The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (91 page)

23.28 Arnold Wesker =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1932-

And then I saw the menu, stained with tea and beautifully written by

a foreign hand, and on top it said--God I hated that old man--it said

"Chips with everything." Chips with every damn thing. You breed babies and

you eat chips with everything.

Chips with Everything (1962) act 1, sc. 2

23.29 Mae West =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1892-1980

It's better to be looked over than overlooked.

Belle of the Nineties (1934 film)

A man in the house is worth two in the street.

Belle of the Nineties (1934 film)

You ought to get out of those wet clothes and into a dry Martini.

Every Day's a Holiday (1937 film). A similar line is spoken by Robert

Benchley in the 1942 film The Major and the Minor, written by Charles

Brackett and Billy Wilder. Cf. 7:12

I always say, keep a diary and some day it'll keep you.

Every Day's a Holiday (1937 film)

Beulah, peel me a grape.

I'm No Angel (1933 film)

I've been things and seen places.

I'm No Angel (1933 film)

When I'm good, I'm very, very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.

I'm No Angel (1933 film)

It's not the men in my life that counts--it's the life in my men.

I'm No Angel (1933 film)

Give a man a free hand and he'll try to put it all over you.

Klondike Annie (1936 film)

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

Klondike Annie (1936 film)

I've been in Who's Who, and I know what's what, but it'll be the first

time I ever made the dictionary.

Letter to the RAF, early 1940s, on having an inflatable life jacket named

after her, in Fergus Cashin Mae West (1981) ch. 9

"Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!"

"Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie."

Night After Night (1932 film)

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?

In Joseph Weintraub Peel Me a Grape (1975) p. 47

I used to be Snow White...but I drifted.

In Joseph Weintraub Peel Me a Grape (1975) p. 47

Why don't you come up sometime, and see me? I'm home every evening.

She Done Him Wrong (1933 film; often misquoted as "Come up and see me

sometime," which became Mae West's catch-phrase)

23.30 Dame Rebecca West (Cicily Isabel Fairfield) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1892-1983

Journalism--an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.

New York Herald Tribune 22 Apr. 1956, sec. 6, p. 2

He [Michael Arlen] is every other inch a gentleman.

In Victoria Glendinning Rebecca West (1987) pt. 3, ch. 5

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as

indefensible as infanticide.

The Strange Necessity (1928) "The Tosh Horse"

Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who

sits down and considers just how many people know the truth about his or

her love affairs.

Vogue 1 Nov. 1952

23.31 Edith Wharton =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1862-1937

She sang, of course, "M'ama!" and not "he loves me," since an unalterable

and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of

French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian

for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.

Age of Innocence (1920) bk. 1, ch. 1

She keeps on being Queenly in her own room with the door shut.

The House of Mirth (1905) bk. 2, ch. 1

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of

immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

The Writing of Fiction (1925) ch. 1

Mrs Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though

it were dangerous to meet it alone.

Xingu and Other Stories (1916) "Xingu"

23.32 E. B. White =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1899-1985

Mother: It's broccoli, dear.

Child: I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it.

New Yorker 8 Dec. 1928 (cartoon caption)

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are

right more than half of the time.

New Yorker 3 July 1944

Commuter--one who spends his life

In riding to and from his wife;

A man who shaves and takes a train,

And then rides back to shave again.

Poems and Sketches (1982) "The Commuter"

23.33 T. H. White =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1906-1964

The Victorians had not been anxious to go away for the weekend. The

Edwardians, on the contrary, were nomadic.

Farewell Victoria (1933) pt. 4

The once and future king.

Title of novel (1958)

23.34 Alfred North Whitehead =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1861-1947

Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of the

Universe.

Adventures of Ideas (1933) pt. 1, ch. 5

It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be

true. This statement is almost a tautology. For the energy of operation

of a proposition in an occasion of experience is its interest, and is its

importance. But of course a true proposition is more apt to be interesting

than a false one.

Adventures of Ideas (1933) pt. 4, ch. 16

There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to

treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.

Dialogues (1954) prologue

Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is

capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.

Dialogues (1954) 15 Dec. 1939

What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority then

and there happen to like, and immorality is what they dislike.

Dialogues (1954) 30 Aug. 1941

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic

enjoyment is recognition of the pattern.

Dialogues (1954) 10 June 1943

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations

which we can perform without thinking about them.

Introduction to Mathematics (1911) ch. 5

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical

tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

Process and Reality (1929) pt. 2, ch. 1

23.35 Bertrand Whitehead =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Drinka Pinta Milka Day.

Slogan for the British Milk Marketing Board, 1958

23.36 Katharine Whitehorn =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1926-

No nice men are good at getting taxis.

Observer 1977

Hats divide generally into three classes: offensive hats, defensive hats,

and shrapnel.

Shouts and Murmurs (1963) "Hats"

I wouldn't say when you've seen one Western you've seen the lot; but when

you've seen the lot you get the feeling you've seen one.

Sunday Best (1976) "Decoding the West"

23.37 George Whiting =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

My blue heaven.

Title of song (1927; music by Walter Donaldson)

When you're all dressed up and have no place to go.

Title of song (1912; music by Newton Harding)

23.38 Gough Whitlam =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1916-

Well may he say "God Save the Queen." But after this nothing will save the

Governor-General.... Maintain your rage and your enthusiasm through the

campaign for the election now to be held and until polling day.

Speech in Canberra, 11 Nov. 1975, in The Times 12 Nov. 1975

23.39 Charlotte Whitton =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1896-1975

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as

good. Luckily, this is not difficult.

In Canada Month June 1963

23.40 William H. Whyte =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1917-

This book is about the organization man.... I can think of no other way to

describe the people I am talking about. They are not the workers, nor are

they the white-collar people in the usual, clerk sense of the word. These

people only work for the Organization. The ones I am talking about belong

to it as well.

The Organization Man (1956) ch. 1

23.41 Anna Wickham (Edith Alice Mary Harper) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1884-1947

It is well within the order of things

That man should listen when his mate sings;

But the true male never yet walked

Who liked to listen when his mate talked.

The Contemplative Quarry (1915) "The Affinity"

23.42 Richard Wilbur =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1921-

We milk the cow of the world, and as we do

We whisper in her ear, "You are not true."

Ceremony and Other Poems (1950) "Epistemology"

23.43 Billy Wilder (Samuel Wilder) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1906-

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

In J. R. Columbo Wit and Wisdom of the Moviemakers (1979) ch. 7

23.44 Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Billy Wilder 1906-

I. A. L. Diamond

Gerry: We can't get married at all.... I'm a man.

Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.

Some Like It Hot (1959 film; closing words)

23.45 Thornton Wilder =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1897-1975

Marriage is a bribe to make a housekeeper think she's a householder.

Merchant of Yonkers (1939) act 1

The fights are the best part of married life. The rest is merely so-so.

Merchant of Yonkers (1939) act 2

Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.

In Time 12 Jan. 1953

23.46 Kaiser Wilhelm II =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1859-1941

We have...fought for our place in the sun and have won it. It will be my

business to see that we retain this place in the sun unchallenged, so that

the rays of that sun may exert a fructifying influence upon our foreign

trade and traffic.

Speech in Hamburg, 18 June 1901, in The Times 20 June 1901

23.47 Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Geoffrey Willans 1911-1958

Ronald Searle 1920-

The only good things about skool are the boys wizz who are noble brave

fearless etc. although you hav various swots, bulies, cissies, milksops,

greedy guts and oiks with whom i am forced to mingle hem-hem.

Down With Skool! (1953) p. 7

This is wot it is like when we go back on the skool trane. There are lots

of new bugs and all there maters blub they hav every reason if they knew

what they were going to. For us old lags however it is just another

stretch same as any other and no remision for good conduc. We kno what it

will be like at the other end Headmaster beaming skool bus ratle off

leaving trail of tuck boxes peason smugling in a box of flat 50 cigs

fotherington-tomas left in the lugage rack and new bugs stand as if

amazed.

How To Be Topp (1954) ch. 1

There is no better xsample of a goody-goody than fotherington-tomas in the

world in space. You kno he is the one who sa Hullo Clouds Hullo Sky and

skip about like a girly.

How To Be Topp (1954) ch. 4

Still xmas is a good time with all those presents and good food and i hope

it will never die out or at any rate not until i am grown up and hav to

pay for it all.

How To Be Topp (1954) ch. 11

23.48 Harry Williams =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1874-1924

I'm afraid to come home in the dark.

Title of song (1907; music by Egbert van Alstyne)

23.49 Kenneth Williams =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1926-1988

The nice thing about quotes is that they give us a nodding acquaintance

with the originator which is often socially impressive.

Acid Drops (1980) preface

23.50 Tennessee Williams (Thomas Lanier Williams) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1911-1983

We have to distrust each other. It's our only defence against betrayal.

Camino Real (1953) block 10

We're all of us guinea pigs in the laboratory of God. Humanity is just

a work in progress.

Camino Real (1953) block 12

What is the victory of a cat on a hot tin roof?--I wish I knew....Just

staying on it, I guess, as long as she can.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) act 1

Brick: Well, they say nature hates a vacuum, Big Daddy.

Big daddy: That's what they say, but sometimes I think that a vacuum is