Never buy what you do not want because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.

A wise person makes his own decisions, a weak one obeys public opinion.

Odets, where is thy sting?

To have died once is enough.

A yawn is a silent shout.

... "fire" does not matter, "earth" and "air" and "water" do not matter. "I" do not matter. No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words. The more words he remembers, the cleverer do his fellows esteem him. He looks upon the great

... 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

It's not easy, being green.

The future is a race between education and catastrophe.

Being a miner, as soon as you're too old and tired and sick and stupid to do your job properly, you have to go, where the very opposite applies with the judges.

If any man wishes to be humbled and mortified, let him become president of Harvard.

I was part of that strange race of people aptly described as spending their lives doing things they detest to make money they don't want to buy things they don't need to impress people they dislike.

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

The cable TV sex channels don't expand our horizons, don't make us better people, and don't come in clearly enough.

The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.

"We're not talking about the same thing," he said. "For you the world is weird because if you're not bored with it you're at odds with it. For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to

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

"You can't survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten."

I stick my neck out for nobody.

It's not a sin not to be Irish, but it is a great shame.

It is better to have loved and lost

Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. [Confound those who have said our remarks before us.] or [May they perish who have expressed our bright ideas before us.]

A woman employs sincerity only when every other form of deception has failed.

For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say "Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something.

"She said, `I know you ... you cannot sing'. I said, `That's nothing, you should hear me play piano.'"

NEW YORK

Satire is tragedy plus time.

Language is a virus from another planet.

Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time.

... but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witch

Don't go to bed with no price on your head.

I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education.

The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late.

The idea there was that consumers would bring their broken electronic devices, such as television sets and VCR's, to the destruction centers, where trained personnel would whack them (the devices) with sledgehammers. With their devices thus permanent

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife - chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now it's complete because it's ended here."

The price of success in philosophy is triviality.

Well, you know, no matter where you go, there you are.

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.

Live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse.

Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours.

"You boys lookin' for trouble?" "Sure. Whaddya got?"

Television is now so desperately hungry for material that it is scraping the top of the barrel.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Very few blacks will take up golf until the requirement for plaid pants is dropped.

Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is by no means the only 'certain' standard. If you mistake what is relative for something certain, you have strayed far from the ultimate truth.

Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

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

Life is like a 10 speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.

If little green men land in your back yard, hide any little green women you've got in the house.

Anything is possible on paper.

We have reason to be afraid. This is a terrible place.

The goys have proven the following theorem...

The fashion wears out more apparel than the man.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back the when it begins to rain.

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne we

If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.

One learns to itch where one can scratch.

The truth is what is; what should be is a dirty lie.

Acting is not very hard. The most important things are to be able to laugh and cry. If I have to cry, I think of my sex life. And if I have to laugh, well, I think of my sex life.

Playing an unamplified electric guitar is like strumming on a picnic table.

Alas, I am dying beyond my means.

There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.

The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.

I'd just as soon kiss a Wookie.

Why does a hearse horse snicker, hauling a lawyer away?

"Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun."

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

Living in LA is like not having a date on Saturday night.

I have defined the hundred per cent American as ninety-nine per cent an idiot.

There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure.

Well begun is half done.

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

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

It is a lesson which all history teaches wise men, to put trust in ideas, and not in circumstances.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.

"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

Working with Julie Andrews is like getting hit over the head with a valentine.

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

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

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

The plot was designed in a light vein that somehow became varicose.

We have nowhere else to go... this is all we have.

Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce; that it is not genteel comedy even; that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundest tragic depths of the essential death in which its

There is no sin but ignorance.

Seeing that death, a necessary end, Will come when it will come.

A memorandum is written not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer.

"Life is too important to take seriously."

Porsche: there simply is no substitute.

I heard a definition of an intellectual, that I thought was very interesting: a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows.

The Public is merely a multiplied "me."

Why be a man when you can be a success?

We are what we pretend to be.

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

To every Ph.D. there is an equal and opposite Ph.D.

The white race is the cancer of history.

The optimum committee has no members.

A writer is congenitally unable to tell the truth and that is why we call what he writes fiction.

Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions.

To do two things at once is to do neither.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

Never buy from a rich salesman.

"World conquerors sometimes become fools, but fools never become world conquerors."

You can observe a lot just by watching.

Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.

An office party is not, as is sometimes supposed the Managing Director's chance to kiss the tea-girl. It is the tea-girl's chance to kiss the Managing Director (however bizarre an ambition this may seem to anyone who has seen the Managing Director f

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

"Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him."

Without adventure, civilization is in full decay.

Save the Whales

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.

This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.

I am America's child, a spastic slogging on demented limbs drooling I'll trade my PhD for a telephone voice.

If happiness is in your destiny, you need not be in a hurry.

Don't everyone thank me at once!

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

Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art.

A snake lurks in the grass.

Optimism is the content of small men in high places.

The early bird who catches the worm works for someone who comes in late and owns the worm farm.

Naked children have never played in _o_u_r fountains, and I.M. Pei will never be happy on Route 66.

When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.

You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company.

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

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible."

A good reputation is more valuable than money.

Out of sight is out of mind.

"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

British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive it. If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps.

Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts.

Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it!

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.

Honesty is for the most part less profitable than dishonesty.

Life is too short to be taken seriously.

A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who has never owned a car.

All the big corporations depreciate their possessions, and you can, too, provided you use them for business purposes. For example, if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, a business-related newspaper, you can deduct the cost of your house, beca

When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder.

There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.

If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read.

Just remember, wherever you go, there you are.

When the blind lead the blind they will both fall over the cliff.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

It looks like it's up to me to save our skins. Get into that garbage chute, flyboy!

Producers seem to be so prejudiced against actors who've had no training. And there's no reason for it. So what if I didn't attend the Royal Academy for twelve years? I'm still a professional trying to be the best actress I can. Why doesn't anyone

Then, gently touching my face, she hesitated for a moment as her incredible eyes poured forth into mine love, joy, pain, tragedy, acceptance, and peace. "'Bye for now," she said warmly.

In "King Henry VI, Part II," Shakespeare has Dick Butcher suggest to his fellow anti-establishment rabble-rousers, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." That action may be extreme but a similar sentiment was expressed by Thomas K. Co

I know on which side my bread is buttered.

Traffic signals in New York are just rough guidelines.

I never cheated an honest man, only rascals. They wanted something for nothing. I gave them nothing for something.

Doctors and lawyers must go to school for years and years, often with little sleep and with great sacrifice to their first wives.

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.

Among all savage beasts, none is found so harmful as woman.

Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies.

If I had done everything I'm credited with, I'd be speaking to you from a laboratory jar at Harvard.

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

Solipsists of the World... you are already united.

Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing.

When eating an elephant take one bite at a time.

Tempt not a desperate man.

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.

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.

The Worst Car Hire Service When David Schwartz left university in 1972, he set up Rent-a-wreck as a joke. Being a natural prankster, he acquired a fleet of beat-up shabby, wreckages waiting for the scrap heap in California. He put on a cap and lo

Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.

Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of his Atlantic with his verb in his mouth.

Dear Mister Language Person: What is the purpose of the apostrophe? Answer: The apostrophe is used mainly in hand-lettered small business signs to alert the reader than an "S" is coming up at the end of a word, as in: WE DO NOT EXCEPT PERSONAL CHEC

Chance is perhaps the work of God when He did not want to sign.

So so is good, very good, very excellent good: and yet it is not; it is but so so.

If little else, the brain is an educational toy.

A woman who is guided by the head and not by the heart is a social pestilence: she has all the defects of the passionate and affectionate woman, with none of her compensations; she is without pity, without love, without virtue, without sex.

In childhood a woman must be subject to her father; in youth to her husband; when her husband is dead, to her sons. A woman must never be free of subjugation.

Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.

If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?

Indiana is a state dedicated to basketball. Basketball, soybeans, hogs and basketball. Berkeley, needless to say, is not nearly as athletic. Berkeley is dedicated to coffee, angst, potholes and coffee.

I consider a new device or technology to have been culturally accepted when it has been used to commit a murder.

The typewriting machine, when played with expression, is no more annoying than the piano when played by a sister or near relation.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

The sky is blue so we know where to stop mowing.

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.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Authors (and perhaps columnists) eventually rise to the top of whatever depths they were once able to plumb.

When the going gets tough, everyone leaves.

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.

A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education.

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.

In case of fire, stand in the hall and shout "Fire!"

I remember once being on a station platform in Cleveland at four in the morning. A black porter was carrying my bags, and as we were waiting for the train to come in, he said to me: "Excuse me, Mr. Cooke, I don't want to invade your privacy, but I h

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

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

If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we would all be millionaires.

New Jersey is not the armpit of the nation; it's the asshole of the universe.

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

Love may laugh at locksmiths, but he has a profound respect for money bags.

The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.

Only those who leisurely approach that which the masses are busy about can be busy about that which the masses take leisurely.

The most delightful day after the one on which you buy a cottage in the country is the one on which you resell it.

If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.

Small is beautiful.

One man's Mede is another man's Persian.

Doctors and lawyers must go to school for years and years, often with little sleep and with great sacrifice to their first wives.

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

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

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

But if you wish at once to do nothing and to be respectable nowdays, the best pretext is to be at work on some profound study.

The man who runs may fight again.

What soon grows old? Gratitude.

Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine.

Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards."

I'm going to raise an issue and stick it in your ear.

The longest part of the journey is said to be the passing of the gate.

We Americans, we're a simple people... but piss us off, and we'll bomb your cities.

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

Who dat who say "who dat" when I say "who dat"?

No two persons ever read the same book.

One hundred women are not worth a single testicle.

All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.

... 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.

In Hollywood, all marriages are happy. It's trying to live together afterwards that causes the problems.

A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself.

You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.

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

To add insult to injury.

With all the talent around, it's sort of amazing that a woman could be up here with us.

A committee is a group that keeps the minutes and loses hours.

So little time, so little to do.

My tears stuck in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked.

A man is known by the company he organizes.

The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.

If it doesn't smell yet, it's pretty fresh.

Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse.

You always introduce the younger person to the older person, using the wording: "Miss Brown, I'd like to introduce you to an older person" (unless her name is not "Miss Brown"). If you do not know a person's age, ask for a driver's license and a ma

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.

Lay off the muses, it's a very tough dollar.

If you would know the value of money, go try to borrow some.

Walking on water wasn't built in a day.

If a man stay away from his wife for seven years, the law presumes the separation to have killed him; yet according to our daily experience, it might well prolong his life.

I always wake up at the crack of ice.

Flame on!

Another day, another dollar.

He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.

Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.

CF&C stole it, fair and square.

One big pile is better than two little piles.

We're fantastically incredibly sorry for all these extremely unreasonable things we did. I can only plead that my simple, barely-sentient friend and myself are underprivileged, deprived and also college students.

When alerted to an intrusion by tinkling glass or otherwise, 1) Calm yourself 2) Identify the intruder 3) If hostile, kill him. Step number 3 is of particular importance. If you leave the guy alive out of misguided softheartedness, he will repay y

The trouble with opportunity is that it always comes disguised as hard work.

The philosopher's treatment of a question is like the treatment of an illness.

May you live in uninteresting times.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.

Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.

It is up to us to produce better-quality movies.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

Time goes, you say? Ah no! Time stays, *we* go.

The Israelis are the Doberman pinschers of the Middle East. They treat the Arabs like postmen.

Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete successfully in business. Cheat.

"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination."

Getting kicked out of the American Bar Association is liked getting kicked out of the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs repainting.

When I first arrived in this country I had only fifteen cents in my pocket and a willingness to compromise.

Take what you can use and let the rest go by.

Ask not for whom the Bell tolls, and you will pay only the station-to-station rate.

In spite of everything, I still believe that people are good at heart.

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

The ideal voice for radio may be defined as showing no substance, no sex, no owner, and a message of importance for every housewife.

If I have to lay an egg for my country, I'll do it.

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

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

As failures go, attempting to recall the past is like trying to grasp the meaning of existence. Both make one feel like a baby clutching at a basketball: one's palms keep sliding off.

Life is the childhood of our immortality.

Take the folks at Coca-Cola. For many years, they were content to sit back and make the same old carbonated beverage. It was a good beverage, no question about it; generations of people had grown up drinking it and doing the experiment in sixth gr

If there were a school for, say, sheet metal workers, that after three years left its graduates as unprepared for their careers as does law school, it would be closed down in a minute, and no doubt by lawyers.

She ran the gamut of emotions from 'A' to 'B'.

Fill what's empty, empty what's full, scratch where it itches.

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. By Order of the Author

Well, the handwriting is on the floor.

This was the most unkindest cut of all.

A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.

"Are you police officers?" "No, ma'am. We're musicians."

The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.

America is a melting pot. You know, where those on the bottom get burned, and the scum rises to the top.

About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.

Words have a longer life than deeds.

There has been a little distress selling on the stock exchange.

Praise the sea; on shore remain.

The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill.

I didn't believe in reincarnation in any of my other lives. I don't see why I should have to believe in it in this one.

Of all possible committee reactions to any given agenda item, the reaction that will occur is the one which will liberate the greatest amount of hot air.

He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hopes for the human condition is a fool.

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.

Sorry 'bout that sweat, honey. That's just holy water.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

Reality is bad enough, why should I tell the truth?

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

Nice guys finish last.

Suffering alone exists, none who suffer; The deed there is, but no doer thereof; Nirvana is, but no one is seeking it; The Path there is, but none who travel it.

The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal. The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may experience it as such. Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and thinking: all the rest of the worl

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.

An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him. "Well, zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a mi

Go ahead... make my day.

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.

The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it.

Everyone is in the best seat.

We have lingered long enough on the shores of the Cosmic Ocean.

The course of true anything never does run smooth.

Someone did a study of the three most-often-heard phrases in New York City. One is "Hey, taxi." Two is, "What train do I take to get to Bloomingdale's?" And three is, "Don't worry. It's just a flesh wound."

Texas is Hell on woman and horses.

One good turn asketh another.

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

The only promotion rules I can think of are that a sense of shame is to be avoided at all costs and there is never any reason for a hustler to be less cunning than more virtuous men. Oh yes ... whenever you think you've got something really great, a

Every young man should have a hobby: learning how to handle money is the best one.

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Work Hard. Rock Hard. Eat Hard. Sleep Hard. Grow Big. Wear Glasses If You Need 'Em.

Real wealth can only increase.

Drop the vase and it will become a Ming of the past.

Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.

The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist "Jack."

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.