48 Funny Quotes About Men That Hit Too Close to Home

Men are fascinating, maddening, and endlessly quotable.

Over centuries, writers, comedians, and sharp-witted women have put words to the experiences so many of us share. Some of these quotes make you laugh out loud. Others make you sigh, nod slowly, and text your best friend immediately. All of them capture something true about the men in our lives, from their stubbornness about asking for directions to their mysterious relationship with common sense.

The right funny quote about men does more than make you laugh. It makes you feel seen. It turns private frustrations into shared jokes, and shared jokes into connection. Have you ever read a quote and thought, "Did they write this about someone I know personally?" That is the magic these writers and thinkers captured. Here are 48 funny quotes about men that do exactly that.

1. "What would men be without women? Scarce, sir...mighty scarce." — Mark Twain

Twain sums up the situation in eight unforgettable words.

2. "I like men who have a future and women who have a past." — Oscar Wilde

Wilde flips the script with his signature wit.

3. "No matter what dimension you're in, there's a big-headed male trying to take over the world." — Eoin Colfer

Some patterns apparently hold true across time and space.

4. "All the problem of women, starts with men. All the problem of men, ends with women." — Santosh Kalwar

A circular truth that somehow makes perfect sense.

5. "If a man doesn't know how to dance he doesn't know how to make love, there I said it!" — Craig Ferguson

Rhythm matters in more ways than one, apparently.

6. "I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating." — Neil Gaiman

A fantasy writer who clearly paid close attention to real life. Men get a lot of attention in the quote world, but women have delivered some of the sharpest lines in history. Read our collection of funny quotes about women and see how the other side tells it. 

7. "Basically, all women are nurturers and healers, and all men are mental patients to varying degrees." — Nelson DeMille

A generalization, yes, but one that lands with surprising accuracy.

8. "It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world." — Ian Fleming

A bold claim, but history does provide some supporting evidence.

9. "Men! Dead or alive, they could be exactly the same." — Charlaine Harris

Sometimes the silence is indistinguishable from the other kind of silence.

10. A man will spend three hours fixing something that would have taken five minutes to ask directions for.

Pride and stubbornness make a surprisingly expensive combination.

11. "Old men are dangerous: it doesn't matter to them what is going to happen to the world." — George Bernard Shaw

Freedom from consequences gives old men a particular kind of recklessness.

12. "Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples." — François de La Rochefoucauld

A polite way of saying they have regrets they now project onto others. If your boyfriend just inspired a few eye-rolls while reading this, he deserves a little appreciation too. Find the perfect way to celebrate him in our National Boyfriend Day Quotes. 

1. "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." — Irina Dunn

A classic line that still stops people mid-sentence decades later.

2. "Why does a woman work ten years to change a man, then complain he's not the man she married?" — Barbra Streisand

The contradiction lives rent-free in too many relationships.

3. "I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid." — Dorothy Parker

Parker sets the bar low on purpose, and the joke lands perfectly.

4. "Sometimes a woman needs a man for company, no matter how useless he is." — Lisa Kleypas

Companionship has a surprisingly low minimum standard sometimes.

5. "Some people are boys longer than others." — Patricia Briggs

A gentle way of saying what many women have thought for years.

6. "Show me a woman who doesn't feel guilty and I'll show you a man." — Erica Jong

The guilt gap between the sexes captured in one devastating line. Laughing at these quotes is one thing, but real conversation goes deeper. Check out our list of questions to ask your boyfriend and start one tonight.

7. "I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back." — Zsa Zsa Gabor

Grievances have a price, and Gabor knew exactly what hers was worth.

8. "I never understood how men could remember all those details about sports but, yet, were incapable of remembering where they set their car keys or wallet." — Tina Reber

Selective memory is a genuine mystery with a very specific pattern.

9. "Forget men, I want to marry my MacBook. It's dependable, reliable and you can even go shopping with it." — Alexandra Potter

Technology cleared a bar that many men could not.

10. "If he's getting married, he's no longer interesting." — Colette

Availability, it turns out, kills a certain kind of appeal instantly.

11. "Men are always ready to respect anything that bores them." — Marilyn Monroe

Monroe cuts right through the performance of male admiration.

12. "Yes, he is a man, so genetically he's engineered to be dense about many things, but he's not stupid." — Katie MacAlister

A careful distinction that most women have had to make at some point. If the man in your life is turning 30, a funny quote is the perfect weapon. Browse our funny 30th birthday messages and find one that hits exactly right.

13. "Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry." — Gloria Steinem

One of the most quietly powerful statements in modern feminist writing.

14. "Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story." — Jane Austen

Austen wrote this centuries ago, and the point has not expired.

15. "You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy." — Erica Jong

A pattern that almost anyone can verify with a quick look around.

16. "When men are oppressed, it's a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it's tradition." — Letty Cottin Pogrebin

A single sentence that reframes centuries of accepted behavior.

17. "The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he is a baby." — Natalie Wood

After a certain age, the project becomes significantly less promising.

18. "In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance, he laid the blame on woman..." — Nancy Astor

Some habits started in the very beginning, apparently. Men are endlessly quotable all year, but the holidays bring out a special kind of material. Head over to our funny Christmas wishes for seasonal humor worth sharing.

1. "Don't leave a piece of jewelry at his house so you can go back and get it later; he may be with his real girlfriend." — Amy Sedaris

Practical advice delivered with the most casual devastation possible.

2. "When you look for a man, what you want to look for is a man with the heart of a poor boy and the mind of a conqueror." — C. JoyBell C.

Ambition with humility is apparently the winning combination.

3. "Don't let two men fall in love with you, girls. It's not the sort of thing that ends well." — Ally Carter

A warning that sounds like a headline and reads like experience.

4. "A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he's finished." — Zsa Zsa Gabor

Gabor delivers another perfect line on the subject of men and matrimony.

5. "Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed." — Oscar Wilde

Wilde finds the one outcome both parties share and calls it out immediately.

6. "I have always been convinced that if a woman once made up her mind to marry a man nothing but instant flight could save him." — W. Somerset Maugham

Once a woman decides, the man's options narrow considerably. After reading what the world's wittiest minds think about men in love, anniversary season hits differently. Find something to say about it in our funny anniversary quotes for couples.

7. "Behind every successful man, there stands a surprised woman." — Maryon Pearson

Surprise is apparently a recurring feature of watching a man succeed.

8. "It takes one woman twenty years to make a man of her son, and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him." — Helen Rowland

The math here is brutal, but it checks out.

9. "Before marriage, a man declares that he would lay down his life to serve you; after marriage, he won't even lay down his newspaper to talk to you." — Helen Rowland

Rowland documents the exact moment when romantic declarations meet daily life.

10. "Don't keep a man guessing too long, he's sure to find the answer somewhere else." — Mae West

West offers advice that is equal parts funny and genuinely useful.

11. "When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife." — Prince Philip

Chivalry, it turns out, has a very specific trigger.

12. "Give a man a free hand and he'll run it all over you." — Mae West

West gets the final word on generosity and its unintended consequences.

13. "I know what men want. Men want to be really, really close to someone who will leave them alone." — Elayne Boosler

The contradiction at the center of male intimacy, stated plainly and perfectly.

14. Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves. — Albert Einstein

Even Einstein had opinions on where a man's focus should be.