8 Funny Family Quotes From Wilde, Chesterton and Austen, With Sources
Words My Family Quotes Editors
In Robert Frost's 1914 poem The Death of the Hired Man, Mary tells her husband Warren that "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in." Warren answers that he would call it "something you somehow haven't to deserve." Family is the one group you cannot resign from, and writers have found that funnier than almost any other subject. This page collects eight funny family quotes from plays, essays and novels. Each one was checked against the text, and under each you will find who says it and in what scene or chapter, which is often where the joke gets its edge.
Relatives as an Ambush: Chesterton on Being Born
G. K. Chesterton wrote the most cheerful defence of awkward families ever printed. It sits in the chapter "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family" in Heretics (1905). He was answering modern writers who kept pointing out that a family is not always congenial.
"Of course the family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. It is wholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and varieties." — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905
His point is that a household is the only place most of us meet people we did not choose. That is what makes it a school for patience. The sentence works well as a toast to a mixed table of relatives, because it flatters nobody and praises everybody.
"Our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap out on us, like brigands from a bush. Our uncle is a surprise. Our aunt is, in the beautiful common expression, a bolt from the blue." — G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905
Here Chesterton is describing the moment of birth, which he calls "the supreme adventure": we step into a world we did not make, with its own strange laws. Read it aloud at a reunion and every uncle in the room will recognise himself.
Wilde's Drawing-Room Verdicts on Kin
Oscar Wilde's comedies are full of relatives who say the unsayable with perfect manners. Two of the best lines come from older women of the upper class, and the third from a young man dodging his responsibilities.
"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness." — Lady Bracknell, in Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I, 1895
Lady Bracknell is interviewing Jack Worthing as a possible husband for her daughter, and he has just admitted he cannot name his parents. The joke lands because she treats grief as a clerical failing. It is a handy line when someone has lost their keys, their phone and their sense of direction on the same trip.
"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his." — Algernon, in Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I, 1895
Algernon says this to Jack about Lady Bracknell's daughter Gwendolen. It is a character's quip, not Wilde's considered view, so treat it as banter. It works best between a mother and daughter who already tease each other about their shared habits.
"After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations." — Lady Caroline Pontefract, in Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance, Act II, 1893
Lady Caroline is discussing her brother Henry, whom she calls "infamous," then admits that he keeps one of the best cooks in London. Wilde gives the line to a woman rationalising her own hospitality. It is the right line to print on a holiday menu.
Austen's Households: Quiet Cruelty, Perfect Timing
Jane Austen's funniest relatives are fathers and mothers who have stopped pretending. Mr. Bennet's replies to his wife in Pride and Prejudice (1813) are a lesson in how to tease someone you have lived with for twenty years.
"I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least." — Mr. Bennet, in Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 2, 1813
Mrs. Bennet has accused him of having "no compassion on my poor nerves." Austen shows a marriage in which affection and exasperation are tangled together, and the joke only works because both are real.
"That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit." — Mr. Bennet, in Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 18, 1813
At a ball, Mary Bennet has just sung a second song to a room that wanted her to stop after the first. Her father's interruption is public, funny and not kind, which is why Elizabeth is mortified. It is also a reminder that a family joke can cost the person who is its target.
Insanity, Gallop Included: Kesselring's Stage Family
"Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops." — Mortimer Brewster, in Joseph Kesselring, Arsenic and Old Lace, 1941
Mortimer says this about the Brewster household in Kesselring's comedy, which opened on Broadway in 1941 and became a 1944 film with Cary Grant. It is one of the most repeated family jokes in English, in part because the family on stage is as strange as he claims. Use it for families that are loving, loud and slightly alarming.
How to Use a Funny Family Quote Without Starting a Fight
Humor about family lands well when the target is the shared situation, not one person. A few working rules:
- Aim at the group. Chesterton's brigands and Wilde's dinner line tease everyone at the table equally. Mr. Bennet's line to Mary does not, and Austen wants you to wince.
- Match the room. A toast at a wedding or reunion can take Chesterton. A funeral or a hospital waiting room cannot take Lady Bracknell.
- Name the source. A line from Earnest or Heretics reads as wit, while an unsourced line reads as a meme. For lines that circulate without a source, see our guide to misattributed family quotes.
- Keep it short for cards. The Bracknell line and the Austen "old friends" line fit a card or caption without cutting.
If the humor you want is sharper, with relatives who really are difficult, our funny toxic family quotes go further, and the funny grandparent quotes cover the gentler side.
Questions Readers Ask
Why do writers use humor to discuss difficult family dynamics?
Comedy gives a safe distance from the pain. Wilde and Austen let their characters say things about relatives that would sound harsh as a plain complaint, and the audience laughs because it recognises the feeling.
Are humorous quotes appropriate for serious family events?
It depends on the room. A wry line about relatives suits a reunion, holiday table or toast. Eulogies and formal tributes usually call for a more measured tone.
How do I know if a famous family quote is real?
Look for a book, play or speech, plus an act, chapter or year, and check it in a full text. Every line on this page was matched against its original text, such as the Project Gutenberg editions of Heretics, Pride and Prejudice and Wilde's plays. Lines that circulate with only an author's name, such as the widely shared "my father was so ignorant at fourteen" line credited to Mark Twain, were left out because no primary source could be found.