—Lewis Carroll
%
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird,
And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxome foe he sought.
So rested he by the tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood
The Jabberwock, with eyes aflame
Came whuffling through the tulgey wood
One! Two! One! Two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack.
He left it dead, and took its head,
And went galumphing back.
"Hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogroves
And the mome raths outgrabe.
—Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky"
%
Anytime four New Yorkers get into a cab together without arguing, a bank
robbery has just taken place.
—Johnny Carson
%
Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who
doesn't grow up can be vice president.
—Johnny Carson
%
For three days after death hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone
calls taper off.
—Johnny Carson
%
If it weren't for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we'd still
be eating frozen radio dinners.
—Johnny Carson
%
In time of war the first casualty is truth.
—Boake Carter
%
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty,
and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life—so I became a
scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
—M. Cartmill
%
WHERE'S MY HEAD! I mean...my purse.
—Melissa Caruso
%
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young,
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of
the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all
of these.
—George Washington Carver
%
I look upon life as a gift from God. I did nothing to earn it. Now that
the time is coming to give it back, I have no right to complain.
—Joyce Cary
%
The problem with political jokes is they get elected.
—Henry Cate VII
%
Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggie" until you can find a
rock.
—Wynn Catlin
%
I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have
one.
—Marcus Porcius Cato
%
It is a hard matter, my fellow citizens, to argue with the belly, since it
has no ears.
—Marcus Porcius Cato
%
There is nothing more silly than a silly laugh.
—Gaius Valerius Catullus
%
God instructs the heart, not by ideas, but by pains and
contradictions.
—de Caussade
%
I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth
and they never believe me.
—Camillo di Cavour
%
I don't even butter my bread; I consider that cooking.
—Katherine Cebrian
%
The first step towards knowledge is to know that we are ignorant.
—Richard Cecil
%
If you aren't rich you should always look useful.
—Louis-Ferdinand Celine
%
Everything beautiful has its moment and then passes away.
—Luis Cernuda
%
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
—Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
%
Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse.
—Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
%
From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him
and he lost his judgment.
—Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
%
It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.
—Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
%
The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish
expenditure, but in its wise application.
—Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
%
Chess is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you can find
outside an advertising agency.
—Raymond Chandler
%
I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd
better take one along that worked.
—Raymond Chandler
%
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my
horse.
—Charles V, King of France
%
My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that
drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it was, you're lucky to get
out alive.
—Angela Chase, "My So-Called Life"
%
One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
—Francois-Rene Chateaubriand
%
I don't believe in sweeping social change being manifested by one person,
unless he has an atomic weapon.
—Howard Chaykin
%
Art is Nature speeded up and God slowed down.
—Chazal
%
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
—John Vance Cheney
%
The trouble with some women is they get all excited about nothing—and
then they marry him.
—Cher
%
Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance
and without any visible reason.
—Lord Chesterfield
%
Sex...the pleasure is momentry, the position ridiculous, and the expense
damnable.
—Lord Chesterfield
%
A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us
the truth about its author.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
A puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong
things.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found
difficult and not tried.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
Coincidences are spiritual puns.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
Journalism largely consists of saying "Lord Jones is Dead" to people who
never knew that Lord Jones was alive.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys
them very much.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our
enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become their
property that they may more perfectly respect it.
—G. K. Chesterton
%
Old age is not so bad when you consider the alternatives.
—Maurice Chevalier
%
It is a newspaper's duty to print the news and raise hell.
—"The Chicago Times"
%
It's so beautifully arranged on the plate—you know omeone's fingers
have been all over it.
—Julia Child on nouvelle cuisine.
%
Non-cooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes'
enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.
—Julia Child
%
Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
—Noam Chomsky
%
There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint
of an oar upon the water.
—Kate Chopin
%
The simple act of telling a woman's story from a woman's point of view is
a revolutionary act: it never has been done before.
—Carol P. Christ
%
If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see
anybody.
—Agatha Christie
%
The best time to plan a book is while you're doing the dishes.
—Agatha Christie
%
Where large sums of money are concerned, it is advisable to trust
nobody.
—Agatha Christie
%
I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or
whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
—Chuang-tzu
%
We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand
in hand.
—Lady Randolph Spencer Churchill
%
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the
subject.
—Winston Churchill
%
A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks
you not to kill him.
—Winston Churchill
%
Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.
—Winston Churchill
%
Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and
the lash.
—Winston Churchill
%
Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.
—Winston Churchill
%
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
—Winston Churchill
%
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great
ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
—Winston Churchill
%
I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.
—Winston Churchill
%
I like a man who grins when he fights.
—Winston Churchill
%
I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as
equals.
—Winston Churchill
%
If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make
the rubble bounce.
—Winston Churchill
%
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
—Winston Churchill
%
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all
the others that have been tried.
—Winston Churchill
%
Men occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up
and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
—Winston Churchill
%
Mr Attlee is a very modest man. Indeed he has much to be modest
about.
—Winston Churchill
%
Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the
room.
—Winston Churchill
%
Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at
times.
—Winston Churchill
%
Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next
week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to
explain why it didn't happen.
—Winston Churchill
%
Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.
—Winston Churchill
%
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the
average voter.
—Winston Churchill
%
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to
see.
—Winston Churchill
%
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the
inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
—Winston Churchill
%
There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
—Winston Churchill
%
When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite.
—Winston Churchill, on formal declarations of war
%
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an
amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and
then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be
reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to
the public.
—Winston Churchill
%
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in
students.
—John Ciardi
%
Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at pretty girls and
persuade themselves that they have a better idea.
—John Ciardi
%
A room without books is like a body without a soul.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
%
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
%
There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
%
I've seen, I say, I've seen better heads on a mug of beer.
—Senator Claghorn
%
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from
you.
—Ramsey Clark
%
Who will protect the public when the police violate the law?
—Ramsey Clark
%
In the relationship between man and religion, the state is firmly
committed to a position of neutrality.
—Thomas Campbell Clark
%
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
—Arthur C. Clarke
%
If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible
he is almost certainly right, but if he says that it is impossible he is
very probably wrong.
—Arthur C. Clarke
%
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.
—Arthur C. Clarke
%
It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to
create him.
—Arthur C. Clarke
%
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective
stories.
—Arthur C. Clarke
%
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the
zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
—Arthur C. Clarke
%
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them
into the impossible.
—Arthur C. Clarke
%
There is hopeful symbolism in the fact that flags do not wave in a
vacuum.
—Arthur C. Clarke
%
The treacherous, unexplored areas of the world are not in continents or
the seas; they are in the minds and hearts of men.
—Allen E. Claxton
%
The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.
—Eldridge Cleaver
%
I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel
and incompetent comes naturally to me.
—John Cleese
%
America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly
from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of
civilization.
—Georges Clemenceau
%
In order to act, you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is
satisfied with thinking.
—Georges Clemenceau
%
War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.
—Georges Clemenceau
%
War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.
—Georges Clemenceau
%
Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only
founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science.
—Hal Clement
%
For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill.
—R. Clopton
%
Humor is merely tragedy standing on its head with its pants torn.
—Irvin S. Cobb
%
Immortality consists largely of boredom.
—Zefrem Cochrane, "Star Trek: First Contact"
%
The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
—Bruce Cockburn
%
Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
—Claud Cockburn
%
It hasn't always been like this. They didn't used to write on my school
reports, "Jarvis could do better in this subject...and he's a sex
god..."
—Jarvis Cocker on being a sex god
%
A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly
strangled.
—Sir Barnett Cocks
%
Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
—Jean Cocteau
%
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those
we don't like?
—Jean Cocteau
%
When your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.
—Leonard Cohen, "Sisters of Mercy"
%
A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I
believe everything positively stinks.
—Lew Col
%
Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible.
—Frank Moore Colby
%
Were it not for the presence of the unwashed and the half-educated, the
formless, queer and incomplete, the unreasonable and absurd, the infinite
shapes of the delightful human tadpole, the horizon would not wear so wide
a grin.
—Frank Moore Colby
%
It's not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It
saves one having to bother anyone with them.
—Isabel Colegate
%
Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
%
He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
%
A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.
—Colette
%
If I can't have too many truffles, I'll do without truffles.
—Colette
%
What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.
—Colette
%
Writing only leads to more writing.
—Colette
%
There are two types of people: those who come into a room and say, "Well,
here I am!" and those who come in and say, "Ah, there you are."
—Frederick L. Collins
%
I began many years ago, as so many young men do, in searching for the
perfect woman. I believed that if I looked long enough, and hard enough,
I would find her and then I would be secure for life. Well, the years
and romances came and went, and I eventually ended up settling for someone
a lot less than my idea of perfection. But one day, after many years
together, I lay there on our bed recovering from a slight illness. My
wife was sitting on a chair next to the bed, humming softly and watching
the late afternoon sun filtering through the trees. The only sounds to
be heard elsewhere were the clock ticking, the kettle downstairs starting
to boil, and an occasional schoolchild passing beneath our window. And
as I looked up into my wife's now wrinkled face, but still warm and
twinkling eyes, I realized something about perfection...It comes only
with time.
—James L. Collymore, "Perfect Woman"
%
A man usually falls in love with a woman who asks the kinds of questions
he is able to answer.
—Ronald Colman
%
Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life,
impels us through all its mazes and meanderings, but leads none of us by
the same route.
—C. C. Colton
%
He that knows himself, knows others; and he that is ignorant of himself,
could not write a very profound lecture on other men's heads.
—C. C. Colton
%
When you have nothing to say, say nothing.
—C. C. Colton
%
Friendship is not possible between two women, one of whom is very well
dressed.
—Laurie Colwin
%
Pushing forty? She's hanging on for dear life.
—Ivy Compton-Burnett
%
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
—Confucius
%
If we don't know life, how can we know death?
—Confucius
%
Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is
perilous.
—Confucius
%
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
—Confucius
%
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
—Confucius
%
When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we
see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine
ourselves.
—Confucius
%
Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd,
Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn'd.
—William Congreve, "The Mourning Bride"
%
Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the
experience, you're too damned old to do anything about it.
—Jimmy Connors
%
Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build
bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce
bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.
—Rich Cook
%
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who
will be writing about you.
—Cyril Connolly
%
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the
public and have no self.
—Cyril Connolly
%
Imprisoned in every fat man a thin man is wildly signaling to be let
out.
—Cyril Connolly
%
Slums may well be breeding grounds of crime, but middle class suburbs are
incubators of apathy and delirium.
—Cyril Connolly
%
The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet.
—Cyril Connolly
%
Truth is a river that is always splitting up into arms that
reunite. Islanded between the arms the inhabitants argue for a lifetime as
to which is the main river.
—Cyril Connolly
%
Youth is a period of missed opportunities.
—Cyril Connolly
%
You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
—Joseph Conrad
%
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, "Is there a
meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes." And "Can you state in so
many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be, "No."
—Aaron Copland
%
To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself,
incredible and inconceivable.
—Aaron Copland
%
I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which
answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every
morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon and a cat that comes home
late at night.
—Marie Corelli
%
If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.
—Professor Irwin Corey
%
When your IQ rises to 28, sell.
—Professor Irwin Corey to a heckler
%
A good memory is needed after one has lied.
—Pierre Corneille
%
We triumph without glory when we conquer without danger.
—Pierre Corneille
%
A word to the wise ain't necessary—it's the stupid ones that need the
advice.
—Bill Cosby
%
Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.
—Bill Cosby
%
There's no such thing as an original sin.
—Elvis Costello
%
There's no justice in this world.
—Frank Costello, on the prosecution of "Lucky" Luciano by New
York district attorney Thomas Dewey after Luciano had saved Dewey from
Dutch Schultz (by ordering the assassination of Schultz instead)
%
Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.
—Lawrence Coughlin
%
The flush toilet is the basis of Western civilization.
—Alan Coult
%
The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to
chance.
—Robert R. Coveyou
%
A sparkling house is a fine thing if the children aren't robbed of their
luster in keeping it that way.
—Marcelene Cox
%
A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest,
accompanied by mother, who sees that the others get it.
—Marcelene Cox
%
Eating without conversation is only stoking.
—Marcelene Cox
%
The quickest way to know a woman is to go shopping with her.
—Marcelene Cox
%
Weather means more when you have a garden. There's nothing like listening
to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.
—Marcelene Cox
%
You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if
you do not trust enough.
—Frank Crane
%
A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the
Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
—Stephen Crane
%
I stood upon a high place, and saw, below, many devils, running, leaping,
and carousing in sin. One looked up, grinning, and said,
"Comrade! Brother!"
—Stephen Crane, "The Black Riders and Other Lines," 1895
%
Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors.
—Quentin Crisp
%
If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
—Quentin Crisp
%
Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.
—Quentin Crisp
%
Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at
which the hearer is permitted to laugh.
—Quentin Crisp
%
There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years
the dirt doesn't get any worse.
—Quentin Crisp
%
I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with
you.
—Roy Croft