“There’s a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words”.
Dorothy Parker, The Paris Review Interview.
Category Archives: Quotes
Quote of the day
“When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux.
When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft.”
Seen in an email signature.
Quote of the day
“The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
John Kenneth Galbraith.
Quote of the day
“Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity.”
Marshall McLuhan
Don’t mention the Jews
Funny story from James Murphy’s review of the second volume of Gore Vidal’s autobiography:
The names continue to drop at a rate unknown outside the pages of Hello! magazine, and the end paper collage pictures the author’s apotheosis, surrounded by crowding celebrities, as it might have been attempted by Tiepolo. Some we have met before, some not. We get to know more of Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles, and friends from the hotter media like Paul Newman and the chat show host Johnny Carson, but acting here as his own Boswell, Vidal offers much less anecdotal detail than he gave us before. Still, many of his stories are diverting and some are even memorable, such as the demand which the actor-director José Ferrer received from Hollywood studio executives to exclude all reference to Jews from a film he was making about the Dreyfus Affair…
Quote of the day
” Well, I know when I finish a book I know that it’s not only the worst book I’ve written (laughter all around), but that it’s the worst book that’s ever been written. [Laughter all around] I always tell my wife that. Actually there’s always a point where I go upstairs and go, ‘Oh, God, it’s the worst book ever written.’ And she says, ‘Oh that’s good dear, it means you’re almost through.'”
Novelist William Gibson, in an interview published on his Blog.
This is very consoling. Gibson is such a terrific writer, and even he feels like that. When people ask me if I like writing, I always reply: “I like having written“. Which is true.
Quote of the day
“The clue to surviving that party,” Ruth said, “is never drink anything they can top up. Stick to the Guinness, or some obscure spirit, because you have to make a conscious decision to go back to the bar each time.”
Historian Ruth Dudley Edwards on the Irish Embassy’s pre-Christmas party, quoted by Simon Hoggart.
She’s right. I’ve been to parties in that establishment.
Quote of the Day
“When in doubt, tell the truth.”
Mark Twain.
Quote of the day
From the BBC’s Ryder Cup Blog…
Sign at the K Club: “Lost people should go to the information centre in the tented village.”
Er, if they’re lost, how will they know where to go? Or are they lost in the Biblical sense — i.e. beyond salvation?
Quote of the day
Overheard at a departmental meeting today.
The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouths they have been in.
My colleague thought it might be attributable to Margaret Mead but according to this the original source was Dennis Potter, the great TV playwright.