Tag Archives: humor

Oscar Wilde on Hypocrisy

Posted on June 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

“I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”

Oscar Wilde

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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The Doubter’s Companion: Amorality

Posted on April 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Amorality: A quality admired and rewarded in modern organizations, where it is referred to through metaphors such as professionalism and efficiency.

Amorality is corporatist wisdom. It is one of the terms which highlights the confusion in society between what is officially taught as a value and what is actually rewarded by the structure.

Immorality is doing wrong of our own volition. Amorality is doing it because a structure or an organization expects us to do it. Amorality is thus worse than immorality because it involves denying our responsibility and therefore our existence as anything more than animal.”

Excerpted from: Saul, John Ralston. The Doubter’s Companion. New York: The Free Press, 1994.

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Henry Adams on Estimating Intelligence

Posted on April 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

“There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.”

Henry Adams

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Write It Right: Declared for Said

Posted on April 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Declared for Said. To a newspaper reporter no one ever seems to say anything; all ‘declare.’ Like ‘alleged’ (which see) the word is tiresome exceedingly.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.

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Rotten Reviews: In the Heart of the Heart of the Country

Posted on April 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

“The publisher promises that anyone who has a deep love for the well-made English sentence will find these stories richly rewarding. Perhaps so. But there is every chance that the rest of us—those who prefer to curl up with a good book—will be left gasping with boredom instead.”

Book World

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.   

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George Orwell on Credulity

Posted on April 6, 2023 | Leave a comment

“There are some things only intellectuals are crazy enough to believe.”

George Orwell

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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Fran Lebowitz on Algebra

Posted on March 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.”

Fran Lebowitz

Social Studies “Tips for Teens” (1981)

Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

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Book of Answers: A Famous Quip from Dorothy Parker

Posted on March 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Who wrote ‘Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses’? Dorothy Parker, known for her sharp wit, writer the famous couplet in the poem ‘News Item‘ in 1926.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

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Rotten Reviews: Omensetter’s Luck

Posted on January 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

“…Gass has not a particle of the savoir-faire of Faulkner. The pages ramble on, almost devoid of dialogue. This first novel is not for the reader longing for a good story narrative.”

Library Journal

Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.   

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Elizabeth Bibesco on Irony

Posted on January 20, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Irony is the hygiene of the mind.”

Elizabeth Bibesco

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

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