Barbara Holland Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The thousands of possible lives that used to spread out in front of me have snapped shut into one, and all I get is what I've got. It's time to pass on the possibilities, all those deliciously half-open doors, to my children, and drive them to the airports, and wish them bon voyage.

  Barbara Holland

  Life, Children, Airports

  5 Copy quote

• The only people who still read poetry are poets, and they mostly read their own.

  Barbara Holland

  People, Poet, Stills

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  7 Copy quote

• Cats vary so widely that all data is meaningless and the professional classifiers gnash their teeth trying to come up with even a single fact common to all.

  Barbara Holland

  Cat, Data, Trying

  Barbara Holland (1994). “Secrets of the Cat: Its Lore, Legend, and Lives”, Ivy Books

  8 Copy quote

• Success in war was the only success that counted; failure was a disgrace to be wiped out only by starting another war and winning it.

  Barbara Holland

  War, Winning, Starting

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Smiting enemies has always been so admired that, unlike medicine or archaeology, it entitled its successful practitioners to become kings, emperors, and presidents.

  Barbara Holland

  Kings, Successful, Medicine

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• If a quick glance back over world history shows us anything, it shows us that war was one of our most universal joys from our earliest beginnings, savored at every possible opportunity and even some quite incomprehensible ones.

  Barbara Holland

  War, Opportunity, Joy

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Our Revolution was born and raised in taverns.

  Barbara Holland

  Taverns, Revolution, Born

  Barbara Holland (2008). “The Joy of Drinking”, p.63, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  4 Copy quote

• The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition claims that a moderate beer drinker - whatever that means - swallows 11 percent of his dietary protein needs, 12 percent of the carbohydrates, 9 percent of essential phosphorus, 7 percent of his riboflavin, and 5 percent of niacin. Should he go on to immoderate beer drinking, he becomes a walking vitamin pill.

  Barbara Holland

  Drinking, Mean, Beer

  Barbara Holland (2007). “The Joy of Drinking”, Bloomsbury USA

  4 Copy quote

• parents needn't bother driving small children around to see the purple mountains' majesties; the children will go right on duking it out in the back seat and whining for food as if you were showing them Cincinnati. No one under twenty really wants to look at scenery.

  Barbara Holland

  Children, Purple, Parent

  4 Copy quote

• A catless writer is almost inconceivable.

  Barbara Holland

  Barbara Holland (1994). “Secrets of the Cat: Its Lore, Legend, and Lives”, Ivy Books

  4 Copy quote

• In civilized places idleness, once the prerequisite for abstract thought, poetry, religion, philosophy, and falling in love, has become a character flaw. In America we've managed to stamp it out almost completely, and few people under forty can remember a single moment of it, even in earliest childhood. The phrase 'spare time' has vanished from the land.

  Barbara Holland

  Falling In Love, Philosophy, Single Mom

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• In the metropolitan haunts of the highly sophisticated, the cocktail is no longer an instrument of friendship but a competitive fashion statement, or one-upmanship.

  Barbara Holland

  Fashion, Cocktails, Sophisticated

  Barbara Holland (2008). “The Joy of Drinking”, p.135, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  4 Copy quote

• Exercise, to qualify at all, must be lonely, painfu, humorless, and boring.

  Barbara Holland

  Fitness, Lonely, Exercise

  4 Copy quote

• It's curious that throughout our history together, with no apparent effort, people have been able to think of the cat simultaneously as the guardian spirit of the hearth and home, and as the emblem of freedom, independence, and rootlessness.

  Barbara Holland

  Home, Heart, Cat

  Barbara Holland (1994). “Secrets of the Cat: Its Lore, Legend, and Lives”, Ivy Books

  4 Copy quote

• In a proper pub everyone there is potentially, if not a lifelong friend, at least someone to lure into an argument about foreign policy or the Red Sox.

  Barbara Holland

  Red, Argument, Pubs

  Barbara Holland (2008). “The Joy of Drinking”, p.23, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  5 Copy quote

• Single life should be experimental in nature and open to accidents. Some accidents are happy ones.

  Barbara Holland

  Single Life, Should, Accidents

  Barbara Holland (1992). “One's Company: Reflections on Living Alone”

  4 Copy quote

• One's own flowers and some of one's own vegetables make acceptable, free, self-congratulatory gifts when visiting friends, though giving zucchini - or leaving it on the doorstep, ringing the bell, and running - is a social faux pas.

  Barbara Holland

  Running, Flower, Zucchini

  20 Copy quote

• The larger the ego, the less the need for other egos around. The more modest, humble, and self-effacing we feel, the more we suffer from solitude, feeling ourselves inadequate company.

  Barbara Holland

  Humble, Self, Ego

  Barbara Holland (1996). “One's Company: Reflections on Living Alone”

  6 Copy quote

• Napping is too luxurious, too sybaritic, too unproductive, and it's free; pleasures for which we don't pay make us anxious. Besides, it seems to be a natural inclination. ... Fighting off natural inclinations is a major Puritan virtue, and nothing that feels that good can be respectable.

  Barbara Holland

  Sleep, Fighting, Pay

  "Literature,one screen at a time" by Alex Beam, www.nytimes.com. November 16, 2005.

  4 Copy quote

• a woman may be called a wife and mother for most of her life, while a man is called a husband and father only at his funeral.

  Barbara Holland

  Mother, Husband, Father

  Barbara Holland (1996). “One's Company: Reflections on Living Alone”

  12 Copy quote

• Hospitality, or flinging wide the door to friends and wayfarers alike, was once important, back in a world without motels or safety nets, where a friend might find his castle burnt down or a wayfarer find bandits on his trail.

  Barbara Holland

  Doors, Safety, Important

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Sophistication called for a variety of talents and attitudes, but the minimum requirement was being in New York. Not all New Yorkers achieved it, but nobody elsewhere had a prayer.

  Barbara Holland

  New York, Prayer, Attitude

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Very few people have no opinions about cats.

  Barbara Holland

  Cat, People, Opinion

  Barbara Holland (1994). “Secrets of the Cat: Its Lore, Legend, and Lives”, Ivy Books

  7 Copy quote

• I was getting sick and tired of being lectured by dear friends with their little bottles of water and their regular visits to the gym. All of a sudden, we've got this voluntary prohibition that has to do with health and fitness. I'm not really in favor of health and fitness.

  Barbara Holland

  Tired, Sick, Water

  "She'll Drink to That" by Peter Carlson, www.washingtonpost.com. May 29, 2007.

  4 Copy quote

• Coaches and headmasters praise sport as a preparation for the great game of life, but this is absurd. Nothing could be more different from life. For one thing sports, unlike life, are played according to rules. Indeed, the rules are the sport: life may behave bizarrely and still be life, but if the runner circles the bases clockwise it's no longer baseball.

  Barbara Holland

  Sports, Baseball, Games

  12 Copy quote

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