Ogden Nash: Thing

“Certainly there are things in life that money can’t buy, but it’s very funny –
Did you ever try buying them without money.”

“Progress is a fine thing, but it's gone on long enough.”

“O Adolescence, O Adolescence
I wince before thine incandescence...
When anxious elders swarm about
Crying "Where are you going?", thou answerest "Out,"...
Strewn! All is lost and nothing found
Lord, how thou leavest things around!...”

“These are enlightened days in which you can get hot water and cold water out of the same spigot,
And everybody has something about which they are proud to be broad-minded but they also have other things about which you would be wasting your breath if you tried to convince them that they were a bigot.”

“Another good thing about gossip is that it is within everybody's reach,
And it is much more interesting than any other form of speech,
Because suppose you eschew gossip and just say
Mr. Smith is in love with his wife.
Why that disposes the Smiths as a topic of conversation for the rest of their life,
But suppose you say with a smile, that poor little Mrs. Smith thinks her husband is in love with her, he must be very clever,
Why then you can enjoyably talk about the Smiths forever.”

“Every Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz.:
That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is.”

“There is one thing that ought to be taught in all the colleges,
Which is that people ought to be taught not to go around always making apologies.”

“Oh, things are frequently what they seem,
And this is wisdom's crown:
Only the game fish swims upstream,
But the sensible fish swims down.”

“And I also say Pooh for sweetness and light,
And if you want to get the most out of life, why the thing to do is to be a gossiper by day and gossipee by night.”