Remarks Quotes - Page 17

• Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence.

  Daniel Gilbert

  Running, Rude, Ignorant

  "What Is Your Dangerous Idea?". Book by John Brockman (p. 43), 2007.

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• The formula for a happy marriage is five positive remarks, or interactions, for every one negative.

  Nancy Etcoff

  Motivation, Inspiration, Negative

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• No less a bold and pugnacious figure than Winston Churchill broke down and was unable to finish his remarks at the sendoff of the British Expeditionary Force into the maelstrom of World War I in Europe.

  Barbara Tuchman

  War, Europe, World

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• My toils in the quotation field have led me to formulate two or three laws about the way people use and abuse quotations. My first law is: When in doubt, ascribe all quotations to Bernard Shaw - which I don't mean to be taken literally, but as a general observation of the habit people have of attaching remarks to the nearest obvious speaker. Churchill, Wilde, Orson Welles and Alexander Woollcott are other useful figures upon whom to father remarks when you don't know who really said them.

  Nigel Rees

  Father, Taken, Mean

  "Sayings of the Century". Book by Nigel Rees, 1984.

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• Sometimes he would advise me to read poetry, and would send me in his letters quantities of verses and whole poems, which he wrote from memory. 'Read poetry,' he wrote: 'poetry makes men better.' How often, in my later life, I realized the truth of this remark of his! Read poetry: it makes men better.

  Peter Kropotkin

  Memories, Men, Letters

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• I object to that remark very strongly! - The Magician's Nephew

  C. S. Lewis

  Nephew, Magician, Objects

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• Here I should like to remark, for the sake of princes and princesses in general, that it is a low and contemptible thing to refuse to confess a fault, or even an error. If a true princess has done wrong, she is always uneasy until she has had an opportunity of throwing the wrongness away from her by saying: 'I did it; and I wish I had not; and I am sorry for having done it.

  George MacDonald

  Sorry, Princess, Opportunity

  George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.4208, Delphi Classics

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• The debate was wearing me out. Once you've posed that question, it won't go away. I think many people kill themselves simply to stop the debate about whether they will or they won't. Anything I thought or did was immediately drawn into the debate. Made a stupid remark--why not kill myself? Missed the bus--better put an end to it all. Even the good got in there. I liked that movie--maybe I shouldn't kill myself.

  Susanna Kaysen

  Stupid, Thinking, People

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• A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.

  P. G. Wodehouse

  Summer, Children, Regret

  P.G. Wodehouse (2009). “Summer Lightning: (Blandings Castle)”, p.10, Random House

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• Very few of the people who accentuate the futility of life remark the futility of themselves. Perhaps they think that in proclaiming the evil of living they somehow salvage their own worth from the ruin - but they don't, even you and I.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Thinking, Futility Of Life, Evil

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2016). “The Beautiful and Damned: American Literature”, p.287, VM eBooks

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• Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President's economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation - innovation begins in the classroom - clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform.

  Nancy Pelosi

  Jobs, Believe, Technology

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• If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be suspect.

  Richard M. Nixon

  Stupid, Office, President

  Nixon, Richard M. (1975). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard M. Nixon, 1973”, p.694, Best Books on

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• About the nicest thing God ever invented was alcohol. He's proud of it, too. The Bible's full of kind remarks about booze.

  Herman Wouk

  Alcohol, Proud, Kind

  HERMAN WOUK (1955). “MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR”

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• I remind you that no man who makes disparaging remarks concerning those of another race can consider himself a true disciple of Christ," said President Hinckley. "How can any man holding the Melchizedek Priesthood arrogantly assume that he is eligible for the priesthood whereas another who lives a righteous life but whose skin is of a different color, is ineligible?

  Gordon B. Hinckley

  Men, Race, Color

  "The Need for Greater Kindness" by Gordon B. Hinckley, www.lds.org. May, 2006.

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• When you're cruising down the road in the fast lane and you lazily sail past a few hard-driving cars and are feeling pretty pleased with yourself and then accidently change down from fourth to first instead of third thus making your engine leap out of your hood in a rather ugly mess, it tends to throw you off stride in much the same way that this remark threw Ford Prefect off his.

  Douglas Adams

  Past, Car, Feelings

  Douglas Adams (2017). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Omnibus: A Trilogy in Four Parts”, p.71, Pan Macmillan

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• When asked by a grumpily puzzled professor what "rules" he followed, Debussy is said to have retorted, mon plaisir "whatever I please" and he further claimed that more was to be gained by watching the sun rise than by listening to the Pastoral Symphony. Although such remarks were intended to shock, they contain a core of Debussyan verity.

  Claude Debussy

  Past, Symphony, Listening

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• A successful poem says what a poet wants to say, and more, with particular finality. The remarks he makes about his poems are incidental when the poem is good, or embarrassing or absurd when it is bad and he is not permitted to say how the good poem is good, and may never know how the bad poem is bad. It is better to write about other people's poetry.

  Randall Jarrell

  Writing, Successful, People

  "Mid-Century American Poets". Book by John Ciardi, "Answers to Questions" (p. 171), 1950.

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• Witticism. A sharp and clever remark, usually quoted and seldom noted; what the Philistine is pleased to call a joke.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Clever, Philistines, Jokes

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.136, Courier Corporation

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• The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn't make any sense if quoted as it stands.

  Robert Benchley

  Men, Monkeys, Way

  Robert Benchley (1951). “My ten years in a quandary and how they grew”

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• There are some good things and some fantastic ones in Auden's early attitude; if the reader calls it a muddle I shall acquiesce, with the remark that the later position might be considered a more rarefied muddle. But poets rather specialize in muddles and I have no doubt which of the muddles was better for Auden's poetry: one was fertile and usable, the other decidedly is not. Auden sometimes seems to be saying with Henry Clay, "I had rather be right than poetry"; but I am not sure, then, that he is either.

  Randall Jarrell

  Attitude, Doubt, Might

  "The Third Book of Criticism". Book by Randall Jarrell, "Changes of Attitude and Rhetoric in Auden's Poetry" (p. 131), 1969.

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• The only use for military service is that it reveals the number of morons in the population," he would remark. "And that can be discovered in the first two weeks; there's no need for two years. Army, Marriage, the Church and Banking: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Yes, go on, laugh.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Military, Army, Numbers

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon (2005). “The Shadow of the Wind”, p.99, Penguin

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• Thus, from admiration of one wise and innocent child, and from a misheard remark, the process that not even Aristotle could codify was triggered. Where do you get your ideas? I purposely mishear things.

  Harlan Ellison

  Wise, Children, Writing

  Harlan Ellison (2014). “Slippage: Previously Uncollected, Precariously Poised Stories”, p.103, Open Road Media

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• It is a very inconvenient habit of kittens (Alice had once made the remark) that whatever you say to them, they always purr.

  Lewis Carroll

  Cat, Habit, Kitten

  Lewis Carroll (2015). “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass”, p.290, Broadview Press

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• I am not shy about admitting my modest talents. For example, I am happy to admit that I am better than average at clever remarks, and I also have a flair for getting people to like me. But to be perfectly fair to myself, I am ever-ready to confess my shortcomings, too, and a quick round of soul-searching forced me to admit that I had never been any good at all at breathing water. As I hung there from the seat belt, dazed and watching the water pour in and swirl around my head, this began to seem like a very large character flaw.

  Jeff Lindsay

  Clever, Smart, Character

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