The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram.
— Don Marquis
By the time a bartender knows what drink a man will have before he orders, there is little else about him worth knowing.
We pay for the mistakes of our ancestors, and it seems only fair that they should leave us the money to pay with.
An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience.
If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.
Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.
Successful people are the ones who think up things for the rest of the world to keep busy at.
Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
In order to influence a child, one must be careful not to be that child's parent or grandparent.
Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.
A hypocrite is a person who - but who isn't?
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'
Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.
The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.
Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
In all systems of theology the devil figures as a male person. Yes, it is women who keep the church going.
A demagogue is a person with whom we disagree as to which gang should mismanage the country.
One of the most important things to remember about infant care is: don't change diapers in midstream.
It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld.
Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.
Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.
Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into.
Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.
Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.
Bores bore each other too; but it never seems to teach them anything.
Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.
Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.
Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man's hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them.
Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.
I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors. I would rather start a family than finish one. Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.
The trouble with the public is that there is too much of it; what we need in public is less quantity and more quality.
Some persons are likeable in spite of their unswerving integrity.
There is nothing so habit-forming as money.
Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.
A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself.
Did you ever notice that when a politician does get an idea he usually gets it all wrong.
A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.
I would rather start a family than finish one.
Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.
Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.
There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.
Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.
Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue.
