Tag Archives: humor

Harry S Truman on Politics as a Vocation

Posted on May 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

“My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.”

Harry S Truman

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

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George Will on Football

Posted on May 18, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Football combines the two worst features of American life: violence and committee meetings.”

George Will

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

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Rotten Rejections: Sara Haardt

Posted on May 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Rotten Rejections: “Poem” by Sara Haardt (1923)

“The poem I can’t take. We have 200 or 300 bales of poetry stored in Hoboken, in the old Norddeutscher-Lloyd pier. There are 300,000 poets in America.”

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

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The Devil’s Dictionary: Politics

Posted on May 8, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

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Frank Rich on “Starlight Express”

Posted on May 7, 2020 | Leave a comment

“A confusing jamboree of piercing noise, routine roller skating, misogyny and Orwellian special effects, Starlight Express is the perfect gift for the kid who has everything except parents.”

Frank Rich

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

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The Algonquin Wits: George S. Kaufman to Adolph Zukor

Posted on May 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Hollywood’s Adolph Zukor was said to have offered a trifling $30,000 for movie rights to a Kaufman play. The playwright sent back a telegram offering Zukor $40,000 for Paramount.”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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Rotten Rejections: William Faulkner

Posted on May 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

William Faulkner I: Sanctuary

“Good God, I can’t publish this. We’d both be in jail.”

William Faulkner II: Sartoris

“If the book had a plot and structure, we might suggest shortening and revisions, but it is so diffuse that I don’t this would be of any use. My chief objection is that you don’t have any story to tell.”

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

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Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige on Dietary Prudence

Posted on April 29, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.”

Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige

“How to Keep Young,” Colliers, 13 June 1953

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

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William James on the Philosopher’s Primary Task

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

“There is only one thing a philosopher can be relied upon to do, and this is to contradict other philosophers.”

William James

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

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The Algonquin Wits: Harpo Marx Visits Alexander Woollcott’s Summer Place

Posted on April 20, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Harpo Marx once arrived at Woollcott’s Lake Bomoseen home in a broken-down Model-T Ford. ‘What do you call that?’ Woollcott exclaimed as he regarded the automobile.

‘This is my town car,’ Harpo explained.

‘What was the town?’ asked Woollcott. ‘Pompeii?’”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

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