"When I was younger, my mom never used to let me come here. She thought it was nasty. But, I've got my own money now."
-- Shamell Jackson, age 15, on his frequent visits to McDonald's, in
today's New York Times.

"Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all".
-- William Goldman

"The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it".
-- C.P. Snow

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be".
-- Kurt Vonnegut

"i wanted different things. i fought so hard to be myself. i didn't want
to be fake. i don't fake anything. not sex, not anything..."
-- cyndi lauper, in the new york times magazine, tomorrow.

"Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it."
-- Mark Twain

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it".
-- Alan Kay

"A neurosis is a secret that you don't know you are keeping".
-- Kenneth Tynan

"Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life."
-- Fortune Cookie

"The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion."
-- G.K. Chesterton

"if you don't keep your whistle clean, it won't get blown...."
-- anonymous

"If you think Andy Card was the problem, there aren't enough air holes in your bubble. For months, people have been telling the president someone has to go. And that someone...is Andy Card? Yeah, let's hold onto the torture guy, the no-armor guy, the Katrina guy, the guy who exposes CIA agents, and the guy who shoots old men in the face... No, the real problem was this monster, Andy Card. Who wants to spend more time with his family because they've never heard of him either!"
-- Bill Maher

"to be mature is to accept imperfections."
-- fortune cookie

"New Rule: If Today Show host Katie Couric gets to become anchor of the CBS Evening News, then Barney the Dinosaur gets to replace Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes. This way, everybody wins. CBS News gets a perky blond, and 60 Minutes gets somebody younger".

-- Bill Maher


Image from Suprmchaos.

"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised".
-- Marilyn Manson



(Image from daria.no)

"no, i don't [take myself seriously]. i can't stand anyone who does. they drive me ape-shit. it's show business..."
-- liza, to gia kourlas, time out new york, march 30, 2006.


Image from Fame Tracker.

"It's about how you should say yes. Don't be afraid: Say yes. I think that's the most profound piece of philosophy."

-- Charlotte Rae, on the climactic song Yes, she performed this past weekend in 70, Girl's, 70 at City Center Encores!. As quoted by Adam Feldman in Time Out New York this week.


(Image from Poe Forward)

"suffering, to me, is boring. it's almost a responsibility to stay positive for your own sanity. i also think you can get more cynical and funny as you get older. you get a little rougher. you're allowed. when i'm 65, i'm going to swear like a sailor."
-- liza minnelli, to gia kourlas in time out new york this week.


Image from CTV.

"April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."
-- Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

“I've been thinking Hobbes..."
"On a weekend?
"Well, it wasn't on purpose...”
-- Calvin & Hobbes


(Image from Purple Moon)

“There are people who have money and people who are rich.”
-- Coco Chanel

"We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are."
-- Talmud

"Your friends are God's way of apologizing for your family..."
-- Dr. Wayne Dyer

"Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all."
-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

"I'd like to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs and had a hell of a time.
-- Buck Owens, 1929-2006


(Image from Pulsetc. com)

"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later."
-- Mitch Hedberg

"Happiness has always been dull."
-- Campbell Robertson in Boldface, today's New York Times.

"The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well."
-- Horace Walpole

"Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything."
-- Blaise Pascal

"The single word most frequently associated with George W. Bush today is 'incompetent,' and close behind are two other increasingly mentioned descriptors: 'idiot' and 'liar.'"
-- Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, whose most recent poll found that only 33 percent of the public approves of the job President Bush is doing.

"Good luck and be well."
-- Bill Beutel, 1930-2006, his sign-off expression as longtime anchor on WABC-TV, New York.


Image from The New York Times.

"Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly
enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part
of unanimity".
-- Christopher Morley

"all that we are is the result of what we have thought.
the mind is everything.
what we think,
we become."

-- maharishi mahesh yogi

"i'm sad that we were not able to come to some place of commonality that could start a healing process as it relates to the parade. you konw, that said, i remain hopeful that in the near future we will find that day."

-- christine quinn, on not marching in the st. patrick's day parade this year.

"how you do anything is how
you do everything".
-- t. harv eker

"My own business always bores me to death; I prefer other people's."
-- Oscar Wilde


Image from UCLA Magazine

"Never date an actor, painter, or Gay Chorus Member."
-- Bitch Session, NY Blade

"The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one."
-- Joan Baez

"My name is Barry Manilow... And this is what Clay Aiken will look like in 30 years."
-- Barry Manilow, Barry Manilow: Music and Passion on PBS.


(Image from IGO Shows)

"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left."
-- Oscar Levant


Image from RadioArchives.org

"i guess you'd love for me to say that it was difficult, that i wanted to vomit. but it wasn't...the butt of a mule. i was kissing a human being with a soul."

-- heath ledger, on kissing jake gyllenhaal in brokeback mountain, in rolling stone.

"I have not allowed nonsense to gobble up my time. But I've often felt as though I tumbled upward out of darkness. At other times I've felt like a fine horse galloping through the wind."

-- Gordon Parks, 1912-2006


Image from Culture Vulture.

"When you live your life with an appreciation of coincidences and their meanings, you connect with the underlying field of infinite possibilities".

-- Deepak Chopra

"I'm just trying to matter."
-- June Carter, as quoted by Reese Witherspoon at the Oscar's this week.

"A professional is someone who gets paid".
-- Anonymous

"I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I’ve been prayin' for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Look all around, there’s nuthin but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nuthin but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day."

-- Johnny Nash

"If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day."
-- John A. Wheeler

"My lifestyle had made me a walking time bomb."
-- Jack Wild, 1952-2006


Image from Max Galleries.

"Take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity."
-- George Bernard Shaw

“In not making the decision, you’ve made one. Not doing something is the same as doing it.”
-- Ivan Bloch

"One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you".
-- Larry Gelbart

"You are what you do repeatedly."

-- Shaquille O'Neal

"I went to New York cold. On a $100 dollar bill. Bummed a ride."
-- Don Knotts, 1924-2006


(Image from WVPics).

"You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away".

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me".
-- Benjamin Disraeli

“Every problem was once a solution to a previous problem.”
--Bob Mandel

“Nature is not only all that is visible to the eye.. It also includes the inner pictures of the soul”

-- Edvard Munch


Image from IBiblio.org.

"I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious cult."

-- Rita Rudner


Image from Vegas.com.

A good friend can tell you what is the matter with you in a minute. He may not seem such a good friend after telling.

-- Arthur Brisbane

"I very much doubt if anyone of us has the faintest idea of what is meant by the reality of existence of anything but our own egos."

-- A. Eddington

"There are many who dare not kill themselves for fear of what the neighbors will say."
-- Cyril Connolly

"There are no limits. There are no boundaries. Anything is possible if you want it enough. Keep telling yourself that and keep believing that, in spite of all the setbacks and disappointments, the good times will come your way again soon. Something else you need to keep in mind over the next few weeks: no one is out to get you."

-- Sally Brompton

"Never confuse movement with action."
-- Ernest Hemingway

"Vice President Dick Cheney, while hunting wild geese in the Rose Garden, accidentally shot President Bush twice, once in the heart and once in the head. 'I didn't really shoot the President twice,' said Cheney. 'The second time I shot him, I was president.'"

-- Steve Martin


Image from PBS

"Luscious tenderness and sweet compassion bring joy and contentment."

-- From the Wall at Beard Papa's Cream Puff Shop, as mentioned in Postcards from Hell's Kitchen, today.

"There was no particular influence. My idea was to tell my first novel as a sort of long story ... just to see if I could do it. I had been a freelance writer since I was 16, and I sold things to various magazines and newspapers whenever I could."
-- Peter Benchley, author of Jaws, 1940-2006.


Image from SeattlePI.com

“You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.”
-- Ethel Barrymore

"Happiness begins with facing life with a wink and a smile."
-- Fortune Cookie

"One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say."
-- Will Durant

"Don't get into the bra-burning, anti-man, politics-of-orgasm school."
-- Betty Friedan, 1921-2006

"Listen, you have to live with your memories. Why not change them if you want to?"
-- Liza Minnelli, Inside the Actor's Studio, as quoted by Liz Smith

"That's like asking which was your favorite orgasm of all time."

-- Sam Nelson, when asked about his "favorite song of all time".


Image from H is Orange.

“Competence, like truth, beauty and a contact lens, is in the eye of the beholder.”
-- Laurence J. Peter

"I always say, 'You hire Al Lewis, you get the whole Al Lewis.' He's loud, he's opinionated, he smokes terrible cigars, that's it. I can't be and I'm not going to attempt to be what someone thinks I should be. That's the road to hell."

-- Al Lewis, 1923-2006, Brainy Quote


Image from Collecting Hollywood

“The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you’ll grow out of it.”

-- Doris Day

"There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening".

-- Marshall McLuhan

"I have one piece of advice for those of you who want to receive the lifetime achievement award: Start early!"

-- Shirley Temple Black, at the Screen Actor's Guild Awards, last week.


Image from Encinematheque

"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool."
-- Jane Wagner

"Although it feels like a roller coaster now, life will calm down."
-- Fortune Cookie

"As far as I'm concerned, every New Yorker is born with the inalienable right to ride the D train, shout 'Hey, lady!' with indignation and grow up going regularly to the theater. After all, if a city is fortunate enough to house an entire theater district, shouldn't access to the stage life within it be what makes coming of age in New York different from any other American city?"

-- Wendy Wasserstein, 1950-2006

"I haven't seen it. I'd be glad to talk about ranching, but I haven't seen the movie. I've heard about it...I hope you go [laughter], you know [laughter], I hope you go back to the ranch and the farm, is what I was about to say. I haven't seen it".
-- President George W. Bush, when asked by a college student if he had seen the Brokeback Mountain motion picture.


(Image from Theocracy Watch)

"I went to a garden party to reminisce with my old friends
A chance to share old memories and play our songs again
When I got to the garden party, they all knew my name
No one recognized me, I didn't look the same

But it's all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, ya can't please everyone
So ya got to please yourself

People came from miles around, everyone was there
Yoko brought her walrus, there was magic in the air
An' over in the corner, much to my surprise
Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan's shoes wearing his disguise

But it's all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, ya can't please everyone
So ya got to please yourself
Lot-in-dah-dah-dah, lot-in-dah-dah-dah

Played them all the old songs, thought that's why they came
No one heard the music, we didn't look the same
I said hello to "Mary Lou", she belongs to me
When I sang a song about a honky-tonk, it was time to leave

But it's all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, ya can't please everyone
So ya got to please yourself
Lot-dah-dah-dah (Lot-dah-dah-dah)
Lot-in-dah-dah-dah

Someone opened up a closet door and out stepped Johnny B. Goode
Playing guitar like a-ringin' a bell and lookin' like he should
If you gotta play at garden parties, I wish you a lotta luck
But if memories were all I sang, I'd rather drive a truck

But it's all right now
I learned my lesson well
You see, ya can't please everyone
So ya got to please yourself
Lot-dah-dah-dah (Lot-dah-dah-dah)
Lot-in-dah-dah-dah

An' it's all right now, learned my lesson well
You see, ya can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself"

-- Rick Nelson, 1972


Image from Artist Direct.

"We worked up an act called 'The Nicholas Kids', and did it in the livingroom. Our father said: 'When you're dancing, don't look at your feet, look at the audience. You're not entertaining yourself, you're entertaining the audience."'
-- Fayard Nicholas, 1914-2006, of the Nicholas Brothers.


(Image from Wikipedia)

"America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week".
-- Evan Esar

"We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same".
-- Carlos Castaneda

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things".
-- Peter Drucker

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results."
-- Willie Nelson


Image from Texas Music Project.

"Slow and steady won't do much for your bet in the daily double, but it's the way to win the race of your life."

-- Joan Rivers


Image from VH1.

"Me? I need to keep the plug in the jug".

-- Robert Downey, Jr., in Wonder Boy by Logan Hill in New York Magazine.


Image from theincrowdvlog.com.

"The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity".
-- Helen Rowland

"Dreck is dreck and no amount of fancy polish is going to make it anything else."

-- Linda Ellerbee


Image from NPR.

"The greatest gift is a portion of thyself."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Have no fear of perfection—you’ll never reach it.”
-- Salvador Dali

"Anybody here seen my old friend Martin?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the good they die young.
I just looked 'round and he's gone."

-- Richard Holler

Image from Art.com

"I had been strangled by Ronald Colman, drowned by Montgomery Clift, stabbed and drowned by Robert Mitchum, shot by Jack Palance and by Rod Steiger in two different films and, oh yes, overdosed with heroin by Ricardo Montalban."

-- Shelley Winters, 1920-2006



Image from The Washington Post.

"Red meat is not bad for you. Now blue-green meat, that's bad for you!"

-- Tommy Smothers

"Basic Training for Life:

1. If you open it, CLOSE IT.

2. If you turn it on, TURN IT OFF.

3. If you unlock it, LOCK IT.

4. If you break it, FIX IT.

5. If you can't fix it, CALL SOMEONE WHO CAN.

6. If you borrow it, RETURN IT.

7. If you use it, TAKE CARE OF IT

8. If you make a mess, CLEAN IT UP.

9. If you move it, PUT IT BACK.

10. If it belongs to someone else, GET PERMISSION TO USE IT.

12. If you don't know how to operate it, READ THE DIRECTIONS.

13. If it doesn't concern you, DON'T MESS WITH IT."

-- Anonymous

"We are just trying to give people a break."

-- Craig Newmark, of CraigsList, in New York Magazine, this week.

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."

-- James Baldwin

“Being an optimist after you’ve got everything you want, doesn’t count.”

-- Kin Hubbard