Dan > Dan's Quotes

“Résumé
Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.”
― Dorothy Parker, Enough Rope

“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”
― Robert Bloch

“Palestinian and Israeli leaders finally recover the Road Map to Peace, only to discover that, while they were looking for it, the Lug Nuts of Mutual Interest came off the Front Left Wheel of Accommodation, causing the Sport Utility Vehicle of Progress to crash into the Ditch of Despair.”
― Dave Barry, Dave Barry's History of the Millennium

“The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing” is a phrase that refers to times when people ought to know, but don’t know, about something that is happening very close to them. For instance, you ought to know about the man who watches you when you sleep.”
― Lemony Snicket

“My friend died doing what he loved ... Heroin.”
― DeAnne Smith

“I persuaded him to throw the dirk away; and it was as easy as persuading a child to give up some bright fresh new way of killing itself.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

“Mr Cjelli, nice to see you back, sir. Sorry you had a spot of bother, hope that's all behind you now."
"Indeed, Bill, it is. You find me thriving. And Mrs Roberts? How is she? Foot still troubling her?"
"Not since she had it off, thanks for asking, sir. Between you and me, sir, I would've been just as happy to have had her amputated and kept the foot. I had a little spot reserved on the mantelpiece, but there we are, we have to take things as we find them."
(...)
"...thank you, and my best to what remains of Mrs Roberts.”
― Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

“Where were all the women gamblers? It wasn't as if being a woman wasn't a huge risk all by itself. Twenty-eight percent of female homocide victims were killed by husbands or lovers.

Which, come to think of it, was probably why there weren't any women gamblers. Living with men was enough of a gamble.”
― Jennifer Crusie, Bet Me

“The most I can hope for is to die in a pose that confuses future archaeologists.”
― Yahtzee Croshaw, Jam

“I don't know what it is about "magic happens"-stickers on cars but every time I see one I wanna get out my permanent marker and sneak over and write underneath it "so does cot death".”
― Tim Minchin

“From Orient Point

The art of living isn't hard to muster:
Enjoy the hour, not what it might portend.
When someone makes you promises, don't trust her

unless they're in the here and now, and just her
willing largesse free-handed to a friend.
The art of living isn't hard to muster:

groom the old dog, her coat gets back its luster;
take brisk walks so you're hungry at the end.
When someone makes you promises, don't trust her

to know she can afford what they will cost her
to keep until they're kept. Till then, pretend
the art of living isn't hard to muster.

Cooking, eating and drinking are a cluster
of pleasures. Next time, don't go round the bend
when someone makes you promises. Don't trust her

past where you'd trust yourself, and don't adjust her
words to mean more to you than she'd intend.
The art of living isn't hard to muster.

You never had her, so you haven't lost her
like spare house keys. Whatever she opens,
when someone makes you promises, don't. Trust your
art; go on living: that's not hard to muster.”
― Marilyn Hacker

“We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not understand).”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“While traditionalism can thwart the planners and molders of industry, education, and society in general, fatalism can so stultify a people that passive resignation becomes the approved norm, and acceptance of undesirable conditions becomes the way of life.”
― Jack E. Weller, Yesterday's People: Life in Contemporary Appalachia

“Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
― Allen Saunders

“Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, Very Good, Jeeves!

“Life calls the tune, we dance.”
― John Galsworthy

“Many young men started down a false path to their true destiny. Time and fortune usually set them aright.”
― Mario Puzo, The Godfather

“Now is the dramatic moment of fate, Watson, when you hear a step upon the stair which is walking into your life, and you know not whether for good or ill.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“May those who follow their fate be granted happiness; may those who defy it be granted glory”
― Mizuo Shinonome, Princess TuTu, Vol. 1

“I mean that we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry,' answered Father Brown. 'The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on the real offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong person.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

“He thought his detective brain as good as the criminal's, which was true. But he fully realised the disadvantage. "The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic," he said with a sour smile, and lifted his coffee cup to his lips slowly, and put it down very quickly. He had put salt in it.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Innocence of Father Brown

“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorns have roses.”
― Alphonse Karr, A Tour Round My Garden

“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.”
― H.L. Mencken, A Book of Burlesques

“No time to grieve for roses when the forests are burning.”
― Juliusz Słowacki

“But Matthiesen hit on the concept of return on investment, though she didn’t call it that. Instead, she asked her kids to estimate the hours of fun per dollar that any particular Want of theirs might provide.”
― Ron Lieber, The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

“every conversation about money is also about values. Allowance is also about patience. Giving is about generosity. Work is about perseverance. Negotiating their wants and needs and the difference between the two has a lot to do with thrift and prudence.”
― Ron Lieber, The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

“I call it Dewey’s rule, and it stands for the idea that parents should try to arrange things so that, on average, their children end up in the 30th percentile of stuff.”
― Ron Lieber, The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money

“One way to make sure children know that questions are welcome is to praise their asking them so routinely that posing good ones becomes a habit.”
― Ron Lieber, The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money