Quotations
Quotations
Dorothy Parker Quotations…
A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika.
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
I don’t care what is written about me so long as it isn’t true.
I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound – if I can remember any of the damn things.
I’ve never been a millionaire but I just know I’d be darling at it.
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised.
If wild my breast and sore my pride,
I bask in dreams of suicide,
If cool my heart and high my head
I think “How lucky are the dead.
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.
Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
The best way to keep children home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant–and let the air out of the tires.
This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
I’m never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don’t do any thing. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don’t even do that any more.
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.
Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.
She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
(speaking of Katharine Hepburn)
“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”
Stephen King
“I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.”
Peter De Vries
“About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment.”
Josh Billings
“I have always been a huge admirer of my own work. I’m one of the funniest and most entertaining writers I know.”
Mel Brooks (on writing his Memoirs)
“[I work until] beer o’clock.”
Stephen King On his 9 to 5 writing day, Time – 6 Oct 86
“I never know what I think about something until I read what I’ve written on it.”
William Faulkner
“I have made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”
Blaise Pascal
“The free-lance writer is the person who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.”
Robert Benchley
“A good many young writers make the mistake of enclosing a stamped, self-addressed envelope, big enough for the manuscript to come back in. This is too much of a temptation to the editor.”
Ring Lardner
“The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.”
Leo Rosten
“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”
Tom Clancy
“Ever wonder if illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup?”
John Mendosa.
“What’s another word for thesaurus?”
Steven Wright (…more Steven Wright Quotes).
“This is the sixth book I’ve written, which isn’t bad for a guy who’s only read two.”
George Burns.
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire PR officers.”
Daniel J. Boorstin.
“Only one man ever understood me, and he didn’t understand me.”
G.W. Hegel.
“To write a diary every day is like returning to one’s own vomit.”
Enoch Powell.
“Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.”
Mark Twain (…more Mark Twain Quotes).
“When I am dead, I hope it may be said: ‘His sins were scarlet but his books were read.”
Hilliare Belloc.
“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”
Hunter S. Thompson.
“Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”
Terry Pratchett.
“Fiction writing is great. You can make up almost anything.”
Ivana Trump.
“In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime.”
Phyllis McGinley.
“It’s not a good idea to put your wife into a novel; not your latest wife anyway.”
Norman Mailer.
“I always start writing with a clean piece of paper and a dirty mind.”
Patrick Dennis.
“They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I’m going to miss mine by just a few days.”
Garrison Keilor.
“My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.”
Socrates.
“The most important thing for poets to do is to write as little as possible.”
TS Eliot.
“My reputation grows with every failure.”
George Bernard Shaw.
“Beware of the man who denounces women writers; his pen is tiny and he cannot spell.”
Erica Jong.
“The last time I was in Spain I got through six Jeffrey Archer novels. I must remember to take enough toilet paper next time.”
Bob Monkhouse.
“Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend and inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
Groucho Marx.
“Write something, even if it’s just a suicide note.”
Gore Vidal.
“What would I do if I had only six months left to live? I’d type faster.”
Isaac Assimov.
“The only imaginative fiction being written today is income tax returns.”
Herman Wouk.
“I adore adverbs; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.”
Henry James.
“Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Vistor Hugo.”
Jean Cocteau.
“Once you’ve put one of his books down, you simply can’t pick it up again.”
Mark Twain (talking about Henry James).
“What other culture could have produced someone like Hemmingway and not seen the joke?”
Gore Vidal.
“Critics are to authors what dogs are to lamp-posts.”
Jeffrey Robinson.
“An incinerator is a writer’s best friend.”
Thornton Wilder.
“Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales”
Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time).
“The covers of this book are too far apart.”
Ambrose Bierce.
“The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid and stable business.”
John Steinbeck.
“I have been commissioned to write an autobiography and I would be grateful to any of your readers who could tell me what I was doing between 1960 and 1974.”
Jeffrey Bernard.
“Dr Donne’s verses are like the peace of God; they pass all understanding.”
James I.
“They told me that Gladstone read Homer for fun, which I thought served him right.”
Winston Churchill.
“This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”
Dorothy Parker.
“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.”
Robert Benchley.
“An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.”
Benjamin Disraeli.
“Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
TS Eliot.
“If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.”
Wilson Mizner.
“I am the kind of writer that people think other people are reading.”
VS Naipaul.
“My favourite poem is the one that starts ‘Thirty days hath September’ because it actually tells you something.”
Groucho Marx.
“A publisher who writes is like a cow in a milk bar.”
Arthur Koestler.
“Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction.” Adlai Stevenson.
“All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.”
Oscar Wilde.
“Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.”
Virginia Woolf.
“I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.”
JB Priestley.
American Film Institute’s Top 100 Movie Quotes
1. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” — Rhett Butler (Clark Gable), Gone with the Wind (1939)
2. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” — Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), The Godfather (1972)
3. “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.” — Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando), On the Waterfront (1954)
4. “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” — Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), The Wizard of Oz (1939)
5. “Here’s looking at you, kid.” — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca (1942)
6. “Go ahead, make my day.” — Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), Sudden Impact (1983)
7. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” — Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), Sunset Boulevard (1950)
8. “May the Force be with you.” — Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Star Wars (1977)
9. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” — Margo Channing (Bette Davis), All About Eve (1950)
10. “You talkin’ to me?” — Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), Taxi Driver (1976)
11. “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” — Captain (Strother Martin), Cool Hand Luke (1967)
12. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” — Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), Apocalypse Now (1979)
13. “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” — Oliver Barrett IV (Ryan O’Neal), Love Story (1970)
14. “The stuff that dreams are made of.” — Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart), The Maltese Falcon (1941)
15. “E.T. phone home.” — E.T. (Pat Welsh), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
16. “They call me Mister Tibbs!” — Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), In the Heat of the Night (1967)
17. “Rosebud.” — Charles Foster Kane (Orson Welles), Citizen Kane (1941)
18. “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” — Arthur “Cody” Jarrett (James Cagney), White Heat (1949)
19. “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” — Howard Beale (Peter Finch), Network (1976)
20. “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca (1942)
21. “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.” — Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
22. “Bond. James Bond.” — James Bond (Sean Connery), Dr. No (1962)
23. “There’s no place like home.” — Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland) The Wizard of Oz (1939)
24. “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small.” — Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), Sunset Boulevard (1950)
25. “Show me the money!” — Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise), Jerry Maguire (1996)
26. “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” — Lady Lou (Mae West), She Done Him Wrong (1933)
27. “I’m walking here! I’m walking here!” — “Ratso” Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), Midnight Cowboy (1969)
28. “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.’” — Ilsa Laszlo (Ingrid Bergman), Casablanca (1942)
29. “You can’t handle the truth!” — Col. Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson), A Few Good Men (1992)
30. “I want to be alone.” — Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo), Grand Hotel (1932)
31. “After all, tomorrow is another day!” — Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), Gone with the Wind (1939)
32. “Round up the usual suspects.” — Capt. Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca (1942)
33. “I’ll have what she’s having.” — Customer (Estelle Reiner), When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
34. “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.” — Marie “Slim” Browning (Lauren Bacall), To Have and Have Not (1944)
35. “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” — Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), Jaws (1975)
36. “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges! I don’t have to show you any stinking badges!” — “Gold Hat” (Alfonso Bedoya), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
37. “I’ll be back.” — The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), The Terminator (1984)
38. “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.” — Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper), The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
39. “If you build it, he will come.” — Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta), Field of Dreams (1989)
40. “Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” — Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), Forrest Gump (1994)
41. “We rob banks.” — Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
42. “Plastics.” — Mr. Maguire (Walter Brooke), The Graduate (1967)
43. “We’ll always have Paris.” — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca (1942)
44. “I see dead people.” — Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), The Sixth Sense (1999)
45. “Stella! Hey, Stella!” — Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
46. “Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.” — Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis), Now, Voyager (1942)
47. “Shane. Shane. Come back!” — Joey Starrett (Brandon De Wilde), Shane (1953)
48. “Well, nobody’s perfect.” — Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown), Some Like It Hot (1959)
49. “It’s alive! It’s alive!” — Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive), Frankenstein (1931)
50. “Houston, we have a problem.” — Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks), Apollo 13 (1995)
51. “You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” — Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood), Dirty Harry (1971)
52. “You had me at ‘hello.’” — Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger), Jerry Maguire (1996)
53. “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don’t know.” — Capt. Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho Marx), Animal Crackers (1930)
54. “There’s no crying in baseball!” — Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks), A League of Their Own (1992)
55. “La-dee-da, la-dee-da.” — Annie Hall (Diane Keaton), Annie Hall (1977)
56. “A boy’s best friend is his mother.” — Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), Psycho (1960)
57. “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” — Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), Wall Street (1987)
58. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” — Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), The Godfather: Part II (1974)
59. “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.” — Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), Gone with the Wind (1939)
60. “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!” — Oliver (Oliver Hardy), Sons of the Desert (1933)
61. “Say ‘hello’ to my little friend!” — Tony Montana (Al Pacino), Scarface (1983)
62. “What a dump.” — Rosa Moline (Bette Davis), Beyond the Forest (1949)
63. “Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?” — Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), The Graduate (1967)
64. “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!” — President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers), Dr. Strangelove (1964)
65. “Elementary, my dear Watson.” — Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
66. “Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape.” — George Taylor (Charlton Heston), Planet of the Apes (1968)
67. “Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” — Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart), Casablanca (1942)
68. “Heeere’s Johnny!” — Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), The Shining (1980)
69. “They’re here!” — Carol Anne Freeling (Heather O’Rourke), Poltergeist (1982)
70. “Is it safe?” — Dr. Christian Szell (Laurence Olivier), Marathon Man (1976)
71. “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain’t heard nothin’ yet!” — Jakie Rabinowitz/Jack Robin (Al Jolson), The Jazz Singer (1927)
72. “No wire hangers, ever!” — Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway), Mommie Dearest (1981)
73. “Mother of mercy, is this the end of Rico?” — Cesare Enrico “Rico” Bandello (Edward G. Robinson), Little Caesar (1930)
74. “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” — Duffy (Bruce Glover), Chinatown (1974)
75. “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.” — Blanche Dubois (Vivien Leigh), A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
76. “Hasta la vista, baby.” — The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
77. “Soylent Green is people!” — Det. Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston), Soylent Green (1973)
78. “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.” — Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
79. Striker: “Surely you can’t be serious!” Rumack: “I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley.” — Ted Striker (Robert Hays) and Dr. Rumack (Leslie Nielsen), Airplane! (1980)
80. “Yo, Adrian!” — Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), Rocky (1976)
81. “Hello, gorgeous.” — Fanny Brice (Barbara Streisand), Funny Girl (1968)
82. “Toga! Toga!” — John “Bluto” Blutarsky (John Belushi), National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
83. “Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.” — Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), Dracula (1931)
84. “Oh, no, it wasn’t the airplanes. ‘Twas Beauty killed the Beast.” — Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong), King Kong (1933)
85. “My precious.” — Gollum (Andy Serkis), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
86. “Attica! Attica!” — Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino), Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
87. “Sawyer, you’re going out a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!” — Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter), 42nd Street (1933)
88. “Listen to me, mister. You’re my knight in shining armor. Don’t you forget it. You’re going to get back on that horse, and I’m going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we’re gonna go, go, go!” — Ethel Thayer (Katharine Hepburn), On Golden Pond (1981)
89. “Tell ‘em to go out there with all they got and win just one for the Gipper.” — George Gipp (Ronald Reagan), Knute Rockne, All American (1940)
90. “A martini. Shaken, not stirred.” — James Bond (Sean Connery), Goldfinger (1964)
91. “Who’s on First?” — Dexter (Bud Abbott), The Naughty Nineties (1945)
92. “Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac…It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!” — Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), Caddyshack (1980)
93. “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” — Mame Dennis (Rosalind Russell), Auntie Mame (1958)
94. “I feel the need — the need for speed!” — Lt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) and Lt. Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), Top Gun (1986)
95. “Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.” — John Keating (Robin Williams), Dead Poets Society (1989)
96. “Snap out of it!” — Loretta Castorini (Cher), Moonstruck (1987)
97. “My mother thanks you. My father thanks you. My sister thanks you. And I thank you.” — George M. Cohan (James Cagney), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
98. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” — Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze), Dirty Dancing (1987)
99. “I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!” — Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton), The Wizard of Oz (1939)
100. “I’m the king of the world!” — Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio), Titanic (1997)
