Polari - British Gay Slang - A introduction to Polari, the archaic British gay slang, with a wordlist, related links and a bibliography.
"I think all great innovations are built on rejections." (Louis-Ferdinand Céline) It's not the men in my life that count, it's the life in my men.
-- Mae West Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing
matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner.
-- Amy Bloom Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head.
-- Carol Burnett The absolute yearning of one human body for another particular body and its indifference to
substitutes is one of life's major mysteries.
-- Iris Murdoch Polari Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of
the other person.
-- Mark Twain "Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is k The love we give away is the only love we keep.
-- Elbert Hubbard Polari
You have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth
without producing it.
-- George Bernard Shaw "If I work toward an end, meantime I am confined to a process. The rainbow is more beautiful than the pot at the end of it, because the rainbow is now. And the pot never turns out to be quite what I e "Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it." (John Quincy Adams) There is no sincerer love than the love of food.
-- George Bernard Shaw Women: If they're not turning down your proposals for marriage, they're accusing you of
suspicious behavior in the women's lingerie changing room.
-- Cliff Clavin, character on "Cheers", U.S. Televi Polari America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to
degeneration without the usual intervention of civilization.
-- George Clemenceau I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
-- William Butler Yeats, from "He wishes for the cloths of heaven" If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure?
-- Harry Shearer Polari
"Commit yourself to quality from day one ... it's better to do nothing at all than to do something badly." (Mark McCormack) "There is nothing more fearful than ignorance in action." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832, Criticisms, Reflections and Maxims) Love is friendship set on fire.
- Jeremy Taylor UGLINESS, n. A gift of the gods to certain women, entailing virtue without humility.
-- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911 I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than
knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
-- Albert Einstein Polari "I met someone on the street who said wasn't it great that we're going to have a movie star for president, that it was so Pop, and (laughs) when you think about it like that, it is great, it's so Amer First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
- Mahatma Gandhi Church is only society on earth that exists for the benefit of non-members.
-- William Temple Polari
To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it;
whenever you're right, shut up.
-- Ogden Nash To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
-- Francis Crawford "Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (George Orwell) When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe "The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense." (Gilbert Keith Chesterton) Polari The open-minded see the truth in different things: the narrow-minded see only the differences.
-- Author Unknown I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body.
-- Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward "Every now and then say, 'What the fu(c)k.' 'What the fu(c)k' gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future." (Curtis Armstrong, Risky Business, 1983) Polari
Love is an attempt to change a piece of the dream-world into reality.
-- Theodor Reik LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the
influences under which he incurred the disorder... It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the
physician If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.
-- Scott Adams Not everything that can be counted counts; and not everything that counts can be counted.
-- Albert Einstein Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labour in
freedom.
-- Albert Einstein Polari Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you
underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
-- Matt Groening, Love is Hell In a novel, the hero can lay ten girls and marry a virgin for the finish. In a movie, that is not
allowed. The villain can lay anybody he wants, have as much fun and as he wants cheating,
stealing, I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it
does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it
ha Polari
Marriage is a three ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring, and suffering.
-- Anonymous Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.
-- G. K. Chesterton Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.
-- Albert Einstein Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier. --H.L. Mencken "In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes." (Andy Warhol) Polari Work is the curse of the drinking class.
-- Oscar Wilde "Everywhere one seeks to produce meaning, to make the world signify, to render it visible. We are not, however, in danger of lacking meaning; quite the contrary, we are gorged with meaning and it is k Trouble is a part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person that loves you
enough chance to love you enough.
-- Dinah Shore Polari
I want to die in my sleep like my friend.... Not screaming and yelling like the passengers in his
car.
-- Seen on a bumper sticker Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.
-- Anonymous And now, in keeping with Channel 40's policy of always bringing you the latest in blood and guts,
in living color, you're about to see another first -- an attempted suicide.
-- Chris Hubbock, who sh Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
-- Aldous Huxley "Being born is like being kidnapped. And then sold into slavery." (Andy Warhol) Polari "Teacher played hooky. Sent message: 'Receiving instruction. Enjoying myself thoroughly. See you next week.'" (John Cage, M, Writings 1967 - 1972) We have children because we want immortality and this is the most reliable way of getting it.
-- Woodrow Wyatt Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology.
-- John Tudor Polari
Nothing says lovin' like marrying your cousin!
-- Al Bundy, character on "Married with Children," U.S. television show Give her two red roses, each with a note. The first note says "For the woman I love" and the
second, "For my best friend."
-- Anonymous He who dies a thousand deaths meets the final hour with the calmness of one who approaches a
well remembered door.
-- Heywood Brown Nothing can so alienate a voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.
-- Mark B. Cohen May your wife be a witch who takes after her mother, and may you all live together in a one-room house. Polari Coffee is a beverage that puts one to sleep when not drank.
-- Alphonse Allais "To introduce something altogether new would mean to begin all over, to become ignorant again, and to run the old, old risk of failing to learn." (Isaac Asimov) It's not as great a day for the bride as she thinks. She's not marrying the best man.
-- Anonymous Polari
"Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it." (Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 1872-1970) Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
- Jean-Paul Sartre If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the
faculty of laughter.
-- Joseph Addison If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get
married.
-- Katharine Hepburn A hippo does not have a sting in its tail, but a wise man would still rather be sat on by a bee.
-- Polish proverb Polari If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the
bureaucracy won't.
-- Hyman Rickover Is it better for a woman to marry a man who loves her than a man she loves.
-- Anonymous Always behave like a duck--keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil
underneath.
-- Jacob Braude Polari
Epperson's law:
When a man says it's a silly, childish game, it's probably something his wife can beat him at. "By seeing the seed of failure in every success, we remain humble. By seeing the seed of success in every failure we remain hopeful." (Mel Ziegler, founder of Banana Republic) We must believe in free will, we have no choice.
-- Isaac B. Singer A man must marry only a very pretty woman in case he should ever want some other man to take her off his hands. -- Guitry We never reflect how pleasant it is to ask for nothing.
-- Seneca Polari For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
-- John Greenleaf Whittier "A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized." (Fred Allen) The more I know about people, the better I like my dog.
-- Mark Twain Polari
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." (George Orwell) Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the
unpalatable.
-- John Kenneth Galbraith "I like boring things." (Andy Warhol, Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up) We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.
-- Agnes Repplier We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.
-- Agnes Repplier Polari "The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves." (William Hazlitt) You can observe a lot by watching.
-- Yogi Berra Statistics have shown that mortality increases perceptibly in the military during wartime.
-- Alphonse Allais Polari
