Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It is one of the most discouraging experiences I have ever had, not forgetting the time when I winked at the Queen Mother in London once.
After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly difficult for his publishers to get out a new book by him each year.
After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly difficult for his publishers to get a new book out of him each year.
I don't know where we're going or how we'll get there, but when we get there we'll be there - and that's something, even if it's nothing.
Love at first sight is easy to understand; it's when two people have been looking at each other for a lifetime that it becomes a miracle.
Most people would have found it grotesque, but when you're in love nothing is so abstract or horrible that it can't be thought of as cute.
Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.
Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.
This is a test. It is only a test. Had it been an actual job, you would have received raises, promotions, and other signs of appreciation.
When I was a boy I used to do what my father wanted. Now I have to do what my boy wants. My problem is: When am I going to do what I want?
They were Jesuits," she told me. "That means they believe in God but not in terlet paper. You should have seen their underwear. Disgusting.
It is true that wealth won't make a man virtuous, but I notice there ain't anybody who wants to be poor just for the purpose of being good.
I have been told by hospital authorities that more copies of my works are left behind by departing patients than those of any other author.
Next to an old-fashioned church social, or possibly a monster bridge party, there is no buzz which can equal the sibilant buzz ofa matinée.
I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.
If I'm stuck, I get up from my chair and I wash windows. Or... clean the bathroom. Or vacuum the attic. There's always something to be done.
If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.
In how many lives does love really play a dominant part? The average taxpayer is no more capable of the grand passion than of a grand opera.
In how many lives does love really play a dominant part? The average taxpayer is no more capable of a 'grand passion' than of a grand opera.
If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her own nose all the time.
Men of genius are like eagles, they live on what they kill, while men of talents are like crows, they live on what has been killed for them.
I can't bring myself to say, 'Well, I guess I'll be toddling along.' It isn't that I can't toddle. It's just that I can't guess I'll toddle.
If you look at eggs, you will see that each one is almost round but not quite ... Nature's way of distinguishing eggs from large golf balls.
I never felt ostracized or made to feel strange by obsessing over 'The Onion' or 'Calvin and Hobbes.' That was considered completely normal.
War for most men is not fighting or marching in parades. It is sitting around somewhere wondering what the hell you are supposed to be doing.
O God... make me a child again, even before I die; give me back the simple faith, the clear vision of the child that holds its father's hand.
I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they'd never expect it.
I called my cat William because no shorter name fits the dignity of his character. Poor old man, he has fits now, so I call him Fitz-William.
When I came home and showed my mother my report card with a mark of 98 in arithmetic, she wanted to know who had gotten the other two points.
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
You know, when you need drugs and you don't have a lot of money, what you'll do is you'll hang out with people who will give you drugs. Right?
It hardly seemed fair, because, unlike a horse or a Seeing Eye dog, the whole glory of being a bird is that nobody would ever put you to work.
Any company executive who overcharges the government more than $5 million will be fined $50 or have to go to traffic school three nights a week
There was tremendous pressure to take dialysis, and there were lots of tears when I broke the news to the family that I was not going to do it.
I felt uncomfortable calling myself a writer until I started with 'The New Yorker,' and then I was like, 'Okay, now you can call yourself that.
Sometimes people say, do you want a drink? And I say, oh, I'd like to, but I'm a tragic alcoholic. I always say tragic. I'm a tragic alcoholic.
My only solution for the problem of habitual accidents is to stay in bed all day. Even then, there is always the chance that you will fall out.
A farm is an irregular patch of nettles bounded by short-term notes, containing a fool and his wife who didn't know enough to stay in the city.
I felt uncomfortable calling myself a writer until I started with 'The New Yorker,' and then I was like, 'Okay, now you can call yourself that.'
Sekts and creeds ov religion, are like pocket compesses, good enuff tu pinte out the direction, but the nearer the pole yu git thewuss tha wurk.
I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.
In my more pompous moments I like to think of myself as a writer rather than a humorist, but I suppose that's merely the vanity of advancing age.
There is no doubt that every healthy, normal boy...should own a dog at some time in his life, preferably between the ages of forty-five and fifty.
Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk.
English life, while very pleasant, is rather bland. I expected kindness and gentility and I found it, but there is such a thing as too much couth.
The American success formula is first to get a home of your own, then to get a car of your own so you don't have to stay in that home of your own.
Genuine laughing is the vent of the soul, the nostrils of the heart, and just as necessary for health and happiness as spring water is for a trout.
Anyone who tries to keep track of what is happening in China is going to end up by wearing all the skin of his left ear from twirling around on it.
No, the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell you - he will be the fusion of all races, perhaps the coming superman.
Santa Barbara people are conservative-not like in L.A., where everybody wears rhinestones on their glasses to show that they own an airplane factory.