“Watching his Round Table friends leaving the Algonquin one afternoon (while they were still young and relatively unsuccessful), Herman Mankiewicz (not yet a Hollywood producer) said to Murdock Pemberton, ‘There goes the greatest collection of unsaleable wit in 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 film/television/photography, humor, literary oddities
“A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.”
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities, united states history
[This sentence from a publisher dismisses one of Joseph Hansen’s Dave Brandstetter books, which is a series of hard-boiled detective novels that feature a gay protagonist, i.e. Dave Brandstetter. I am an inveterate reader of mysteries, but have only read one Mr. Hansen’s books; it was quite good.]
“This was put together with chewing gum and a paper clip.”
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, Social Sciences
“History is a set of lies agreed upon.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged literary oddities
“Geology, n. The science of the earth’s crust—to which, doubtless, will be added that of its interior whenever a man shall come up garrulous out of a well. The geological formations of the globe already noted are catalogued thus: The Primary, or lower one, consists of rocks, bones of mired mules, gaspipes, miners’ tools, antique statues minus the nose, Spanish doubloons and ancestors. The Secondary is largely made up of red worms and moles. The Tertiary comprises railroad tracks, patent pavements, grass, snakes, mouldy boots, beer bottles, tomato cans, intoxicated citizens, garbage, anarchists, snap-dogs and fools.”
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, science literacy
“The children now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority, they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize over their teachers.”
“Attributed in N.Y. Times, 24 Jan. 1948. This spurious quote, trying to make the point that adults have always complained about the behavior of youths, became very popular in the 1960s, Researchers have never found anything like it in the words of Socrates or Plato. Dennis Lien has discovered a similar attribution in Guy Endore’s 1933 novel The Werewolf of Paris: ‘The young people no longer obey the old. The laws that ruled their fathers are trampled underfoot. They seek only their own pleasure and have no respect for religion. They dress indecently and their talk is full of impudence.’ Endore cites ‘an ancient Egyptian papyrus’ as the source.”
Excerpted from: Schapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
“…the play sounds like George Burns and Gracie Allen trying to keep up a dinner conversation with Wittgenstein…I have never seen such desperately ingratiating smiles on the faces of actors.”
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 drama/theater, humor, literary oddities, philosophy/religion
“Allow for Permit. ‘I allow you to go.’ Precision is better attained by saying permit, for allow has other meanings.”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
“One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
“I once said cynically of a politician, ‘He’ll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.’”
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
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