Winning with One-Liners: 3,400 Hilarious Laugh Lines to Tickle Your Funny Bone and Spice Up Your Speeches [Paperback]

Pat Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2002

Laughter is power.

Nothing livens up a presentation like well-placed jokes, which can take an audience from bored disinterest to rapt attention in seconds.

In this ultimate collection of one-liners, author Pat Williams, one of the country's top motivational and inspirational speakers and senior vice president of the Orlando Magic, shares the jokes he has been using to win over audiences for over forty years. Arranged into more than 200 categories—from airlines and politics to world conditions and zoos—these 3,400 battle-tested funnies, delivered before a rich variety of audiences, will keep readers roaring.

While many other joke books offer material that is either not very funny or off-color, Winning with One-Liners provides clean, wholesome entertainment for all audiences. Sometimes we all need a good laugh, and Pat Williams shows how to do it right in this indispensable book for all speakers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Pat Williams, one of the country's top motivational and inspirational speakers, is Senior Vice President of the Orlando Magic and has more than 40 years of professional sports experience. Before joining the central Florida pro basketball effort in 1986, Williams spent 12 seasons as General Manager of the Philadelphia 76ers, taking them from a 34-48 record in 1974-75 to the NBA title in 1983. Pat has written 24 books, including How to Be Like Mike, Making Magic, Ahead of the Game and A Lifetime of Success.

Product Details

• Paperback: 544 pages
• Publisher: HCI (August 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 075730057X
• ISBN-13: 978-0757300578
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #311,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pat Williams is the senior vice president of the NBA's Orlando Magic. As one of America's top motivational, inspirational, and humorous speakers, he has addressed thousands of executives in organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies and national associations to universities and nonprofits. Clients include AllState, American Express, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Disney, Honeywell, IBM, ING, Lockheed Martin, Nike, PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Tyson Foods to name a few. Pat is also the author of over 55 books, his most recent title being "Bear Bryant on Leadership."

Pat served for seven years in the United States Army, spent seven years in the Philadelphia Phillies organization--two as a minor league catcher and five in the front office--and has also spent three years in the Minnesota Twins organization. Since 1968, he has been in the NBA as general manager for teams in Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia--including the 1983 World Champion 76ers--and now the Orlando Magic, which he co-founded in 1987 and helped lead to the NBA finals in 1995. Twenty-three of his teams have gone to the NBA playoffs and five have made the NBA finals. In 1996, Pat was named as one of the 50 most influential people in NBA history by a national publication.

Pat has been an integral part of NBA history, including bringing the NBA to Orlando. He has traded Pete Maravich as well as traded for Julius Erving, Moses Malone, and Penny Hardaway, and he has won four NBA draft lotteries, including back-to-back winners in 1992 and 1993. He also drafted Charles Barkley, Shaquille O'Neal, Maurice Cheeks, Andrew Toney and Darryl Dawkins. He signed Billy Cunningham, Chuck Daly, and Matt Guokas to their first professional coaching contracts. Nineteen of his former players have become NBA head coaches, nine have become college head coaches while seven have become assistant NBA coaches.

Pat and his wife, Ruth, are the parents of 19 children, including 14 adopted from four nations, ranging in age from 23 to 36. For one year, 16 of his children were all teenagers at the same time. Pat and his family have been featured in Sports Illustrated, Readers Digest, Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, The Wall Street Journal, Focus on the Family, New Man Magazine, plus all of the major television networks, The Maury Povich Show and Dr. Robert Schuller's Hour of Power.

Pat teaches an adult Sunday school class at First Baptist Church of Orlando and hosts three weekly radio shows. In the last 13 years, he has completed 53 marathons--including the Boston Marathon 12 times--and also climbed Mt. Rainier. He is a weightlifter, Civil War buff and serious baseball fan. Every winter he plays in Major League Fantasy Camps and has caught Hall of Famers Bob Feller, Bob Gibson, Fergie Jenkins, Rollie Fingers, Gaylord Perry, Phil Niekro, Tom Seaver and Goose Gossage.

Pat was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, earned his bachelors degree at Wake Forest University, and his master's degree at Indiana University. He is a member of the Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame after catching for the Deacon baseball team, including the 1962 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship team. He is also a member of the Delaware Sports Hall of Fame.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Useful book that will put a smile on your face, March 15, 2003

By 

Blaine Greenfield "eclectic reader" (Belle Meade, NJ) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Winning with One-Liners: 3,400 Hilarious Laugh Lines to Tickle Your Funny Bone and Spice Up Your Speeches (Paperback)

Pat Williams, rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors(MARKETING YOUR DREAMS: BASEBALL AND LIFE LESSONS FROM BILL VEECK, HOW TO BE LIKE MIKE, etc.), scores again with WINNING WITH ONE-LINERS . . . this is a compilation of some 3,400 lines that will make you laugh, but that can also be used to spruce up virtually any speech.

I recognized many of my favorites--and many others that
can now be added to such a list . . . I also liked the fact that
Williams takes common situations, then provides you with
a response . . . for instance, when receiving an award, you can
say something to this effect: "I don't deserve this award. But
then again, I have arthritis, and I don't deserve that either."

This is one book that I'll keep around for my next speech,
toast and even eulogy . . . or maybe when I just want a quick
smile.

The only problem I have in commenting about it is that there
are so many funny lines that I'm finding it difficult to select
just a few to present here . . . yet a guy has to do what
a guy has to do, so here goes:

I just heard the saddest story. A doctor lost all his money on the horses. In an act of desperation, he tried to rob a bank. But nobody could read the holdup note.

On Valentine's Day I always try to do a little more for my wife-like holding the door open when she goes out on her paper route.

Our crack snow removal team has been removing snow around
the clock. And now that the area around the clock is clear, they
can start to work on the streets.

This is the time of year when people start going places where they can pay two hundred dollars a day to experience the same kind of heat they were complaining about in August.

They keep saying that women are smarter than men. But have
you ever seen a man's shirt that buttons down the back?

Dolphins are so smart that in only a few weeks of captivity, they can train people to stand at the edge of a pool and throw them fish.

I have a couch at work that I named Nautilus. That way I can honestly tell people that this afternoon I put in two hours on the Nautilus.

He was up until 4 a.m. with a great book. Once he starts coloring,he finds it hard to stop.

Life can be cruel. As a child, I didn't have enough money to go to a hair stylist. Now I have the money, and I don't have the hair!

He's so proud of his new truck. He didn't get the trendy kind--he bought a UPS truck. As he claims, "Laugh if you will, but I can now park anywhere I want!"

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Have a Giggle, November 5, 2004

By 

Laura De Giorgio "hypnotherapist" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Winning with One-Liners: 3,400 Hilarious Laugh Lines to Tickle Your Funny Bone and Spice Up Your Speeches (Paperback)

Whether you intend to give speeches or would just like to brighten your day, you'll enjoy this book.

I fondly remembered a remark made by famous hypnotist, Dr. Milton Erickson, that "within every fat person, there is a thin person waiting to be excavated", when I read the following one-liner:

"Inside of me there is a thin person trying to get out, but I can usually sedate him with five or six doughnuts."

Here are few more examples from this book:

"Always be on the lookout for new ideas. Why, the guy who invented the spray paint got the ideas when he sneezed while he was drinking the tomato juice."

* * *

Kid: "When I grow up, I want to be a philanthropist. They always seem to have lots of money."

* * *

Do you know what doctors write to pharmacists in Latin on those prescription pads? "I got mine, now you get yours."

* * *

"I always hold hands with my wife. If I let it go, she shops."

* * *

Teacher: "Who's happier: A man with five million dollars or a man with five children?"

Student: "The man with five million."

Teacher: "Why?"

Student: "Because the man with five million always wants more."

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Be prepared to laugh! This book is the best!, August 3, 2005

By 

Chris Sellick (South Australia,Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Winning with One-Liners: 3,400 Hilarious Laugh Lines to Tickle Your Funny Bone and Spice Up Your Speeches (Paperback)

No matter what the subject there's a one-liner for it and the best of them are in this book.Its a big book full of laughs.Ideal book for helping you brighten up any speech for any occasion.Grab a copy of this book for yourself and as a gift for others.This has to be the ultimate book on oneliners and not a rude joke in there.Enjoy!