A pun is not bound by the laws which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear; not a feather to tickle the intellect. – Charles Lamb, "Popular Fallacies: That the Worst Puns are the Best," Las

A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894), The Autocrat of the Breakfast-tabl

The goodness of the true pun is in the direct ratio of its intolerability. – Edgar Allan Poe, Marginalia, 1849