“Clergyman, n. A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
[Whenever I feel down, I turn to the the Algonquin Wits, and especially one of its most brilliant, albeit self-destructive, members, the late, great Dorothy Parker. I want to annotate this quote with something few people know about Mrs. Parker: she was a dedicated civil rights activist who greatly respected Martin Luther King, Jr.; indeed, she she left her estate in its entirety to him.]
“American writer of short stories, verse, and criticism. Parker was noted for her caustic wit, as a drama critic for Vanity Fair and later a book reviewer for The New Yorker, and she became one of the luminaries of the Algonquin Round Table. Her works in verse are equally sardonic, usually dry, elegant commentaries on departing or departed love. The collection Enough Rope (1926), contains the much quoted ‘Resume’ on suicide, and ‘News Item,’ about women who wear glasses. Her short stories, which were collected in After Such Pleasures (1932) and Here Lies (1939), are as imbued with a knowledge of human nature as they are deep in disenchantment; among the best known are ‘A Big Blonde’ and ‘A Telephone Call.’”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference
Tagged black history, fiction/literature, humor, readings/research, women's history
“It may be that this autobiography [Aimee Semple McPherson’s] is set down in sincerity, frankness, and simple effort. It may be, too, that the Statue of Liberty is situated in Lake Ontario.”
Dorothy Parker, The New Yorker 25 Feb. 1928
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference
Tagged humor, literary oddities, women's history
“When it’s three o’clock in New York, it’s still 1938 in London.”
Quoted in Jerusalem Post, 24 February 1989
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged humor, music, women's history
[Of nudity] “The part never calls for it. And I’ve never used that excuse. The box office calls for it.”
Quoted in Independent (London) 22 March 1994
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
[In book review] “This is not a book that should be set aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
Quoted in The Algonquin Wits, ed. Robert E. Drennan (1968)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities, women's history
“Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.”
Duke Ellington, Music is My Mistress act 8 “Pedestrian Minstrel” (1973)
Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged black history, humor, music, united states history
“Scribbler, n. A professional writer whose views are antagonistic to one’s own.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000.
“America is the greatest of opportunities and the worst of influences.”
George Santayana
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
Posted in Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
“Free-trade, n. The unrestricted interchange of commodities between nations—not, it must be observed, between states or provinces of the same nation. That is an entirely different thing, so we are assured by those who oppose free-trade, although wherein the difference consists is not altogether clear to anybody else. To all but those with the better light it seems that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for any part of the goose, and if a number of states are profited by exclusion of foreign products, each would be benefited (and therefore all prosper) by exclusion of the products of the others. To these benighted persons, too, it appears as if high duties on imports are beneficial, their absolute exclusion by law would be more beneficial; and that the former commercial isolation of Japan and China must have been productive of the happiest results to their logical inhabitants, with the courage of their opinions. What defect the Protectionist sees in that system he has never had goodness to explain—not even their great chief, the unspeakable scoundrel whose ingenious malevolence invented that peerless villainy, the custom house.”
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, readings/research
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