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Phyllis Diller

  • If your house is really a mess and a stranger comes to the door, greet him with, 'Who could have done this? We have no enemies.'

  • We went all out with new things for our first child and the second one had nothing but hand-me-downs. The bronzed baby shoes almost killed him.

  • Cleaning your house / While your kids are still growing / Is like shoveling the walk / Before it stops snowing.

  • Fang, my husband, says the only thing domestic about me is that I was born in this country.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • When buying a new house ... Buy the house far enough away from school so your kids can't come home for lunch.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • To get a roaster clean, send something like baked apples in it to a neighbor. Neighbors always return pans spotless, and you won't have to use a blow torch on it like you usually do.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Our house has gone past the 'lived in' look. It has more a 'no survivors' look.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Never go to bed mad — stay up and fight.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • ... I don't like to drink in front of the kids, and when they're not around, who needs it?

    • Phyllis Diller
  • ... if I invested in a mouthwash stock, bad breath would suddenly become popular.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • One [expert] said, 'Always have a baby sitter who is acquainted with your children.' If they were acquainted with my children, they wouldn't sit!

    • Phyllis Diller
  • ... if they [your children] write their names in the dust on the furniture, don't let them put the year.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Choose a checked or striped wall paper. People will be halfway home before they are able to focus.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Let me tell you, a discussion that starts, 'I'll tell you something you do that irritates me, if you tell me something I do that bothers you,' never ends in a hug and a kiss.

  • When in a wedding line, don't say to the bride and groom, 'I just hope you'll be as happy as we thought we'd be.'

  • ... self-pity is better than none.

  • He says he never drinks alone, but considers the goldfish somebody.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Never refer to your wedding night as the original amateur hour.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • I always wondered how I could tell when the right one came along — but it was easy. He was the only one that came along.

  • Mothers-in-law do not make good house pets. Once I had the most wonderful dream — I dreamed that mothers-in-law cost money and I couldn't afford one.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • A friend of mine had her baby on the way to the hospital, and the comment of her mother-in-law was, 'Everything happens to George.'

    • Phyllis Diller
  • If he lies on the davenport all day, maybe it would help for you to think of him as less of a husband and more of an afghan.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • ... get married with the feeling it is going to last. Not like the bride I know who doubled the wedding cake recipe and froze one.

  • All I ever learned at my mother's knee was what a bony knee looked like.

  • Whatever you may look like, it's wise to marry a man your own age. As your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.

  • If your husband wants to lick the beaters on the mixer, shut them off before you give them to him.

  • ... Fang told me he was a self-made man. It wasn't until later that I discovered that he would have been wise to get some help.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Try to put your husband in the wrong no matter what the situation. For example: If he walks in when you're in the arms of another man, quickly say, 'That's right, always put me on the defensive.'

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Fang and I learned to fight about everything. We even had fights about which family to spend Christmas with. Neither of them wanted us

  • It might help you to be more satisfied with your mate if you remember that when you made the selection it was not multiple choice. I was sort of tricked into marrying. One night I was out with Fang and a girl said, 'You better hang onto him.' I thought I had a prize. I didn't know she meant that after one drink he falls down.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • I'm eighteen years behind on my ironing. There's no use doing it now, it doesn't fit anybody I know!

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Marjorie Holmes, Love and Laughter ()
  • My cooking is so bad my kids refer to breakfast as morning sickness. ... Fang came home loaded one night, went into the closet, and said, 'Third floor, please.' ... My sister-in-law is so skinny that she has a striped dress with only one stripe. ... Fang is so dumb. When he won his letter for high school, the coach had to read it to him.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Joey Adams, Speaker's Bible of Humor ()
  • You can say the nastiest things about yourself without offending anyone.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Barbara McDowell and Hana Umlauf, Woman's Almanac ()
  • I buried a lot of my ironing in the back yard.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Barbara McDowell and Hana Umlauf, Woman's Almanac ()
  • Becoming a comedienne was my way of adjusting to puberty.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Denise Collier and Kathleen Beckett, Spare Ribs: Women in the Humor Biz ()
  • Comedy is tragedy revisited or hostility. It is mock hostility, of course, or it would be ugly; we would have a war.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Denise Collier and Kathleen Beckett, Spare Ribs: Women in the Humor Biz ()
  • Next to gold and jewelry, health is the most important thing we have.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • ... I'm at an age when my back goes out more than I do.

  • Absolutely nothing was happening in my marriage. I nicknamed my waterbed, Lake Placid!

  • How do we keep our youth? (I have one friend, Lenore, who keeps him in the guest closet.)

  • Health — what my friends are always drinking to before they fall down.

  • I once went braless and wore a peek-a-boo blouse. It was embarrassing. First they'd peek ... then they'd boo!

  • ... scoring in tennis is like marrying for money ... love means nothing!

  • We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Bob Chieger, Was It Good for You, Too? ()
  • [Arnold Schwarzenegger] has so many muscles that he has to make an appointment to move his fingers.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Celebrity Research Group, The Bedside Book of Celebrity Gossip ()
  • On the way to the delivery room, I almost changed my mind about having a baby. I wouldn't have found it so hard to go ahead with it if I had realized that having a baby was the only way I could ever become a grandmother.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Mary McBride, Grandma Knows Best, But No One Ever Listens! ()
  • Too many comics today ramble. By the time they get to the punch line, the audience has either gone to sleep, gone to the bathroom or gone to bed.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Chicago Sun-Times ()
  • I was the world's ugliest baby. When I was born, the doctor slapped everybody.

  • I am descended from a very long line my mother once foolishly listened to.

  • Women want men, careers, money, children, friends, luxury, comfort, independence, freedom, respect, love, and a three-dollar pantyhose that won't run.

  • My photographs don't do me justice. They look just like me.

  • Most people get an appointment at a beauty parlor. I was committed. I spent seven hours there, and that was just for the estimate.

  • Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?

  • She's had so many face-lifts, there's nothing left in her shoes!

  • I love to go to the doctor. Where else would a man look at me and say, 'Take off your clothes'?

  • Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.

  • Fang, the idiot, was watching television one night and a guy was showing how to use a condom by putting on a sock. Now Fang is carrying a sock in his wallet.

  • Fang's idea of a seven-course dinner is a six-pack and a bologna sandwich. The last time I said 'Let's eat out,' we ate in the garage.

  • Isn't my fur stole pitiful? How unsuccessful can a girl look? People think I'm wearing anchovies. The worst of it is, I trapped these under my own sink.

  • Would you believe that I once entered a beauty contest? I must have been out of my mind. I not only came in last, I got 361 get-well cards.

  • When I go to bed at night, I've got so much grease on my body I wear snow chains to hold up my gown.

  • I honestly believe there is absolutely nothing wrong about going to bed with a good book ... or a friend who's read one.

  • My plastic surgeon ... said my face looked like a bouquet of elbows.

  • [On plastic surgery:] When I die, God won't know me. There are no two parts of my body the same age.

  • We Californians are constantly accused of not having seasons, but we do. We have fire, flood, mud, and drought.

  • ... I still take the pill. I don't want any more grandchildren.

  • Some bad things have been happening lately. A pervert called me. Five times. Collect. And that damn fool won't tell me where he lives.

  • I was so wrinkled I could screw my hats on.

  • I went into a clothes store one day and the lady said, 'Madam, you have got to try this dress on. It is so sexy, it will give you husband ideas.' I said, 'What, does a brain come with it?'

  • I like to serve chocolate cake, because it doesn't show the dirt.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Joan Rivers, "Remembering a Comedy Pioneer -- and Good Friend," Entertainment Weekly ()
  • Think of me as a sex symbol for the men who don't give a damn.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Marrying a husband you've divorced is like having your appendix put back in.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Doctors say it's okay to have sex after a heart attack, provided you close the ambulance door.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Once Fang took us out for doughnuts and coffee. The kids loved it — they'd never given blood before.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Some people might say, 'Who would want to be 90?' And I say, 'Anyone who is 89.'

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Once my husband said to me, 'I'm going to have some coffee. Do you want me to put some hot water on for you?' I thought that was the least he could do considering I was giving birth.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • By far the most common craving of pregnant women is not to be pregnant.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • My doctor is a family physician. He treats my family and I support his.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Living in Hollywood is like living in a lit cigar butt.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • I want my children to have all the things I could never afford. Then I want to move in with them.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • I went into a lingerie department one day and I said to the lady, 'I'd like to see something in a bra,' and she said, 'I bet you would!'

    • Phyllis Diller
  • A friend told me the longer you keep Romano cheese, the better it gets. So, I kept it three years. And this thing turned mean. Now and then I'd open the refrigerator door and throw it some food. I'd have to walk it now and then. And then it grew this one leg. And it's got this ugly fuzz all over it. And the dogs won't run with it.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • It is an ill wind that blows when you leave the hairdresser.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • I look just like the girl next door ... if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • When I go to the beauty parlour, I always use the emergency entrance. Sometimes I just go for an estimate.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • I don't like to cook. I can make a TV dinner taste like radio.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • What I don't like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty. But everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Sex is identical to comedy in that it involves timing.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder, and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • How do you know they're growing up? Well, the bite marks are higher.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Yael Kohen, We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy ()
  • I have a tremendous sex drive. My boyfriend lives 40 miles away.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Kathy Griffin, "Phyllis Diller," Entertainment Weekly ()
  • Tranquilizers work only if you follow the advice on the bottle: keep away from children.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • The reason the pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • A bachelor is a guy who never made the same mistake once.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • I asked the waiter, 'Is the milk fresh?' He said, 'Lady, three hours ago it was grass.'

    • Phyllis Diller
  • You know you're old when ... they've discontinued your blood type.

  • Christmas is a time when everybody wants his past forgotten and his present remembered.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • The reason women don't play football is because 11 of them would never wear the same outfit in public.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • I'm beginning to have morning sickness. I'm not having a baby. I'm just sick of morning.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Aim high, and you won't shoot your foot off.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Any time three New Yorkers get into a cab without an argument, a bank has just been robbed.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • My mother-in-law had a pain beneath her left breast. Turned out to be a trick knee.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • The reason the golf pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • [When to have a facelift:] If you're tripping over your neck.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Mary Unterbrink, Funny Women: American Comediennes, 1860-1985 ()
  • I'm looking for a perfume to overpower men — I'm sick of karate.

    • Phyllis Diller,
    • in Larry Wilde, The Great Comedians ()
  • My husband is so cheap. On Christmas Eve, he fires one shot and tells the kids Santa committed suicide.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Old age is when the liver spots show through your gloves.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • Best way to get rid of kitchen odors: Eat out.

    • Phyllis Diller
  • His finest hour lasted a minute and a half.

    • Phyllis Diller

Phyllis Diller, U.S. comedian

(1917 - 2012)

Full name: Phyllis Ada Driver Diller.