"One pretty good definition of college is that it's a place where people are made to read difficult books." (Jonathan Franzen) Losing a wife can be hard. In my case, it was almost impossible. One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if
possible, speak a few reasonable words.
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call the time Eternity." (Jerzy Kosinski, Polish novelist, from his suicide note) In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that
no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.
-- Paul Dirac J "If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance for you t My opinions are my wife's, and she says I'm lucky to have them. "To err is human; to forgive, divine." (Alexander Pope) J
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of
bread.
- Mahatma Gandhi I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
-- Ogden Nash, Song of the Open Road, 1945 Never look at the trombones. You'll only encourage them.
-- Richard Strauss, on conducting Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration.
-- Thomas Edison The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and
remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't
work and the J >From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some
day I intend reading it.
-- Groucho Marx We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry.
-- John Webster "Good taste is the first refuge of the non-creative. It is the last-ditch stand of the artist." (Marshall McLuhan) J
I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to
me is something else; hard work and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.
-- Lucille Ball Choose a wife by your ear than your eye.
-- Thomas Fuller, 1732 Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I've never tried.
-- Mae West I worship the quicksand he walks in.
- Art Buchwald Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from
history.
-- George Bernard Shaw J Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and
begin slitting throats.
- Henry Louis Mencken There is no course of life so weak and sottish as that which is managed by order, method, and
discipline.
-- Michel de Montaigne I never hated a man enough to give him his diamonds back.
-- Zsa Zsa Gabor J
It was a day like this Marco Polo left for China. What are your plans for today?
--Loesje If I were a girl, I'd despair. The supply of good women far exceeds that of the men who deserve
them.
-- Robert Graves The great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one
is.
-- Arnold Bennett "From the start, marriage was instituted for contemptible, practical reasons--an idea of men." (Catherine Deneuve) "Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock 'n roll." (Shigeru Miyamoto, game designer for Nintendo) J "I expect nothing. I fear no one. I am free." (Nikos Kazantzakis) The more we do, the more we can do; the more busy we are the more leisure we have.
-- William Hazlitt Long engagements give people the opportunity of finding out each other's character before
marriage, which is never advisable.
-- Oscar Wilde J
If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth To love another person is to see the face of God.
-- Lyric from Les Miserables "Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself--and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine wit Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
-- George Bernard Shaw Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking about their feelings is the same as
saying that women talk about their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball.
-- Deborah Tan J "And on the seventh day, God stepped back and said 'There is my creation, perfect in every way ... oh, damn it, I left pot all over the place. Now they'll think I want them to smoke it. Now I have to Statistics have shown that mortality increases perceptibly in the military during wartime.
-- Alphonse Allais The advice your son rejected is now being given by him to your grandson. J
I have an existential map; it has 'you are here' written all over it.
- Steven Wright A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their
graves obscure men whom timidity prevented from making a first effort.
-- Sydney Smith A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.
-- James Lowell Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant
day into your answers.
-- Rainer Maria Rilke Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.
-- Buddha J In a great romance, each person plays a part the other really likes.
-- Elizabeth Ashley He who laughs last is generally the last to get the joke.
-- Terry Cohen "If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." (Anatole France) J
A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.
-- Arthur Schoperhauer "The White Rabbit put on his spectacles. 'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked. 'Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'" (Lewi "I consider it the highest compliment when my employees go out and start their own companies in competition with me. I always send them a plant to wish them well. Of course, it's a cactus." (Norman B He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.
- H. H. Munro (Saki) "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." (Nelson Mandela, A Long Walk to Freedom) J I base my fashion sense on what doesn't itch.
-- Gilda Radner Not to anticipate is already to moan.
-- Leonardo da Vinci Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is
not a conservative, has no brains.
-- Winston Churchill J
"I put on an act sometimes, and people think I'm insensitive. Really, it's like a kind of armor because I'm too sensitive. If there are two hundred people in a room and one of them doesn't like me, I' All you need is love.
-- The Beatles, song title Marriage is not a word. It is a sentence--a life sentence. Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows, marriage does.
-- Groucho Marx He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
-- John Stuart Mill J I think of my wife and I think of Lot, and I think of the lucky break he got. 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 Adolescence is a period of rapid changes. Between the ages of 12 and 17, for example, a parent
ages as much as 20 years.
-- Anonymous J
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." (Albert Einstein) "Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time." (E. B. White) What a difference there is between what we say and what we think.
-- Racine I still live.
-- Daniel Webster, dying words Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half shut afterwards.
-- Benjamin Franklin J You can pay attention to the fact, in which case you'll probably become a mathematician, or you
can ignore it, in which case you'll probably become a physicist.
-- Len Evans, professor, Northwestern Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of
opportunity.
-- George Bernard Shaw We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
-- Aristotle J
The man with the best job in the country is the Vice President. All he has to do is get up every
morning and say, "How's the President?"
-- Will Rogers I hate it in friends when they come too late to help.
-- Euripides I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell this to my children they just about throw up.
-- Barbara Bush, first lady, 1989 Happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make them come true.
-- Anon. Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
-- Mark Twain J The better part of one's life consists of his friendships.
-- Abraham Lincoln "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 Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that
cannot be taken from you.
-- Oscar Wilde J
Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?
- H. M. Warner, founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927 No woman marries for money; they are all clever enough, before marrying a millionaire, to fall in
love with him first.
-- Cesare Pavese "In married life three is company and two is none." (Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest) My wife has a split personality, and I hate both of them. "No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, g J To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.
Andre Gide After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.
-- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare Silence is argument carried out by other means.
-- Ernesto "Che" Guevara J
