All Quotes

"Behold the hippopotamus! We laugh at how he looks to us, And yet in moments dank and grim, I wonder how we look to him."

"Any hound a porcupine nudges Can't be blamed for harboring grudges. I know one hound that laughed all winter At a porcupine that sat on a splinter."

"Hark, hark! the lark On windswept bark Freezes against a sky of lead! Now see him stop, Take one small hop, And suddenly keel over dead!"

"The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you, How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you! Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry. Isabel didn't scream or scurry. She washed her hands, and she straightened her hair up, Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up."

"Once in a night as black as pitch Isabel met a wicked old witch. the witch's face was cross and wrinkled, The witch's gums with teeth were sprinkled. Ho, ho, Isabel! the old witch crowed, I'll turn you into an ugly toad! Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry. Isabel didn't scream or scurry. She showed no rage and she showed no rancor, But she turned the witch into milk, and drank her."

"The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid, He had one eye in the middle of his forehead."

"She took those pills from the pill concocter, And Isabel calmly cured the doctor."

"Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.) Is planning a ban on smut. Oh rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut. And his reverend occiput. Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut., Grit your molars and do your dut., Gird up your l__ns, Smite h_p and th_gh, We'll all be Kansas By and by."

"When smut's to be smitten Smoot will smite For G-d, for country, And Fahrenheit."

"Senator Smoot is an institute Not to be bribed with pelf; He guards our homes from erotic tomes By reading them all himself."

"Smite, Smoot, Be rugged and rough, Smut if smitten Is front-page stuff."

"The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, milk."

"The song of canaries Never varies, And when they're moulting They're pretty revolting."

"Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore, And that's what parents were created for."

"I can't say that I feel particularly one way or the other towards bell-boys, But I do admit that I haven't much use for the it's-just-as-well boys, The cheery souls who drop around after every catastrophe and think they are taking the curse off By telling you about somebody who is even worse off. No matter how deep and dark your pit, how dank your shroud, Their heads are heroically unbloody and unbowed."

"The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control."

"Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind."

"I think remorse ought to stop biting the consciences that feed it."

"One man's remorse is another man's reminiscence."

"Most bankers dwell in marble halls, Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits and discourage withdrawals, And particularly because they all observe one rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it, Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless they don't need it."

"Every Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz.: That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is."

"How easy for those who do not bulge To not overindulge!"

"Whether elected or appointed He considers himself the Lord's annointed, And indeed the ointment lingers on him So thick you can't get your fingers on him."

"Camped on a tropic riverside, One day he missed his loving bride. She had, the guide informed him later, Been eaten by an alligator. Professor Twist could not but smile. "You mean," he said, "a crocodile.""

"There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges, Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies."

"So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf, Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves."

"Listen, buds, it's March twenty first; Don't you know enough to burst? Come on, birds, unlock your throats! Come on, gardeners, shed your coats!"

"Oh, sometimes I sit around and think, what would you do if you were up a dark alley and there was Caesar Borgia, And he was coming torgia…"

"There are two kinds of people who blow through life like a breeze, And one kind is gossipers, and the other kind is gossipees, And they certainly annoy each other, But they certainly enjoy each other, Yes, they pretend to flout each other, But they couldn't do without each other..."

"Another good thing about gossip is that it is within everybody's reach, And it is much more interesting than any other form of speech, Because suppose you eschew gossip and just say Mr. Smith is in love with his wife. Why that disposes the Smiths as a topic of conversation for the rest of their life, But suppose you say with a smile, that poor little Mrs. Smith thinks her husband is in love with her, he must be very clever, Why then you can enjoyably talk about the Smiths forever."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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...""

"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?"

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

"Purity Is obscurity."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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