Curmudgeons - ouch! - what did you say?

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"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here."
Stephen Bishop

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
Winston Churchill

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
Irvin S. Cobb

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
Clarence Darrow

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
Samuel Johnson

"He had delusions of adequacy."
Walter Kerr

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
Groucho Marx

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt."
Robert Redford

"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."
Thomas Brackett Reed

"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
Forrest Tucker

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
Mark Twain

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."
OscarWilde

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
Oscar Wilde

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
Billy Wilder

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
Moses Hadas

"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat"
Lily Tomlin

"I'm an idealist: I don't know where I'm going but I'm on my way"
Carl Sandburg

"Hello, I must be going"
Groucho Marks

"In the fight between you and the world, back the world"
Frank Zappa

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
George Bernard Shaw

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."
William James

"Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob and kill you, too."
Anton Chekhov

"Look for the ridiculous in everything and you find it."
Jules Renard

I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education.
Wilson Mizner

"My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated, but not signed."
Christopher Morley

"Always forgive your enemies-nothing annoys them so much."
Oscar Wilde

"One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged."
Heinrich Heine

"Even paranoids have real enemies."
Delmore Schwartz

"The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots."
Rebecca West

"If the world were a logical place, men would ride sidesaddle."
Rita Mae Brown

"What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance."
Havelock Ellis

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative."
Oscar Wilde

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."
Mark Twain

"Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived."
Jonathan Swift

"Happiness is not something you experience, it's something you remember."
Oscar Levant

Brevity is the soul of lingerie.
Dorothy Parker

No good deed goes unpunished.
Clare Booth Luce

"You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think"
Dorothy Parker

"I would like to take you seriously but to do so would be an affront to your intelligence."
William F. Buckley, Jr.


"An optimist is a man who has never had much experience."
Don Marquis

"I must decline your invitation owing to a subsequent engagement."
Oscar Wilde

"There's no underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
H. l. Mencken

"My heart is pure as the driven slush."
Tallulah Bankhead

"Hell is other people."
Jean Paul Sartre

"We all learn by experience but some of us have to go to summer school."
Peter DeVries

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education."
Bertrand Russell

"Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching."
Oscar Wilde

"If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell."
Phillip Sheridan

"He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news."
Bertolt Brecht

"There is no free lunch"
Milton Friedman

"A husband is what's left of the lover once the nerve has been extracted."
Helen Rowland

"Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he's supposed to be doing at the moment."
Robert Benchley

"This book should not be tossed aside lightly, it should be hurled away with great force."
Dorothy Parker

"Whatever it is, I'm against it"
Groucho Marks
Horsefeathers