Don't shout for help at night. You might wake your neighbors.

We were young and our happiness dazzled us with its strength. But there was also a terrible betrayal that lay within me like a Merle Haggard song at a French restaurant. [...] I could not tell the girl about the woman of the tollway, of her milk w

Heaven and earth were created all together in the same instant, on October 23rd, 4004 B.C. at nine o'clock in the morning.

Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.

Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief.

Do not use that foreign word "ideals". We have that excellent native word "lies".

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

Absolutum obsoletum. (If it works, it's out of date.)

The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.

A woman takes off her claim to respect along with her garments.

The cart has no place where a fifth wheel could be used.

What one fool can do, another can.

Let me assure you that to us here at First National, you're not just a number. Youre two numbers, a dash, three more numbers, another dash and another number.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know.

I just got off the phone with Sonny Barger [President of the Hell's Angels]. He wants me to appear as a character witness for him at his murder trial and said he'd be glad to appear as a character witness on my behalf if I ever needed one. Needless

One man's brain plus one other will produce one half as many ideas as one man would have produced alone. These two plus two more will produce half again as many ideas. These four plus four more begin to represent a creative meeting, and the ratio c

In my end is my beginning.

When I hear a man applauded by the mob I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed is to live long enough.

I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.

Neckties strangle clear thinking.

Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around with royal-blue chickens.

Princeton's taste is sweet like a strawberry tart. Harvard's is a subtle taste, like whiskey, coffee, or tobacco. It may even be a bad habit, for all I know.

Many a man that can't direct you to a corner drugstore will get a respectful hearing when age has further impaired his mind.

Inglish Spocken Hier: some mangled translations Sign on a cabin door of a Soviet Black Sea cruise liner: Helpsavering apparata in emergings behold many whistles! Associate the stringing apparata about the bosums and meet behind, flee then t

Getting into trouble is easy.

"Rembrandt's first name was Beauregard, which is why he never used it."

I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.

Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore,

Being in the army is like being in the Boy Scouts, except that the Boy Scouts have adult supervision.

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.

My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's.

To be is to be related.

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work ... I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might

The distinction between Freedom and Liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have been unable to find a living specimen of either.

Would it help if I got out and pushed?

If people say that here and there someone has been taken away and maltreated, I can only reply: You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Like ya know? Rock 'N Roll is an esoteric language that unlocks the creativity chambers in people's brains, and like totally activates their essential hipness, which of course is like totally necessary for saving the earth, like because the first th

There are no manifestos like cannon and musketry.

He looked at me as if I were a side dish he hadn't ordered.

Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational.

He knows not how to know who knows not also how to unknow.

No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day.

I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.

My father, a good man, told me, "Never lose your ignorance; you cannot replace it."

I'm glad I was not born before tea.

Sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

Optimism is the content of small men in high places.

San Francisco isn't what it used to be, and it never was.

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.

I try to keep an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out.

When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.

Nobody knows what goes between his cold toes and his warm ears.

You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty.

Conscience doth make cowards of us all.

Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.

Mandrell: "You know what I think?" Doctor: "Ah, ah that's a catch question. With a brain your size you don't think, right?"

Justice is incidental to law and order.

"I may appear to be just sitting here like a bucket of tapioca, but don't let appearances fool you. I'm approaching old age ... at the speed of light."

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.

The greatest productive force is human selfishness.

Before he became a hermit, Zarathud was a young Priest, and took great delight in making fools of his opponents in front of his followers. One day Zarathud took his students to a pleasant pasture and there he confronted The Sacred Chao while She

HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill., motion that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate amendment making changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits. The Senate amendment was an amendment to the

Real wealth can only increase.

"I don't understand," said the scientist, "why you lemmings all rush down to the sea and drown yourselves." "How curious," said the lemming. "The one thing I don't understand is why you human beings don't."

The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath.

Freedom is nothing else but the chance to do better.

Friendships last when each friend thinks he has a slight superiority over the other.

Sho' they got to have it against the law. Shoot, ever'body git high, they wouldn't be nobody git up and feed the chickens. Hee-hee.

I: The best way to make a silk purse from a sow's ear is to begin with a silk sow. The same is true of money. II: If today were half as good as tomorrow is supposed to be, it would probably be twice as good as yesterday was. III: There are

Use an accordion. Go to jail.

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

We may not be able to persuade Hindus that Jesus and not Vishnu should govern their spiritual horizon, nor Moslems that Lord Buddha is at the center of their spiritual universe, nor Hebrews that Mohammed is a major prohpet, nor Christians that Shinto

The dirty work at political conventions is almost always done in the grim hours between midnight and dawn. Hangmen and politicians work best when the human spirit is at its lowest ebb.

Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.

The goys have proven the following theorem...

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

When you are at Rome live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere live as they live elsewhere.

He who has the courage to laugh is almost as much a master of the world as he who is ready to die.

An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways.

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.

The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its own capacity. ... Fuss, the god of the Southern Ocean, and Fret, the god of the Northern Ocean, h

Diplomacy is about surviving until the next century. Politics is about surviving until Friday afternoon.

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again.

I'm sorry I missed.

Do you mean that you not only want a wrong answer, but a certain wrong answer?

You'd better smile when they watch you, smile like you're in control.

I don't think they are going to give a shit about the Republican Committee trying to bug the Democratic Committee's headquarters.

Must I hold a candle to my shames?

With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law; and every time they make a law it's a joke.

XXVI: If a sufficient number of management layers are superimposed on each other, it can be assured that disaster is not left to chance. XXVII: Rank does not intimidate hardware. Neither does the lack of rank. XXVIII: It is better to be the r

When in doubt, use brute force.

Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.

It takes all kinds to fill the freeways.

For courage mounteth with occasion.

God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through.

Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth.

A new taste had been acquired and a new appetite began to grow. The time had long since arrived to crush the technical intelligentsia, which had come to regard itself as too irreplaceable and had not gotten used to catching instructions on the wing.

"The jig's up, Elman." "Which jig?"

"You would do well not to imagine profundity," he said. "Anything that seems of momentous occasion should be dwelt upon as though it were of slight note. Conversely, trivialities must be attended to with the greatest of care. Because death is moment

The seven deadly sins ... Food, clothing, firing, rent, taxes, respectability and children. Nothing can lift those seven milestones from man's neck but money; and the spirit cannot soar until the milestones are lifted.

Satire is tragedy plus time.

My mind can never know my body, although it has become quite friendly with my legs.

A definition of teaching: casting fake pearls before real swine.

Termiter's argument that God is His own grandmother generated a surprising amount of controversy among Church leaders, who on the one hand considered the argument unsupported by scripture but on the other hand were unwilling to risk offending God's g

America ... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesman with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it.

If a thing's worth having, it's worth cheating for.

Why attack God? He may be as miserable as we are.

Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked.

"That boy's about as sharp as a pound of wet liver"

Someday, Weederman, we'll look back on all this and laugh... It will probably be one of those deep, eerie ones that slowly builds to a blood-curdling maniacal scream... but still it will be a laugh.

The only thing that stops God from sending a second Flood is that the first one was useless.

France is a country where the money falls apart and you can't tear the toilet paper.

The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey.

Never laugh at live dragons.

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

The road to ruin is always in good repair, and the travellers pay the expense of it.

"Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school.

You can't depend on the man who made the mess to clean it up.

You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.

Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing - and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.

I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better take one along that worked.

Who can take the demands of the SDS seriously?

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

What we see depends on mainly what we look for.

You can always pick up your needle and move to another groove.

A little bit of rape is good for a man's soul.

Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as Mental Anguish. You would sue: * The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions

The great merit of society is to make one appreciate solitude.

I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Congs.

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.

The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a lunatic asylum.

... so long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrranize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sl

In the highest society, as well as in the lowest, woman is merely an instrument of pleasure.

The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity. To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task.

A woman who is unfaithful deserves to be shot.

The worst is not so long as we can say "This is the worst."

The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet.

Nonsense and beauty have close connections.

You will remember, Watson, how the dreadful business of the Abernetty family was first brought to my notice by the depth which the parsley had sunk into the butter upon a hot day.

"What are you watching?" "I don't know." "Well, what's happening?" "I'm not sure... I think the guy in the hat did something terrible." "Why are you watching it?" "You're so analytical. Sometimes you just have to let art flow over you."

If I'm over the hill, why is it I don't recall ever being on top?

Nothing, nothing, nothing, no error, no crime is so absolutely repugnant to God as everything which is official; and why? because the official is so impersonal and therefore the deepest insult which can be offered to a personality.

My experience with government is when things are non-controversial, beautifully co-ordinated and all the rest, it must be that not much is going on.

When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten.

Ye've also got to remember that ... respectable people do the most astonishin' things to preserve their respectability. Thank God I'm not respectable.

Many mental processes admit of being roughly measured. For instance, the degree to which people are bored, by counting the number of their fidgets. I not infrequently tried this method at the meetings of the Royal Geographical Society, for even ther

The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best".

The sooner you make your first 5000 mistakes, the sooner you will be able to correct them.

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite."

Remember: Silly is a state of Mind, Stupid is a way of Life.

Awash with unfocused desire, Everett twisted the lobe of his one remaining ear and felt the presence of somebody else behind him, which caused terror to push through his nervous system like a flash flood roaring down the mid-fork of the Feather River

God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.

Luck, that's when preparation and opportunity meet.

I hate dying.

When properly administered, vacations do not diminish productivity: for every week you're away and get nothing done, there's another when your boss is away and you get twice as much done.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.

I don't mind arguing with myself. It's when I lose that it bothers me.

The hater of property and of government takes care to have his warranty deed recorded, and the book written against fame and learning has the author's name on the title page.

"What's this? Trix? Aunt! Trix? You? You're after the prize! What is it?" He picked up the box and studied the back. "A glow-in-the-dark squid! Have you got it out of there yet?" He tilted the box, angling the little colored balls of cereal

If you cannot in the long run tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing was worthless.

"First World" nations are the ones where people drive Japanese cars; "Second World" nations are where First World residents go on vacation; and "Third World" nations are the ones where people still dive out of trees to prove their manhood.

The man who raises a fist has run out of ideas.

The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here.

If it takes a bloodbath, lets get it over with. No more appeasement.

I know on which side my bread is buttered.

I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

I hate quotations.

It is enough to make one sympathize with a tyrant for the determination of his courtiers to deceive him for their own personal ends...

Either I'm dead or my watch has stopped.

Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest do not happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.

Small things make base men proud.

"Quite frankly, I don't like you humans. After what you all have done, I find being 'inhuman' a compliment."

You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.

Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.

Gay shlafen: Yiddish for "go to sleep". Now doesn't "gay shlafen" have a softer, more soothing sound than the harsh, staccato "go to sleep"? Listen to the difference: "Go to sleep, you little wretch!" ... "Gay shlafen, darling." Obvious, isn't

The future is a race between education and catastrophe.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.

There's no such thing as an original sin.

Intellect annuls Fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.

My brain is my second favorite organ.

The nearer to the church, the further from God.

... [concerning quotation marks] even if we *___did* quote anybody in this business, it probably would be gibberish.

The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D.

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

Once, I read that a man be never stronger than when he truly realizes how weak he is.

The only really good place to buy lumber is at a store where the lumber has already been cut and attached together in the form of furniture, finished, and put inside boxes.

Gratitude, like love, is never a dependable international emotion.

You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow.

You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.

Life is too short to be taken seriously.

"You've got to have a gimmick if your band sucks."

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.

I hate small towns because once you've seen the cannon in the park there's nothing else to do.

... a thing called Ethics, whose nature was confusing but if you had it you were a High-Class Realtor and if you hadn't you were a shyster, a piker and a fly-by-night. These virtues awakened Confidence and enabled you to handle Bigger Propositions.

My advice to the women's clubs of America is to raise more hell and fewer dahlias.

Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

If you are a fatalist, what can you do about it?

October 12, the Discovery. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.