This book about wit and its uses is inspiring. I don't know of any other resource where one teaches this skill of wit. Some say that wit comes naturally, and while they are right, any skill can be practiced to perfection, even wit, if you practice smart and hard. This book can enable you to do that.

It begins by laying out why being witty is important in social interactions, your career, and pretty much anywhere where relationships are important.

The imaginative "twister" technique it teaches will be useful for some. Being the intuitive person that I am, the technique was not as important to me to generate witty remarks and comebacks, but the appending material when and where to use wit was more beneficial to me, personally. However, if you are not an intuitive person, the technique will greatly help you become witty yourself.

The book offers some common scenarios for practice your wittiness. It gives out some warnings, such as not to escalate a situation using wittiness, but to temper it to an ideal state.

The length of the book leaves a bit to be desired, but it is meant to be a quick how-to guide. It is worth its price and would be needed to be reread more than once to achieve the full effect.

I've read multiple books from the INSTANT series and they usually tend to leave me satisfied and informed; "Instant Wit" is no exception. First of all, the book is concise and to-the-point; I spent around 15-20 minutes reading the book and that's really all it takes to learn from these things. They're really great in that regard.

This book is particularly useful because a quick wit is something a lot of people wish they had, and it follows a format that's easy to understand. The flow from subject to subject is nice and is logical, which is important in instructional books. When I finished the book, I was really just feeling good about it; there were no frustrating or confusing points and that made the information easy to absorb.

The author also includes examples and exercises for the reader to consider. I personally think this is an excellent idea, considering how imagining yourself in a situation and practicing can be one of the best ways to adopt a skill. The actual content of these examples can sometimes feel a bit awkward or goofy, admittedly, but I don’t see this as a problem. The idea for the examples is to help the reader imagine a situation in which he or she would use the skills being taught, and they do a good job of this.

Overall, I'd say the book is definitely worth the read. It barely takes any time to learn from it, and it addresses such a relatable problem. The structure and flow is good, the teaching methods are good, and it's concise; it does what it does very nicely. Nicely done.

I've read a few of the "Instant" books so far, and once again I'm not disappointed. I appreciate how the author takes the time to let the reader know that it's okay, and that we all go through situations that are uncomfortable or degrading.

Not everyone has a naturally witty repertoire and can spout out the right words at exactly the right time. The reason your favorite television show character does this so easily is because the entire scene is scripted perfectly, practiced repeatedly, and filmed multiple times to get just the right expression and tone. Life looks so easy for our favorite fictional characters because that's how it's supposed to look - it's far from reality.

The author of Instant Wit addresses several real life situations. This isn't a book that teaches you precisely what to say at any given moment. No one can do that, otherwise you have no personality. The entire purpose of this book is to teach us how to communicate more effectively in uncomfortable situations and I believe it does that.

Make sure to participate in the exercises. You may feel that it's useless, because you're not going to be graded on it. Don't look at it as a test; look at it as a way to practice and get to know yourself better. You will become a pro at witty conversation with enough practice and self-education.

Another book from the instant series that I felt was a very light hearted and informative listen. I for one am not an individual who can come up with the perfect words in most situations and am kind of an introvert in most respects, so being able to learn ways to stay sharp and think of the right words in the right situation quickly is something that gravitated me towards the book.

The book has very simple and straight to the point format as well as flowing through each of the subjects in a progressive manner; something that I found enjoyable and made the material easier to absorb.

Instant wit also contains fun exercises and plenty of examples throughout the book which makes the book an even greater tool for learning to growth. Add that in with the techniques the author shares such as the “Twister” technique and you have a quick book that gives you a ton of info on how to think up things in pretty much any situation with ease. I’ve been practicing some of the techniques myself these last couple of days while on campus and I have to say so far I think I’m progressing quite nicely. You’re not going to be a pro from reading everything on your first run through but with a little time, re-reading and practice I can almost bet that you’ll see some results.

We would all love to be witty. If we had the chance, we would all want to be that cool and popular kid back from school, but not everybody can be, so this "Instant Wit" naturally caught me attention.

My initial expectation of this book was that going in and coming out, I would be a
witty force to be reckon with, but of course, that may have been too far-fetched from reality. Not to say this book didn't help, it was just different from my unrealistic expectation. I think most of us, expect there will be no work involved to improving our wit, and I believe those folks who may not like the book, expected a magic potion to engulf to be magically witty just like that of a SNAP! That is most certainly not the case here. There will be work!

This isn't a book on "improvisation," but about "wit," yet these two worlds do synonymously cross, and I think there are some blur lines that need to be differentiated between those two for people to realize. If this book was called "Instant Improvisation," yes, I would be more upset, but it's called "Instant Wit," so I give it so fair points.

One thing great thing I can takeaway from this book that has helped me that is being witty is about dropping your guard and saying whatever's on your mind, silencing that inner critic to let out whatever you have to say. That's the reason most people aren't witty with their own self-critic,

"Instant Wit" does do a fairly serviceable job on covering how to be witty, but it does it in a different way focusing not so much on the lines or what you should say themselves, but rather it tries to advocate formulas and structures examples to follow as a way of thinking to use your own creativity to generate your own lines.

If you want lines, go memorize them from any online site submitted by users because for this book puts less emphasis on memorizing what you should say but giving you tools to come up with your own lines.

There is giving you the fish, or teaching you how to fish. This book a teaching you the "how to fish approach." I know this may disappoint some wanting all the lines and magic pill, but it's a start to being witty.

This book is very informative, a guy could really learn a lot from it. From this book, I put into practice what I learned; I took a song we were listening to and changed the words. Everyone laughed, a couple of friends said that was pretty good. It was very fun to be witty and the center of attention.

"There is no doubt being witty is beneficial."

"Instant Wit" was a very quick and easy read. I picked up the book this morning and read it in about 20 minutes. As an improv comic, I'm always looking for new material and new techniques on how to perceive and interact in different situations. Instant Wit had some great exercises to practice being witty and confident. It helped me visualize situations that bother me or catch me off guard, and then gave me feedback and advice on how to adapt my behavior in those situations. One thing I found most helpful was the advice to name your emotions. In a stressful situation, naming what you are feeling can help ease the situation and allow you to react in a witty way, so I found this helpful.

The take away here was less about being that popular witty person, but more about your reactions to a situation, be confident, be observant, be unexpected and random, and then you will be witty. It was a quick and fun read.

This book was a little disappointing. I read through it and was left underwhelmed. The book doesn’t really give a definition for wit. Instead, it makes it seem like sarcasm is wit. It doesn’t really explain how you should stand up to bullies. More, just responding in a sarcastic way that I feel would only cause more conflict. The definition of wit is having mental sharpness and inventiveness – a keen intelligence. That is not at all what I feel this book talks about. There are a couple useful tools in it, but it doesn’t stress at all the tonality necessary to pull of sarcastic “wit”. Nor does it mention how important word choice and structure is.

I had high hopes for this book, so the letdown was kind of depressing. The more I read, the more confused I became. This book doesn’t feel like it’s going to help anyone, it’s going to turn people into bullies who use words to cause conflict. Part of the message throughout the book is that having wit will make you funnier, more sociable, and more popular. That is not what I feel that this does at all. It will make everyone around you believe you are confrontational. Being sarcastic isn’t always funny, or a good trait to have when dealing with uncomfortable situations. It can be very negative if used the wrong way.

I didn’t like this book. However, I still give it a 3 out of 5. Although, I feel that it gives the completely wrong message, it did have a few good suggestions. There were SEVERAL grammatical errors that should have been fixed (since the copy I read being the second edition), but it had ideas like using improvisation (joining an improv group) that actually made sense in helping one become wittier. Maybe the book doesn’t deserve the rating – maybe it should be worse – but based on its potential to be good and help others (if re-written a bit and edited a lot more), I’m sticking with my review. I just hope the author takes my words into consideration and fixes it.

Being quick to wit is not something I was born with, so when I saw this book I was like, ok so now I can up my game. I find that sometimes I am at a loss for words when it comes to the "word game". It has been a downfall of mine for many, many years now. I know I definitely need to step up my know-how in the wit department, and with this book, I am learning to do just that.

For some people, wit comes naturally, and they are quick to throw witty sayings right off the cuff. For people like me, that struggle with our witty repertoire it is not always easy and we are left often at "a loss for words". This can be embarrassing, and even sometimes humiliating depending on the situation.

I usually say I don't like confrontation, but after reading this book I may be able to deal with confrontation or "verbal abusers" better. Bullying and quick wit go hand in hand and to help deal with a bully a quick wit would really have helped me when i was in school. Now I still get bullied by all kinds of people and have by clients before. It's just easier to handle a client through e-mail than it is face to face. Using the techniques in this book I will be able to remove my stressful situations thus lowering my rate of having stress-related seizures. (Did I mention I was epileptic?) When my stress rate gets too high, I will have mini-seizures which has often been the butt of jokes as well.

I look forward to putting these techniques in place the next time i am in a need to have wit situation. Will also be suggesting this book to others I know that will need it.

I was never able to quickly think up some witty sentences right on the spot, but would think of witty sentences after the fact. I have always wanted to be quick when it comes to being witty and this audio tape as exceeded my expectations. When it comes to being witty, it doesn’t mean only being funny. It’s about on how to start interesting conversations to say on the spot, instantly, and not 15 minutes later when the moment has passed. Being witty, people would be able to listen to you more, allowing you to break the ice in conversations and people love being around fun and witty individuals. People who are witty easily get their message across even though others may not agree with them. In some instances, a witty person might be able to change their mind so this is beneficial to politicians and great leaders. This audio tape is one of the few that I have found to fully covers this in a detailed manner. I was able to pick up a lot of helpful tips for becoming more interesting, which the presenter stresses how much it is important to be interesting then being able to make ironic and quick biting remarks.

Most of the audiotape contains exercises and examples, making it a useful tool for easy learning of the fundamentals of how to be witty in your conversations. Topics include why certain people are identified as witty, what being witty means, and how to incorporate wit into your daily life in order to take your relationships and conversations to a whole new level. This auto tape was easy to follow and I recommend it for people wanting to improve their witty skills.

I am a great fan of the one-liners – the sarcastic whips in response to any criticism laid against someone. My hero is Groucho Marx and that is who I thought about the entire time I was reading Instant Wit. Now don’t’ get me wrong – your wit will not be increased simply by reading techniques. As the book points out it can’t hand you a sense of humor and tell you what to say. You must practice what works best for you. This book simply helps you hone your skills.

The best part for me was chapter 4 because it was the first glimpse into the mind of a comedian. It presents a formula: WHAT-IF which means if I were to do/say this then this/that would happen. It made me think about actually thinking of scenarios that I can use lines A, B, C, etc. I could always be prepared with what to say and it would be much more creative than, “your momma,” or, “that’s what she said” nonsense. Comedy and wit are developed over time and if you have the tools that are presented in this book it makes it so much easier to put it together and present it for the enjoyment of others.

Great, thanks