Clarence Darrow 1857–1938 American lawyer
The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children.
Edward VIII 1894–1972 British king
Never criticize Americans. They have the best taste that money can buy.
Miles Kington 1941–2008 English humorist
So I really think that American gentlemen are the best after all, because kissing your hand may make you feel very very good but a diamond and safire bracelet lasts forever.
Anita Loos 1893–1981 American writer
The continental United States slopes gently from east to west, with the result that everything with a screw loose rolls into California.
John Naughton 1946– Irish academic
Wherever there is suffering, injustice and oppression, the Americans will show up, six months late, and bomb the country next to where it’s happening.
P. J. O’Rourke 1947– American humorous writer
In America any boy may become President and I suppose it’s just one of the risks he takes!
Adlai Stevenson 1900–65 American Democratic politician
In Europe, when a rich woman has an affair with a conductor, they have a baby. In America, she endows an orchestra for him.
Edgard Varèse 1885–1965 French-born American composer
The land of the dull and the home of the literal.
Gore Vidal 1925–2012 American writer
The youth of America is their oldest tradition. It has been going on now for three hundred years.
Oscar Wilde 1854–1900 Irish dramatist and poet
Anger and Argument 
Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.
Francis Bacon 1561–1626 English courtier
Violence is the repartee of the illiterate.
Alan Brien 1925–2008 English journalist
The time for action is past. Now is the time for senseless bickering!
Ashleigh Brilliant 1933– American writer and cartoonist
I’ve never won an argument with her; and the only times I thought I had I found out the argument wasn’t over yet.
Jimmy Carter 1924– American Democratic statesman, of his wife Rosalynn
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight—it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1890–1969 American Republican statesman
I’ll not listen to reason ... Reason always means what someone else has got to say.
Elizabeth Gaskell 1810–65 English novelist
There is no arguing with Johnson; for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.
Oliver Goldsmith 1730–74 Irish writer
Any stigma, as the old saying is, will serve to beat a dogma.
Philip Guedalla 1889–1944 British historian
The only person who listens to both sides of a husband and wife argument is the woman in the next apartment.
Sam Levenson 1911–80 American humorist
John Major’s self-control in cabinet was rigid. The most angry thing he would ever do was to throw down his pencil.
Gillian Shephard 1940– English Conservative politician
on seeing two Edinburgh women hurling insults at one another across an alleyway:
Those two women will never agree; they are arguing from different premises.
Sydney Smith 1771–1845 English essayist
Animals and Birds
see also CATS
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won’t get much sleep.
Woody Allen 1935– American film director, writer, and actor
A hen is only an egg’s way of making other eggs.
Samuel Butler 1835–1902 English novelist
I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equal.
Winston Churchill 1874–1965 British Conservative statesman
Animals generally return the love you lavish on them by a swift bite in passing—not unlike friends and wives.
Gerald Durrell 1925–95 English zoologist and writer
after an operation to remove a fishbone stuck in her throat:
After all these years of fishing, the fish are having their revenge.
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother 1900–2002
Honey bees are amazing creatures. I mean, think about it, do earwigs make chutney?
Eddie Izzard 1962– British comedian
No animal should ever jump up on the dining room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.
Fran Lebowitz 1950– American writer
One disadvantage of being a hog is that at any moment some blundering fool may try to make a silk purse out of your wife’s ear.
J. B. Morton 1893–1975 British journalist
My mother made me ride horses when I was young. I didn’t like it. They’re too difficult to steer.
Stirling Moss 1929– British motor-racing driver
God in His wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.
Ogden Nash 1902–71 American humorist
I live in a city. I know sparrows from starlings. After that everything’s a duck as far as I’m concerned.
Terry Pratchett 1948–2015 English fantasy writer
I know two things about the horse
And one of them is rather coarse.
Naomi Royde-Smith c.1875–1964 English novelist and dramatist
Apology and Excuses
VERY SORRY CAN’T COME. LIE FOLLOWS BY POST.
Lord Charles Beresford 1846–1919 British politician, message to the Prince of Wales, on being summoned to dine at the eleventh hour
Go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
Grace Hopper 1906–92 American naval officer and computer scientist
Several excuses are always less convincing than one.
Aldous Huxley 1894–1963 English novelist
on being asked to apologize for calling a fellow MP a liar:
Mr Speaker, I said the honourable member was a liar it is true and I am sorry for it. The honourable member may place the punctuation where he pleases.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan 1751–1816 Irish dramatist and Whig politician
JOHN MCGINLEY: Excuses are like assholes, Taylor—everybody’s got one.
Oliver Stone 1946– American film director, in the film Platoon
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
P. G. Wodehouse 1881–1975 English-born writer
I nearly missed the show tonight. I got to the Underground and saw this sign: ‘Dogs must be carried on the escalators.’ Took me forty minutes to find one.
Harry Worth 1917–89 English comedian
Appearance
see also DESCRIPTION, FACES, HAIR
to her former lover Lord Alington as he dined with another woman in a restaurant:
Don’t you recognize me with my clothes on?
Tallulah Bankhead 1903–68 American actress
I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows.
Janette Barber 1953– American comedian and producer
She is not so much dressed as richly upholstered.
J. M. Barrie 1860–1937 Scottish writer and dramatist