Famous Ogden Nash Quotes
“If you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.”
"More About People"
Many Long Years Ago (1945)
Source: Hard Lines
“Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.”
"The Parent"; paraphrased variants:
Children aren't happy without something to ignore, and that's what parents were created for.
Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.
Happy Days (1933)
Ogden Nash Quotes about thinking
“Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave
When they think that their children are naive.”
"Baby, What Makes the Sky Blue?"
Versus (1949), Possessions are Nine Points of Conversation
Variant: Some people, and it doesn't matter whether they are paupers or millionaires,
Think that anything they have is the best in the world just because it is theirs.
"How Now, Sirrah? Oh, Anyhow"
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938)
"Look for the Silver Lining"
Happy Days (1933)
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938), I Have It On Good Authority
“I think remorse ought to stop biting the consciences that feed it.”
"A Clean Conscience Never Relaxes"
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938)
Ogden Nash Quotes about people
"Let's Not Climb the Washington Monument Tonight"
Versus (1949)
"Most Doctors Recommend or Yours For Fast Fast Fast Relief" in The Old Dog Barks Backwards (1972)
"Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice"
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938)
Good Intentions (1942), So Does Everybody Else, Only Not So Much
Ogden Nash: Trending quotes
“Some primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good!”
"The Termite"
Good Intentions (1942)
Context: Some primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good!
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.
Many Long Years Ago (1945), The Tale of Custard the Dragon
Many Long Years Ago (1945), The Tale of Custard the Dragon
Ogden Nash Quotes
“A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.”
"A Dog's Best Friend Is His Illiteracy" in The Private Dining Room (1953)
Paraphrased variant: A door is that which a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
Source: Private Dining-room and Other New Verses
"The Terrible People"
Many Long Years Ago (1945)
Context: People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it,
And I wish I could afford to gather all such people into a gloomy castle on the Danube and hire half a dozen capable Draculas to haunt it.
I dont' mind their having a lot of money, and I don't care how they employ it,
But I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it.
“Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.”
Many Long Years Ago (1945), A Lady Thinks She Is Thirty
Context: Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.
Commencement address at his daughter Linell's boarding school, as quoted http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/05/AR2005050501359_pf.html in The Washington Post (8 May 2005)
Context: Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit... So here we are several billion of us, crowded into our global concentration camp for the duration. How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don't have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves.
Many Long Years Ago (1945), Pretty Halcyon Days
“Abracadabra, thus we learn,
The more you create, the less you earn.”
"One From One Leaves Two" http://holyjoe.net/poetry/nash9.htm
Context: Abracadabra, thus we learn,
The more you create, the less you earn.
The less you earn, the more you're given,
The less you lead, the more you're driven,
The more destroyed, the more they feed,
The more you pay, the more they need
The more you earn, the less you keep,
And now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul should take
If the tax collector hasn't got it before I wake.
Many Long Years Ago (1945), Song To Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children
Context: My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;
Contrariwise, my blood runs cold
When little boys go by.
For little boys as little boys,
No special hate I carry,
But now and then they grow to men,
And when they do, they marry.
No matter how they tarry,
Eventually they marry.
And, swine among the pearls,
They marry little girls.
“People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.”
"Old Men"
Many Long Years Ago (1945)
Context: People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when...
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.
Good Intentions (1942), So Does Everybody Else, Only Not So Much
Context: And what really turns my corpuscles to ice,
I carry around clippings and read them to people twice.
And I know what I am doing while I am doing it and I don't want to do it but I can't help doing it and I am just another Ancient Mariner,
And the prospects for my future social life couldn't possibly be barrener.
Did I tell you that the prospects for my future social life couldn't be barrener?
“People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.”
"Old Men"
Many Long Years Ago (1945)
Context: People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when...
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.
"Fortunately"
Versus (1949)
Context: A young person is a person with nothing to learn
One who already knows that ice does not chill and fire does not burn...
It knows it can spend six hours in the sun on its first
day at the beach without ending up a skinless beet,
And it knows it can walk barefoot through the barn
without running a nail in its feet....
Meanwhile psychologists grow rich
Writing that the young are ones' should not
undermine the self-confidence of which.
“Listen, buds, it's March twenty first;
Don't you know enough to burst?”
Spring Song http://books.google.com/books?id=bkFLAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Listen+buds+it's+March+twenty+first+don't+you+know+enough+to+burst%22&pg=PA138#v=onepage
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938)
Context: Listen, buds, it's March twenty first;
Don't you know enough to burst?
Come on, birds, unlock your throats!
Come on, gardeners, shed your coats!
Many Long Years Ago (1945), Song To Be Sung by the Father of Infant Female Children
Context: A fig for embryo Lohengrins!
I'll open all his safety pins,
I'll pepper his powder, and salt his bottle,
And give him readings from Aristotle.
Sand for his spinach I'll gladly bring,
And Tabasco sauce for his teething ring.
Then perhaps he'll struggle through fire and water
To marry somebody else's daughter.
"Bankers Are Just Like Anybody Else, Except Richer"
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938)
Context: Most bankers dwell in marble halls,
Which they get to dwell in because they encourage deposits and discourage withdrawals,
And particularly because they all observe one rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it,
Which is you must never lend any money to anybody unless they don't need it.
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938), I Have It On Good Authority
Context: There are two kinds of people who blow through life like a breeze,
And one kind is gossipers, and the other kind is gossipees,
And they certainly annoy each other,
But they certainly enjoy each other,
Yes, they pretend to flout each other,
But they couldn't do without each other...
"The Terrible People"
Many Long Years Ago (1945)
Context: Perhaps indeed the possession of wealth is constantly distressing,
But I should be quite willing to assume every curse of wealth if I could at the same time assume every blessing.
The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can't cure,
Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor.
Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won't buy, but it's very funny —
Have you ever tried to buy them without money?
“Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens”
"Everybody Tells Me Everything" in The Face Is Familiar (1940)
Context: Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.
“Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit…”
Commencement address at his daughter Linell's boarding school, as quoted http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/05/AR2005050501359_pf.html in The Washington Post (8 May 2005)
Context: Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit... So here we are several billion of us, crowded into our global concentration camp for the duration. How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don't have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves.
“God in his wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.”
"The Fly"
Good Intentions (1942)
Variant: God in his wisdom made me fly, and then forgot to tell me why.
"A Word to Husbands" in Marriage Lines (1964)
“Candy
Is Dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.”
Source: "Reflections on Ice-Breaking" in Hard Lines (1931); this statement is often misattributed to Dorothy Parker.
Good Intentions (1942), Seeing Eye to Eye is Believing
Source: I'm a Stranger Here Myself
“The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.”
"The Cow".
Source: Free Wheeling (1931)
“I dreamt that my hair was kempt.
Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.”
"My Dream" in You Can't Get There from Here (1957)
“The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid,
He had one eye in the middle of his forehead.”
"Adventures of Isabel" http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/adventures-of-isabel/
Many Long Years Ago (1945), A Watched Example Never Boils
"Tarkington, Thou Should'st Be Living in This Hour"
Versus (1949)
Good Intentions (1942), Seeing Eye to Eye is Believing
"First Child . . . Second Child"
Versus (1949)
"Just Keep Quiet and Nobody Will Notice"
I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938)
Many Long Years Ago (1945), A Watched Example Never Boils
Many Long Years Ago (1945), A Watched Example Never Boils
Many Long Years Ago (1945), A Watched Example Never Boils
Good Intentions (1942), Seeing Eye to Eye is Believing
