“Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor to obscure, and intimate when he is rich and famous.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
“The law may…depend on what the judge has had for breakfast.”
“The Autobiography of an Ex-Law Student,” American Law School Review, Apr. 1934
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
“Chance for Opportunity. ‘He had a good chance to succeed.’”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
“Conducting a survey for a question-and-answer book he was editing, George Oppenheimer once quizzed Kaufman on geography—a subject that thoroughly bored G.S.K. One of the questions read: ‘What is the longest river in South America?’
After a moment. Kaufman queried, ‘Are you sure it’s in South America?’”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference
Tagged humor, literary oddities
“Rotten Reviews: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
‘I have never seen frogs in Virginia ‘shout and glare’…”
Loren Eiseley, Washington Post Book World
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities
“Casket for Coffin. A needless euphemism affected by undertakers.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
“He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts…for support rather than illumination.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
“Accountable, adj. Liable to an abatement of pleasure, profit, or advantage; exposed to the peril of a penalty.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
“Casualties for Losses in Battle. The essence of casualty is accident, absence of design. Death and wounds in battle are produced otherwise, are expectable and expected, and, by the enemy, intentional.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
“Broun, who was totally captivated by the Marx Brothers, went to see their shows—each one—as many times as possible (he saw Cocoanuts twenty-one times). Concerning this particular passion, he remarked: ‘Very likely my epitaph will read, “Here lies Heywood Broun (who?), killed by getting in the way of some scene shifters at a Marx Brothers show.”’”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference
Tagged drama/theater, humor, literary oddities
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