"First Let the rockets flash and the cannon thunder, This child is a marvel, a matchless wonder. A staggering child, a child astounding, Dazzling, diaperless, dumfounding, Stupendous, miraculous, unsurpassed, A child to stagger and flabbergast, Bright as a button, sharp as a thorn, And the only perfect one ever born. Second Arrived this evening at half-past nine. Everybody is doing fine. Is it a boy, or quite the reverse? You can call in the morning and ask the nurse."

"A young person is a person with nothing to learn One who already knows that ice does not chill and fire does not burn... It knows it can spend six hours in the sun on its first day at the beach without ending up a skinless beet, And it knows it can walk barefoot through the barn without running a nail in its feet. . . . Meanwhile psychologists grow rich Writing that the young are ones' should not undermine the self-confidence of which."

"Whales have calves, Cats have kittens Bears have Cubs, Bats have bittens, Swans have cygnets, Seals have puppies, But guppies just have little guppies."

"A fig for embryo Lohengrins! I'll open all his safety pins, I'll pepper his powder, and salt his bottle, And give him readings from Aristotle. Sand for his spinach I'll gladly bring, And Tabasco sauce for his teething ring. Then perhaps he'll struggle through fire and water To marry somebody else's daughter."

"My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky; Contrariwise, my blood runs cold When little boys go by. For little boys as little boys, No special hate I carry, But now and then they grow to men, And when they do, they marry. No matter how they tarry, Eventually they marry. And, swine among the pearls, They marry little girls."

"Oh, than to enjoy a storm like this There's nothing I would rather, Don't dive between the blankets, Miss! Or else leave room for Father."

"We love the kindly wind and hail, The jolly thunderbolt, We watch in glee the fairy trail Of ampere, watt, and volt."

"I hope of lightning our supply Will never be exhausted; You know it's lanterns in the sky For angels who are losted."

"Fear not the thunder, little one. It's weather, simply weather; It's friendly giants full of fun Clapping their hands together."

"The garden is a raging sea, The hurricane is snarling; Oh, happy you and happy me! Isn't the lightning darling?"

"The sky is now indelible ink, The branches reft asunder; But you and I we do not shrink; We love the lovely thunder."

"The weather is so very mild That some would call it warm. Good gracious, aren't we lucky, child? Here comes a thunderstorm."

"Their joy needs another woe's to cushion it, Say a puddle, and someone littler to push in it. They observe with glee the ballistic results Of ice cream with spoons for catapults, And inform the assembly with tears and glares That everyone's presents are better than theirs. Oh, little women and little men, Someday I hope to love you again, But not till after the party's over, So give me the key to the doghouse, Rover"

"I've earned repose to heal the ravages Of these angelic-looking savages. Oh, progeny playing by itself Is a lonely little elf, But progeny in roistering batches Would drive St. Francis from here to Natchez."

"May I join you in the doghouse, Rover? I wish to retire till the party's over."

"Leave the earth to the strong and athletic, And the sea to adventure upon. But the sun and the sand No contractor can copy; We lie in the land Of the lotus and poppy; We vegetate, calm and aesthetic, On the beach, on the sand, in the sun."

"To lave in the wave, Majestic and chilly, Tomorrow I crave; But today it is silly. It is pleasant to look at the ocean; Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall swim in it."

"The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon, And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon, He fired two bullets, but they didn't hit, And Custard gobbled him, every bit."

"Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears, And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs, Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage, But Custard cried for a nice safe cage."

"Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink, And the little gray mouse, she called him Blink, And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard, But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard."

"Belinda lived in a little white house, With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse, And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon, And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon."

"Oh, Night will not see thirty again, Yet soft her wing, Miranda; Pick up your glass and tell me, then — How old is Spring, Miranda?"

"Time is timelessness for you; Calendars for the human; What's a year, or thirty, to Loveliness made woman?"

"Silly girl, silver girl, Draw the mirror toward you; Time who makes the years to whirl Adorned as he adored you."

"Miranda in Miranda's sight Is old and gray and dirty; Twenty-nine she was last night; This morning she is thirty."

"If you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work."

"Perhaps indeed the possession of wealth is constantly distressing, But I should be quite willing to assume every curse of wealth if I could at the same time assume every blessing. The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can't cure, Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor. Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won't buy, but it's very funny — Have you ever tried to buy them without money?"

"People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it, And I wish I could afford to gather all such people into a gloomy castle on the Danube and hire half a dozen capable Draculas to haunt it. I dont' mind their having a lot of money, and I don't care how they employ it, But I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it."

"It is my duty, gentlemen, to inform you that women are dictators all, and I recommend to you this moral: In real life it takes only one to make a quarrel."

"Passivity can be a provoking modus operandi; Consider the Empire and Gandhi."

"People expect old men to die, They do not really mourn old men. Old men are different. People look At them with eyes that wonder when... People watch with unshocked eyes; But the old men know when an old man dies."

"When called by a panther, Don't anther."

"I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Indeed, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all."

"The turtle trapped 'twixt plated decks Doth practically conceal its sex I think it clever of the turtle In such a fix to be so fertile."

"Purity Is obscurity."

"Don't Cry Darling, It's Blood All Right"

"And what really turns my corpuscles to ice, I carry around clippings and read them to people twice. And I know what I am doing while I am doing it and I don't want to do it but I can't help doing it and I am just another Ancient Mariner, And the prospects for my future social life couldn't possibly be barrener. Did I tell you that the prospects for my future social life couldn't be barrener?"

"It is an indication that my mental buttery is butterless and my mental larder lardless, And it consists not of "Stop me if you've heard this one," but of "I know you've heard this one because I told it to you myself, but I'm going to tell it to you again regardless...""

"O all ye exorcizers come and exorcize now, and ye clergymen draw nigh and clerge, For I wish to be purged of an urge. It is an irksome urge, compounded of nettles and glue, And it is turning all my friends back into acquaintances, and all my acquaintances into people who look the other way when I heave into view."

"Naturally I am not pointing a finger at me, But I must admit that I find Mr. Ickes or any other speaker far more convincing when I agree with him than when I disagree."

"And I have no desire to get ugly, But I cannot help mentioning that the door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly."

"These are enlightened days in which you can get hot water and cold water out of the same spigot, And everybody has something about which they are proud to be broad-minded but they also have other things about which you would be wasting your breath if you tried to convince them that they were a bigot."

"When people reject a truth or an untruth it is not because it is a truth or an untruth that they reject it. No, if it isn't in accord with their beliefs in the first place they simply say, "Nothing doing," and refuse to inspect it."

"I believe that people believe what they believe they believe."

"The further through life I drift The more obvious it becomes that I am lacking in thrift."

"Some primal termite knocked on wood And tasted it, and found it good! And that is why your Cousin May Fell through the parlor floor today."

"God in his wisdom made the fly And then forgot to tell us why."

"Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor."

"And I also say Pooh for sweetness and light, And if you want to get the most out of life, why the thing to do is to be a gossiper by day and gossipee by night."