Humor e Ironia

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

Thanksgiving Day . Let us all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys. In the island of Fiji they do not use turkeys; they use plumbers. It does not become you and me to sneer at Fiji.

Dying man couldn’t make up his mind which place to go to—both have their advantages, “heaven for climate, hell for company!”

In the matter of intellect the ant must bea strangely overrated bird. During manysummers, now, I have watched him, whenI ought to have been in better business, andI have not yet come across a living ant thatseemed to have any more sense than a deadone. I refer to the ordinary ant, of course; I have had no experience of those wonderfulSwiss and African ones which vote, keep drilled armies, hold slaves, and dispute about religion.

The widder eats by a bell; she goes to bed by abell; she gits up by a bell—everything’s so awful reg’lar a body can’t stand it.

He knows all about art, but he doesn’t knowwhat he likes.

Some people swallow the universe like a pill; they travel on through the world, like smiling images pushed from behind. For God’s sakegive me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself!

[ Of Ernest Hemingway :] Anyone who marries three girls from St. Louis hasn’t learned much.

It is funny the two things most men are proudest of is the thing that any man can do and doing does in the same way, that is being drunk and being the father of their son.

[ Of Ezra Pound :] A village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not.

[ Of Archibald Primrose, Fifth Earl of Rosebery :] [A] man who never missed a chance of missing an opportunity.

If you give to a thief he cannot steal from you, and then he is no longer a thief.

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.

Even in Paris, I remained a Canadian. I puffed hashish, but I didn’t inhale.

Rire est le propre de l’homme .

The two ladies [Dorothy Parker and Clare Boothe Luce] were trying to get out of a doorway at the same time. Clare drew back and cracked, “Age before beauty, Miss Parker.” As Dotty swept out, she turned to the other guests and said, “Pearls before swine.”

Then I remember her comment on one friend who had lamed herself while in London. It was Mrs. Parker who voiced the suspicion that this poor lady had injured herself while sliding down a barrister.

[ On women writers :] As artists they’re rot, but as providers they’re oil wells; they gush. Norris said she never wrote a story unless it was fun to do. I understand Ferber whistles at her typewriter. And there was that poor sucker Flaubert rolling around on his floor for three days looking for the right word.

[ Of an actress who was said to be kind to her inferiors :] Where does she find them?

[ Responding to a hostess being described as “outspoken” :] Outspoken by whom?

[ When told of the death of Calvin Coolidge :] How can they tell?

[ Of a cocktail party she had attended :] One more drink and I’d have been under the host!

[ Of a performance by Katharine Hepburn :] Let’s all go to see Miss Hepburn and hear her run the gamut of emotions from A to B!

[ Telegram to Mary Sherwood, who finally had her baby after a much-ballyhooed pregnancy, 1915 :]