"I understand this is your first dead client," Sabian was saying. The absurdity of the statement made me want to laugh but they don't call me Deadpan Allie and lie.

He that teaches himself has a fool for a master.

Innovation is hard to schedule.

Women are nothing but machines for producing children.

Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles.

Another day, another dollar.

You can bring men from other parts of the world who are sane. And you know what happens? At the very moment they cross those mountains... they go mad. Instantaneously and automatically, at the very moment they cross the mountains into California,

Force has no place where there is need of skill.

Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.

Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time.

There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings.

Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing.

Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.

Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.

Harp not on that string.

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

The pollution's at that awkward stage. Too thick to navigate and too thin to cultivate.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.

One big pile is better than two little piles.

Someday we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car.

The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

Love the sea? I dote upon it

There is a natural hootchy-kootchy to a goldfish.

The best you get is an even break.

Divorce is a game played by lawyers.

Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral.

Ben, why didn't you tell me?

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

Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair, hot wench in flame-colored taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous to

Events are not affected, they develop.

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

The mome rath isn't born that could outgrabe me.

Small is beautiful.

Aim for the moon. If you miss, you may hit a star.

She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook.

Zero Mostel: That's it baby! When you got it, flaunt it! Flaunt it!

Of all men's miseries, the bitterest is this: to know so much and have control over nothing.

Show business is just like high school, except you get paid.

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact...

If I cannot bend Heaven, I shall move Hell.

Lassie looked brilliant, in part because the farm family she lived with was made up of idiots. Remember? One of them was always getting pinned under the tractor, and Lassie was always rushing back to the farmhouse to alert the other ones. She'd w

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.

For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.

Ed Sullivan will be around as long as someone else has talent.

Honesty's the best policy.

It was a female that drove me to drink and I didn't even have the kindness to thank her.

What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.

War hath no fury like a non-combatant.

Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at the blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.

October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.

My dear People. My dear Bagginses and Boffins, and my dear Tooks and Brandybucks, and Grubbs, and Chubbs, and Burrowses, and Hornblowers, and Bolgers, Bracegirdles, Goodbodies, Brockhouses and Proudfoots. Also my good Sackville Bagginses that I w

Maybe ain't ain't so correct, but I notice that lots of folks who ain't using ain't ain't eatin' well.

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

If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.

When neither their poverty nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.

"I'm dying," he croaked. "My experiment was a success," the chemist retorted . "You can't really train a beagle," he dogmatized. "That's no beagle, it's a mongrel," she muttered. "The fire is going out," he bellowed. "Bad marksmanship," the h

Burnt Sienna. That's the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas.

Certain passages in several laws have always defied interpretation and the most inexplicable must be a matter of opinion. A judge of the Court of Session of Scotland has sent the editors of this book his candidate which reads, "In the Nuts (unground

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.

It has long been noticed that juries are pitiless for robbery and full of indulgence for infanticide. A question of interest, my dear Sir! The jury is afraid of being robbed and has passed the age when it could be a victim of infanticide.

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

The trouble is, there is an endless supply of White Men, but there has always been a limited number of Human Beings.

Serfs up!

God is Dead.

If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door.

If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments.

There is no sin but ignorance.

It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire.

If I could reach, I'd never leave the house.

Kiss me, Kate, we will be married o' Sunday.

A priest asked: What is Fate, Master? And the Master answered: It is that which gives a beast of burden its reason for existence. It is that which men in former times had to bear upon their backs. It is that which has caused nations to build bywa

It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either.

The difference between a Miracle and a Fact is exactly the difference between a mermaid and a seal.

Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed.

Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.

A prediction is worth twenty explanations.

The Least Successful Equal Pay Advertisement In 1976 the European Economic Community pointed out to the Irish Government that it had not yet implemented the agreed sex equality legislation. The Dublin Government immediately advertised for an equal

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.

You can never do just one thing.

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

Ain't no right way to do a wrong thing.

The primary theme of SoupCon is communication. The acronym "LEO" represents the secondary theme: Law Enforcement Officials The overall theme of SoupCon shall be: Avoiding Communication with Law Enforcement Officials

Never laugh at live dragons.

Many a bum show has been saved by the flag.

Anything is possible on paper.

War is like love, it always finds a way.

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out.

... why should you waste a single moment of *your* life seeming to be something you don't want to be? Lord, that's so simple. If you hate your job, quit it. If your friends are tedious, go out and find new friends. You are queer, you lucky fool, a

Water, taken in moderation cannot hurt anybody.

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

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

No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it.

Art is anything you can get away with.

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

If a shameless woman expects to be defiled and then dies of her fierce love because you do not consent, will chastity also be homicide?

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,

It is through symbols that man consciously or unconsciously lives, works and has his being.

For there are moments when one can neither think nor feel. And if one can neither think nor feel, she thought, where is one?

It is only by risking our persons from one hour to another that we live at all. And often enough our faith beforehand in an uncertified result is the only thing that makes the result come true.

Diary of a Young Girl LITE(tm)

It's very glamorous to raise millions of dollars, until it's time for the venture capitalist to suck your eyeballs out.

Must I hold a candle to my shames?

Sic transit gloria mundi. [So passes away the glory of this world.]

Rembrandt is not to be compared in the painting of character with our extraordinarily gifted English artist, Mr. Rippingille.

It is convenient that there be gods, and, as it is convenient, let us believe there are.

As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs.

The faster we go, the rounder we get.

My own life has been spent chronicling the rise and fall of human systems, and I am convinced that we are terribly vulnerable. ... We should be reluctant to turn back upon the frontier of this epoch. Space is indifferent to what we do; it has no fe

The chief enemy of creativity is "good" sense

[District Attorneys] learn in District Attorney School that there are two sure-fire ways to get a lot of favorable publicity: (1) Go down and raid all the lockers in the local high school and confiscate 53 marijuana cigarettes and put them in a

Good salesmen and good repairmen will never go hungry.

The Soviet Union, which has complained recently about alleged anti-Soviet themes in American advertising, lodged an official protest this week against the Ford Motor Company's new campaign: "Hey you stinking, fat Russian, get off my Ford Escort."

A violent man will die a violent death.

Better tried by twelve than carried by six.

Fortune's Guide to Freshman Notetaking: WHEN THE PROFESSOR SAYS: YOU WRITE: Probably the greatest quality of the poetry John Milton

Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else doing it wrong, without commenting.

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

It's not easy, being green.