person who can't figure out why nobody wishes to speak with him, little suspecting that there is an alligator on his head", and "Person who is none to pleased to be giving birth to a squirrel."
- His book The Taming of the Screw about home repair, especially the chapter on painting. His explanation for the many names of off-white, and the accompanying chart... I won't spoil the surprise, but seriously go pee before reading it, or at least sit on a chair that's washable.
- In "Dave Barry's Money Secrets," the whole exchange in the fake infomercial.
  Man: (Makes reference to an old prison friend)
  Wife: 'Friend?' Is that what we're calling it now?
  Wife: (Later, after the man calls his wife a bitch) Oh, so now I'm the bitch?
- "Gobble, Gobble, Eeeeeeeeek!" has this excellent Brick Joke (It Makes Sense in Context):
  "Working together, we WILL get to the bottom of this. And then we will glue it shut."
In The Salvation War: Armageddon, words fail to describe the sheer hilarity of the scene in chapter 78 where Michael speaks with Yahweh regarding the events that have been unfolding. Two Words: Stoner Jesus. And for that matter, Stoner Michael.
The Sword of Truth series has a few of them.
- Zedd defusing the mob to back off first by saying that he's insulted for them calling him a woman, and then making them think he'd made their *cough* manhoods disappear.
- The end of Stone Of Tears, when Richard is in Aydindril, and Zedd and Kahlan are on the run after faking Kahlan's execution in front of thousands of people. Her head has also been shaved. Then Denna's spirit enables them to make it in a pocket dimension... long story. The best part is when Kahlan comes back. I can only hope that this happens in the TV show, too... or some variation of it.
  Zedd: Kahlan! Bags, girl! Where have you been all night! it's just turning to dawn! You've been missing since dusk! We've been searching the town all night for you! Where did you go?
  Kahlan: I went to be with Richard...
  (Zedd can see her a little better now)
  Zedd: Wh... who the hell grew back your hair?
  Kahlan: Richard, he has the Gift, you know.
  Zedd: (After a bit of sputtering) You're all in a lather girl. Why are you sweating? And your hair is all tangled! What kind of wizard would grow hair back all tangled? That boy has a lot to learn. I'll have to show him how to do things right.
  Kahlan: (Distant look in her eyes) Oh no, he did it right believe me.
  Zedd: You've been gone the whole night. What have you two been doing?
  Kahlan: Oh, I don't know. What do you and Adie do when you're together alone all night?
  Zedd: Uh, well... well, we... we talk. That's what we do. We talk.
  Kahlan: That's what we did too. We talked. All night. My hair got tangled while we were talking. It was... quite hot in the other world.
- Annalina's description of Zedd's reaction to some of Nathan's antics:
  "Zedd has succumbed to a bout of loud cursing and arm flailing, he is swearing oaths about what he intends to do to Nathan, I am sure he will find most of his intentions physically impossible."
- The description of Ann and Zedd's antics in Temple of the Winds when they're trying to convince their captors that they're insane.
- Closely followed by Ann and Zedd's 'it's your fault' bickering/description of their utterly brilliant failure as useful slaves.
- Nicci, Death's Mistress, former lieutenant to the Keeper, wielder of the magic of the Underworld, who never wears any color other than black, falls unconscious . . . and when she wakes up, discovers that one of the Mord-Sith has dressed her in a satiny, pale pink nightdress. Nicci, undaunted, then proceeds to tell everyone about The End of the World as We Know It and then confronts and intimidates Shota, all the while still wearing the same nightdress. Nicci's Comically Serious attitude about the whole thing just makes it all the more hilarious.
  - And then, in the final book, Confessor, the same thing happens again, with Nicci ending up in the same pink nightdress. Her response is basically, "WTF? Again?" And then she uses magic to delete the dye from the nightdress. And afterward turns it pink again and gives it to one of the Mord-Sith.
Simultaneously a Moment of Awesome, when Han shuts down the arrogant Imperial commander early on in Destiny's Way. She brags about how The Empire would never have had the kind of problems with the Yuuzan Vong that the New Republic was having, as they would have swiftly and mercilessly crushed the opposition. Han fires back by pointing out that The Empire would have done nothing of the sort and instead would have wasted god knows how much on a massively impractical superweapon that would have either not worked or would have had some design flaw that an enemy ace could exploit and destroy.
Pretty much any part of A Confederacy of Dunces involving Ignatius. It's remarkable how accurately Toole nailed the sort of overblown, hyperbolic behaviour the internet brings out in people with Ignatius.
"I had a rather apocalyptic battle with a starving prostitute..."
The Saga of Darren Shan: Vampire Mountain
Crespley: WHAT IS THAT?! (Sees Gavner's pants, yellow pants with pink elephants motif)
Gavner: ...(Embarassed) It's a gift.
Crespley: From a human woman who had a relationship with you, I presume.
Gavner: She's indeed a beautiful woman.... It's just that her choice in underwear was rather poor...
Darren: Choice in boyfriend, also.
Crespley: (Bursts out laughing)
The Airborn series has one with the book Starclimber: A park attendant is asking the main characters if they have any "chits", otherwise tokens or tickets or so. The attendant refuses to let them sit at the park benches unless they all have "chits". This becomes a whole sequence of Does This Remind You of Anything?, leading up to this great bit:
Kate de Vries: Well... I poo-poo the chit.
Park Attendant: No! You cannot poo-poo the chit!
Kate: I do. I do poo-poo.
'Matt Cruse': ...We'll walk.
- And afterwards, after an old woman and her dog are electrocuted and nearly killed, the park attendant walks up to the woman.
  Park Attendant: Excuse me, ma'am, but may I see your dog's chit?
- From the first Airborn book came this little gem, when Matt and Baz and Bruce are out trying to find a river, and Kate has already located one:
  Matt: Miss de Vries, please don't tell the captain what useless clods we are, or we'll all be out of work.
  Kate: Your secret's safe with me.
  Baz: We'd better go take a look at this stream and report back to the captain. Everyone's agreed that I found it, right, and I had to fight a crocodile and piranhas on the way? Good. Thank you very much, Miss de Vries. You're a font of wisdom.
The Princess 99 series is hilarious because it pokes fun at the many conventions of the Wizarding School genre, as well as the character, mainly the quotes - especially when Prof. Wilde tries to tell her students to not ride brooms. Possibly the funniest scene involves the main characters all hatching a scheme...to get Prof. Marius a girlfriend.
Jacq: It's obvious she (Prof. Colette) likes him. Professeur Marius seems to notice but doesn't do anything about it.
Skye: Professeur Marius is a miserable, grumpy, slightly wrinkled, old guy with a giant scar on his face! Who is attracted to that?!
Axel: Maybe we can do something to help them? Listen: if Professeur Marius is lonely, then maybe Professeur Colette can do something about it. And if he's less lonely, he won't be such a miserable person.
Jacq: So, we get the Professeur a girlfriend and we get him off our backs? Attagirl! That's the best idea I've heard all day!
The Culture novel The Player of Games has a pretty funny one with the character Yay. She's a landscape designer but often has trouble getting commissions. The reason for this, is that she isn't a landscaper or designing gardens, she actually designs the ecosystem of planets. Yay doesn't understand why so many people are concerned with liveable areas and don't like her doing things like creating floating volcanos everywhere. Basically, Yay's hobby is playing SimCity with actual locations.
- The Culture novels have Minds, godlike intelligences that exist in hyperspace and control spaceships, orbitals, and most other large machines. They run quite efficiently a civilisation with trillions of inhabitants. In Excession , some of the minds working for the elite secret service Special Circumstances are communicating across the galaxy about the fate of the Culture, when another Mind, not involved with this, comes on and starts to TROLL them.
Practicaly every other word that comes out of Petyr Baelish's mouth from A Song of Ice and Fire. Even as he's committing unforgivable atrocities.
- It takes about three books to set up, but 'Lord Tywin Lannister did not, in the end, shit gold.' is a brilliant joke.
- Tyrion Lannister introduces his new savage allies to his father:
  Tyrion: They followed me home. Can I keep them?
- Jon Snow, when he first starts training in the first book, acts like a bit of a rich kid at Castle Black in between brood sessions — before he quickly gets taken down a peg or two. When one of the other recruits who stands a head taller than Jon complains, "You broke my wrist, bastard boy," Jon replies, "I'll break the other one for you if you ask nicely."
The Gentle Earth has plenty of these, mostly revolving around the invader's issues with accepting certain facets of the Earth's environment. They also have trouble separating myths from facts:
Bade: How many of these 'myths' have we come across?
Runckel: Cyclone, winter, spring, summer, hurricane, Easter bunny, autumn, blizzard, cold wave, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, lightning, Santa Claus, typhoon, mental telepathy, earthquake, levitation, volcano [...]Hallowe'en, icebergs, typhoons—this planet must be a mass of mythology from one end to the other!
The Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series has elements of this peppered within each book (you know, before it Jumped the Shark) but the one that stands out most is in Blue Moon where Niley, the mustache-twirling bad guy, is trying to convince Anita and her werewolf ex-boyfriend Richard to leave town. Niley promises not to harm the local wildlife and this little exchange happens:
Richard: * leans over to whisper in Anita's ear* Are you running your foot up and down my leg?
Anita: No.
Richard: (scoots his chair away from Niley)
Niley: Aw, such a shame. I thought after that little tete-a-tete in the men's bathroom we were friends.
Richard: * turns purple from blushing*
If you think The Bible can't be funny, you're reading the wrong parts!
- Elijah's brutal, brutal mocking of the Baal worshipers in the "My God is Bigger Than Your God" showdown.
- But not as funny as Moses trying to talk his way out becoming God's Prophet to His People.
Almost the entirety of Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, but any scene involving the President stands out. Especially when he's explaining his design for a fly trap.
The Seventh Tower has quite a few, and most of them involve Ebbitt and the wacky things he's always saying. However, this conversation between Crow and Milla is priceless:
Crow: I tried to kill your friend, Tal.
Milla: (shrugs) I've tried to kill him myself, but he survived.
Crow: I'm serious! [...] I hit him on the head and then I threw my knife at him.
Milla: Did you hit him?
Crow: No, I only got his coat.
Milla: Then you should practice harder.
The Pilo Family Circus likes to mix horror with humour. For instance, Jamie, driven half insane by stress, tries to audition for a role in the Circus Clown Division... by first setting off a lot of fireworks in Queen Street Mall, then running down the street completely naked with a pillowcase over his head, a swastika painted on his chest and a smiley face on his back, all the while screaming "THERE'S A BOMB!!!"
- Mugabo the Magician's dreaded bunny trick, which is dedicated to "that fuckpig of a clown", and involves the controlled detonation of a fluffy white rabbit all over the audience.
- Goshy the Clown's marriage to a potted plant and the aftermath, in which JJ punishes Jamie for wasting half his pay by leaving his body in the newlywed's wardrobe. Long story short, Jamie awakes to find himself subjected to the sights and sounds of Goshy having sex with a fern.
- Gonko's rant beginning with "IF I EVER FIND THE MOTHERFUCKER WHO TOOK MY PANTS..."
- Gonko's full of these moments when he isn't being terrifying. "STOP BUMPING THE FUCKING TABLE!" Which is uttered right after said person under the table JUST got his hand smashed in by a hatchet, by none other than... Gonko.
Simple but hilarious, the Sesame Street Little Golden Book The Monster at the End of This Book, where Loveable furry old Grover resorts to desperate measures to keep you from turning the page, and fails every time.
- "Did you know that you are very strong?"
  - And you were so scared! I told you and told you there was nothing to be afraid of.
    Oh, I'm so embarrassed...
- The fun escalates in the sequel book, featuring Grover and Elmo; Grover is desperate to keep the end of the book hidden from the reader, for fear of letting the monster loose. Elmo, however, is having none of that.
The Evil Genius Trilogy has several hilarious moments; in the first book of the series, for example, Phineas Darkkon is in jail, and communicates with Thaddeus and Cadel via a transmitter concealed in his arthritis bangle. However, the prison guards realise that Phineas doesn't need the bangle and confiscate it, so Phineas tries again with a pair of glasses with transmitters concealed in the lenses. Eventually, the guards get suspicious and confiscate those too, so Phineas resorts to speaking to Cadel through a transmitter concealed in his toilet. This works well, though he does have to feign illness a lot.
- In chapter 19, Cadel is settling into the Axis Institute's coursework, and has by now gotten used to the occasional explosions, the muffled screams, the invasions of classrooms by sniffer dogs, the holes punched in the wall, and so on.
  Then Clive Slaughter combusted- and Cadel began to experience a faint sense of unease.
- Close to the end of the second book in the series, Cadel and Sonja have just been rescued from Prosper English, and are being driven home by Saul. However, Sonja appears to be frightened of something, but without her Dynavox, she can't communicate what the problem is. Eventually, she tries communicating using the age-old "one blink for no and twice for yes" system; normally, this would be a very serious moment, but the unexpected punchline makes it absolutely hilarious.
  Saul: Did you see Prosper English?
  (Sonja blinks twice.)
  Saul: Where, in the hangar?
  (One blink.)
  Cadel: Did you see him running from the police?
  (One blink.)
  Cadel: Did you see him hiding?
  (Two blinks)
  Cadel: Where? Not in the other plane?
  (One blink.)
  Cadel: Was he near the office?
  (One blink.)
  Cadel: Was he in the bush?
  (One blink.)
  Cadel: What about the second hangar?
  Prosper English: Oh, for heaven's sake, I'm in this car, you fools.
  - Prosper English has a knack for these. In the final book, Cadel and the police are thinking of random facts about Prosper in an effort to find where he is, what kind of food he likes, what aftershave does he use, etc. About a chapter later, when Cadel is once again been kidnapped by Prosper, he remarks:
    Prosper: Speaking of which, I should tell you that I would ''never'' use Old Spice, no matter ''how'' desperate I was-
Craptastic romance/women-in-misery paperback The Raging Hearts is very unintentionally funny. But the best part? When Kitty says her husband's "swollen member" is staring at her. This brings up some very interesting mental images...
I would always laugh when Fizban shows up in the Dragonlance book, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, particularly the line, "Did you see that? That tree tried to trip me!"
"Guards! Arrest those trees! The charge is obstructing sunlight!"
- His apparent death and the events leading up to it near the end of the first book was a combination of this and a Tear Jerker. He and Tas are on a balcony in an immensely tall room listening in on Verminaard and The Dragon (yes, a literal one this time), when Fizban drops his hat (which has been a Running Gag since the beginning of the book), it floats gently down and lands on Verminaard's desk. After a brief pause, Verminaard sends his dragon to eat the spies, who run away back into a room with a mechanism involving gears and a very, very long chain; Fizban and Tas are holding on to the chain on the other side of the last gear, the dragon melts the chain through and they start to fall. Fizban starts casting feather fall to slow their descent, gets as far as "feather..." before going splat, and Tas lands in the middle of a gigantic pile of chicken feathers that breaks his fall.
The "Asylum" battle in Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17. The pirate commander Tarik has an ... interesting sense of humor:
"Inmates gather to face Caesar. Psychotics ready at the K-ward gate. Neurotics gather before R-ward gate. Criminally insane prepare for discharge at the T-ward gate. All right, drop your straitjackets." "Neurotics advance. Maintain contact to avoid separation anxiety." "Let the criminally-insane schiz-out." "Neurotics proceed with delusions of grandeur. Napoleon Bonaparte take the lead. Jesus Christ bring up the rear." "Stimulate severe depression, noncommunicative, with repressed hostility." "Commence the first psychotic episode." "The life goal has become dispersed. Do not become despondent." "All right. Administer medication!" "Administer active therapy to the right. Be as directive as you can. Let the center enjoy the pleasure principle. And the left go hang." "Advance for group therapy!"
- Keep in mind, all these euphemisms are describing a pitched space battle.
Redwall: The Duel of Insults in Marlfox.
John C. Wright's Chronicles of Chaos has its fair share.
- In the first book, "Headmaster Boggin" begins to start an As You Know speech—and is instantly headed off by his audience.
- Quentin's reaction to the "school patron's" identities:
  "We're in a school run by Greek gods. Now keep quiet. We don't want to get turned into trees."
- In the second book, Amelia and Vanity must perform an emergency strip-tease to restore a transformed comrade back to his natural form. Vanity is perfectly comfortable, but Amelia isn't giving it her all...
  Vanity: Tell him you want him to rip all your clothes off!
  Amelia: Colin, could you transform back and rip all my clothes off, please...
  Vanity: No! Tell him with your eyes!
  Amelia: You want me to blink in Morse Code?
The end of the epic poem Orlando Innamorato, in which the author abruptly stops the writing and apologises to the reader, saying he can't write any more because the French have invaded.
The plot summary of the Jacobean revenge tragedy in The Crying of Lot 49.
In case you thought Voltaire was taking the plot a bit seriously:
Candide: You live? I find you here again in Portugal? Then have you not been raped? Then they did not rip open your belly as Doctor Pangloss informed me?
Cunegonde: Yes they did, but those two accidents are not always mortal.
In Deadhouse Gates, book two of Malazan Book of the Fallen:
Mappo: Where is the library?
Iskaral Pust: Turn right, proceed thirty-four paces, turn right again, twelve paces, then through door on the right, thirty-five paces, through archway on right another eleven paces, turn right one last time, fifteen paces, enter the door on the right.
Mappo: ...
Iskaral Pust: ...
Mappo: Or, turn left, nineteen paces.
Iskaral Pust: Aye.
Mappo: I shall take the short route then.
Iskaral Pust: If you must.
Would you believe The Grapes of Wrath? Despite being an otherwise unhappy story, you have to crack up at Tom's account of Ma attacking a peddler with a live chicken she was about to slaughter because she forgot which hand she had the axe in. It's even an in-universe example, since Grampa is mentioned to have thrown out his hip laughing at it.
From American Gods, when Shadow is with a talking raven:
Shadow: Hey, Huginn or Munin, or whoever you are. Say 'nevermore'.
Raven: Fuck you.
In Stranger in a Strange Land, Jubal Hershaw throws a rather unorthodox press conference with the Man from Mars at his estate. The narration notes that they're all chummy and getting drunk, but the reporters are all instructed not to badger the Man from Mars with questions. The next line notes that any dissenters are unceremoniously thrown into the pool.
Not sure if I can include this, but in his book The Writer's Tale, Russell T Davies tells of how he wishes Steven Moffat would write a script for "The Doctor's Son"... and provides a cartoon about it.
Doctrine of Labyrinths:
"When it comes to peeling potatoes, I don't fuck around."
This paragraph in Daisy Miller, shortly after Winterbourne meets Daisy's little brother Randolph:
'My father's name is Ezra B. Miller,' Randolph announced. 'My father ain't in Europe; my father's in a better place than Europe.' Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which the child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Miller had been removed to the sphere of celestial reward. But Randolph immediately added, 'My father's in Schenectady. He's got a big business.'
- And when Winterbourne finds out that Daisy is "surrounded by half a dozen wonderful mustaches".
In Chuck Klosterman's essay compilation Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs, he delineates how the Celtics vs. Lakers rivalry explains every decision you will ever make, and then follows that up with a list of ten examples: "who should I marry", "what drugs should I take", etc. This is number 9:
"Is Adam Sandler funny?"
No.
In the book The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, from the file "Origami Yoda and the Unsatisfactory Answers":
Tommy: Origami Yoda, my hair always gets messy even if I comb it in the morning. People make fun of me and my mom rags on me about it. What should I do?
Yoda: Hairdo like Yoda you must have.
Tommy: You mean bald?
Yoda: Yes.

Person: Have you seen that hilarious YouTube video where Chewbacca dances with a Jawa?
Yoda: What a Jawa is?
Person: You know, one of those little guys from the first movie.
Yoda: What this movie is?
Person: Star Wars!
Yoda: What?
Person: Episode Four! A New Hope! Star Wars, dude!
Yoda: In that movie I was not.

Person: Why does Dwight pick his nose so much?
Yoda: Picks it he never does.
Person: Ha! That's a lie.
Yoda: At least he eats it not, like you do.
- In the first book, Kellen gets water on his tan pants, making it look like he peed, and he asks Dwight if he has any ideas. He says he's getting the idea that Kellen peed in his pants.
Michael Parenti in his nonfiction book The Assassination of Julius Caesar can be pretty hilarious at times. For instance, when he discusses the story that Caesar's wife, Calpurnia, dreamed of his assassination the night before, he notes that her warning "gave [Caesar] pause since she ordinarily was a composed and levelheaded individual, not given to 'womanish superstitions,' as Plutarch puts it." In the next line, Parenti observes: "Plutarch himself was richly freighted with superstitions, presumably male gendered."
- Like many of Caesar's followers, the legionaries guarding his body after it was removed to the forum did not take his assassination well:
  Some of these veteran warriors doubtless were ready to march up to the Senate House and lay waste to every toga in sight.
The end of Ben Elton's Dead Famous, when embittered anarchist Woggle blows up the expy of the Big Brother house in revenge for the producer leaking his earlier misdeeds to the police...but since he forgot to correct for daylight savings time while he was digging a tunnel under it, when he blasts the house into pieces, there's nobody inside. Made better by the inspector who has been the viewpoint character for about half the book judging it a good effort even as he arrests Woggle.
In Robert A. Heinlein's The Star Beast, when the Under Secretary Mr. Kiku — who had faced threats of the annihilation of the entire Earth with equanimity — finds himself needing to explain to seventeen-year-old Betty Sorensen that the Lummox has taken up as a hobby breeding John Thomas Stuarts, and, well ...
Kiku: Um. Pardon me if I was unduly personal. You see, there are requirements in any endeavor and Lummox, it appears, is aware of one of the requirements ... uh, let me put it this way. If we have here a rabbit ... or a cat...
Betty: Mr. Kiku, are you trying to say that it takes two rabbits to have more rabbits?
In Half Magic by Edward Eager, Martha, the youngest of four siblings, accidentally bewitches the family cat, Carrie, making her able to talk...partially.
Miss Bick (the housekeeper): Where are you taking that cat?
Carrie: Idjwit! Foo! Fitzouta thewayfitz!
In Patricia C. Wrede's The Seven Towers, after the sword-games, when Eltiron tries to compliment Crystalorn after noticing how well her hairstyle complements her face.
Eltiron: You look very nice.
Crystalorn: Oh, do you really like my dress? I wasn't sure it was quite right.
Eltiron: What dress?
In both the book and The Film of the Book, when Winston and Julia are captured in Nineteen Eighty-Four, suddenly, Big Brother decides to taunt them by revealing in a foreboding yet seemingly random manner (It Makes Sense in Context) the last lines of the poem that Julia was curious about.
Big Brother: While we're on the subject: "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!"
A Bad Day for Voodoo has Kelley calling Adam out for searching for Tyler's toenails in the garbage so he could give the doll-maker Tyler's essence to make a Tyler voodoo doll.
Kelley: You are vile.
Adam: What is this? "Pick on Adam" Day?
Kelley: Yes. That's a great idea. Let's make a week out of it. You suck, Adam.
Adam: Okay.
Kelley: You get negative points in every possible category of human existence.
Adam: I'm not sure what that means, but okay.
Kelley: If you were lying in the desert miles from civilization and I had a bottle of water, I would— (gets interrupted by Tyler)
The very title of Go the Fuck to Sleep. The book itself, a parody of children's bedtime storybooks (and obviously not suitable for children), is about a parent trying their damndest to just get their child to, well, "go the fuck to sleep." Just when they think they've succeeded, a microwave beep undoes their efforts.
Andy Duncan's Beluthahatchie is a short story about a black musician who goes to Hell and encounters The Devil, who is portrayed as a racist hick who makes the protagonist follow him on foot behind his "auto-MO-bile" as he gives him a tour of the place. However, the Devil turns out to not be that bright - he makes the mistake of leaving the car running while he goes to steal some fish. The protagonist naturally drives off with the car, leaving the Devil ranting impotently behind him.
The Devil: "John! Get your handkerchief-headed, free-school Negro ass back here with my auto-MO-bile! Johhhhnnn!"
Tales of the Bounty Hunters: Dengar has a ritual where he tries to imagine his target as Han Solo (his nemesis) to work himself up into killing them. He attempts it once with Jabba, but by no stretch can it work. Finally he decides in frustration he'll simply have to kill him anyway. Admittedly, more Black Comedy.
The children's book Who Wet My Pants? by Bob Shea, in which a bear named Ruben wets his pants without even noticing and accuses one of his friends of doing it. Highlights include:
- Bigfoot thinking it's "weird" when doughnuts touch, and thus wanting his in a separate box.
- When the tortoise tries telling Ruben that Tim the lion didn't wet Ruben's pants, Ruben grows suspicious and says:
  Ruben: "You seem to know an awful lot about who-wet-what-when vis-a-vis my pants! Well, Mr. All-the-Answers, here's one simple question... did you wet my pants?!"
- Ruben saying, "I'm not even sure I believe in you!" to Bigfoot.
- This line from Ruben:
  Ruben: "All I want is JUSTICE! Justice and dry pants."
- At the end, Ruben blames his "leaky, broken pants".

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