5 Funny Family Memories Quotes From Dickens, Jerome and Austen, With Sources
Words My Family Quotes Editors
Nobody frames the photo of the perfect Sunday walk. The stories a family retells for decades are the burnt pudding, the picture hung crooked and the dinner that went wrong. Novelists noticed this long ago, and some of their household disasters are still the funniest family memories in print. This page gathers five of them, each checked against the full text on Project Gutenberg. Under each one you will find the book, the scene and a note on when the line works as a caption, a toast or a group-chat reply.
The Household Project That Takes Over the House
In Three Men in a Boat (1889), Jerome K. Jerome stops the story to describe his Uncle Podger, a man who cannot do a small job without recruiting everyone in reach. The passage is about hanging one picture, and it is still the most accurate description of a family DIY afternoon.
"You never saw such a commotion up and down a house, in all your life, as when my Uncle Podger undertook to do a job." — Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat, 1889, chapter 3
The joke is the scale: one nail, and the whole household, including the girl sent for sixpennyworth of nails and the boy sent after her to say what size. Use the line under any photo of a relative holding a ladder, a paint roller or an instruction leaflet.
"Oh! you women, you make such a fuss over everything." — Uncle Podger, in Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat, 1889
He says it after dropping the hammer on somebody's toes. The line is spoken by a character in the book, not by the author, so credit it to Uncle Podger if you quote it. It is the perfect reply to a relative who is entirely responsible for the chaos and has not noticed.
A Holiday Dinner That Everyone Agrees Was a Triumph
Charles Dickens gave the Cratchit family very little money and a very small pudding, and then wrote the scene in which nobody admits it. It is in Stave Three of A Christmas Carol (1843).
"Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing." — Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843, Stave Three
Before this, Mrs. Cratchit has carried in the pudding "like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm," and confessed she had her doubts about the flour. The humour is in a family politely agreeing to a shared fiction, which is what most holiday tables do about at least one dish. Read it at the table before the overcooked turkey is served and the room will laugh with relief.
The Relative Who Enjoys the Gossip
Not every funny family character is a nuisance. In Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mr. Bennet hears a rumour that could embarrass his daughter and responds with delight rather than alarm. The scene is in chapter 57.
"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813, chapter 57
Elizabeth answers that she is "exceedingly diverted" but that it is all very strange, and he replies that this is exactly what makes it amusing. The line suits the relative who treats family scandal as entertainment, and it is a kinder way to say "let's not take this too seriously" at a reunion than most modern memes.
A Whole House in Confusion
Tolstoy's opening to Anna Karenina (1877) is usually quoted for its first sentence, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The second sentence is the one with the chaos in it, and in the Constance Garnett translation it reads:
"Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house." — Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina, 1877, part 1, chapter 1 (Constance Garnett translation)
The book is no comedy. The confusion in this house comes from a serious betrayal. Even so, the plain sentence has become shorthand for a morning when nothing in the house works, and it is useful for exactly that: a caption for a photo of mismatched shoes by the door, or a message to the family group chat on the day everyone is leaving at once.
A Famous Joke That Mark Twain Did Not Write
Most online lists of funny family memories quotes include the line that begins "When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around," and credit it to Mark Twain. Quote Investigator traced it and found that Twain's father died when Twain was eleven, so the story cannot be his own. Quote Investigator found the attribution to Twain in a periodical as early as December 1915, and reference works such as The Yale Book of Quotations reject it. We left it out of the quote list for that reason. If you want it for a card, write "attributed to Mark Twain (no primary source)" or use it with no name at all. Our page on misattributed family quotes covers more cases like this.
How to Turn a Family Memory Into a Caption
- Pick the one detail. The pudding, the hammer, the mismatched shoes. A caption works when it names a single thing everyone in the family will recognise.
- Quote only the part that fits. Jerome's first sentence about Uncle Podger works alone. You do not need the whole page.
- Credit the right voice. If a character says it, name the character and the book, as with Uncle Podger.
- Tag the person last. Funny family lines land better when the subject is in on the joke.
- Keep it kind. The Cratchits and the Bennets are funny because we are laughing with a family that is held together by love. For quotes with a sharper edge, see our funny family quotes from Wilde and Chesterton.
If your own family memories are more complicated than funny, you may be looking for quotes about family that is not always blood, or for lines to answer difficult relatives, such as sarcastic quotes about bad family relatives.