Quotes about vacation

A collection of quotes on the topic of vacation, going, year, doing.

Quotes about vacation

“I strive to have a life that
I don't need a vacation from!”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Life

“No man needs a vacation so much as the man who has just had one.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“Reading… a vacation for the mind….”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Reading

“There was nothing like a Saturday - unless it was the Saturday leading up to the last week of school and into summer vacation. That of course was all the Saturdays of your life rolled into one big shiny ball.”

Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer

Source: Rising Tides

Life, School, Summer

“No, I won't try to escape myself by losing myself in artificial chatter 'Did you have a nice vacation?' 'Oh, yes, and you?' I'll stay here and try to pin that loneliness down.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Loneliness

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don't need to escape from.”

Seth Godin (1960) American entrepreneur, author and public speaker

Life

“Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

As quoted in Sacramento Bee (28 April 1966)
1960s

“You don't need to travel, laughter is an instant vacation”

Milton Berle (1908–2002) American comedian and actor

Variant: Laughter is an instant vacation.

Travel, Laughter

“I promise you, I will not be taking very long vacations, if I take them at all. There's no time for vacations. We're not going to be big on vacations.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Hardball with Chris Matthews, August 4, 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC_3IxKcQIA March 14, 2016 rally 2010s, 2016, March

Time

“Although I am new in the business, my team is not. I would say that, person for person, there has never been a better rocket company in existence, in history. I don’t think there has ever been a group this talented in one place, in one company, developing a rocket – ever.
If you have millions of dollars it changes your lifestyle, and anyone who says differently is talking ########. I don’t need to work, from a standard of living point of view, but I do, you know. I work every day and on weekends and I haven’t taken a vacation for years.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

Conversation: Elon Musk on Wired Science (2007)

History, Business, Thinking, Change

“I was truly under Hitler's spell, that cannot be denied. I was impressed with him from the moment I first met him, in 1932. He had terrific power, especially in his eyes. Now the tribunal accuses us of conspiracy. I say, how can one have a conspiracy in a dictatorship government? One man and one man only made all the crucial decisions. That was the Fuhrer. In all my dealings with him I never discussed the exterminations or anything of that sort. What I shall never comprehend is that six weeks before the end of the war he assured me we'd win by a nose. I left his presence then and said that from that time forth I was completely at a loss — that I didn't understand a thing. Hitler always, until the end, and even now, had a strange fascination over me. Would you call it abnormal of me? Sometimes, in his presence, when he spoke of all his plans, the good things he would do for the Volk, vacations, highways, new buildings, cultural advantages and so forth, tears would come to my eyes. Would that be because I'm a hysterical weak man?”

Joachim von Ribbentrop (1893–1946) German general

To Leon Goldensohn, July 15, 1946, from "The Nuremberg Interviews" by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History - 2004

War, Understanding, Decision, Tear

“I would say I'm good at organizing things, like trips or vacations. I'm always the one to book the flights, and do things like that. I like to do my research. I wouldn't say I'm a super type A personality, but I like to be organized when it comes to travel and vacation.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"The Advice Alex Morgan Would Give Her Daughter About Getting Into Sports" https://www.romper.com/life/alex-morgan-olympics-daughter-interview (July 10, 2021)

Personality, Books, Travel

“I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun. I put them on and went out of the room.”

Raymond Chandler book Farewell, My Lovely

Source: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), chapter 34

Life, Home, Drink, Country

“When people went on vacation, they shed their home skins, thought they could be a new person.”

Aimee Friedman (1979) American writer

Source: Sea Change

People, Home, Personality

“Tell you what, you let me go, and I’ll ask you plenty of questions about your race. Until then, I’m slightly distracted with how this little vacation on the good ship Holy Sh*t is going to pan out for me.”

Jessica Bird book Lover Unbound

Source: Lover Unbound

Question

“But he was so great!' Yes, and the people who got on the Titanic thought they were going on a vacation”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

People

“A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.”

Eugéne Ionesco (1909–1994) Romanian playwright

Life, Thinking

“We see a hearse; we think sorrow. We see a grave; we think despair. We hear of a death; we think of a loss. Not so in heaven. When heaven sees a breathless body, it sees the vacated cocoon & the liberated butterfly.”

Max Lucado (1955) American clergyman and writer

Source: Max on Life: Answers and Insights to Your Most Important Questions

Death, Thinking, Loss, Despair

“It was a year for the ages, like 79, like 1346, to name just a few. Forget the scythe, Goddamn it, I needed a broom or a mop. And I needed a vacation.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Age, Forgetting

“If you're born in a cubicle and grow up in a corridor, and work in a cell, and vacation in a crowded sun-room, then coming up into the open with nothing but sky over you might just give you a nervous breakdown.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Source: Foundation

Sun

“He laid into me with the same gusto as a right-wing political pundit on the O'Reilly Factor defending President's Bush right to vacation six days out of the week.”

Chelsea Handler book Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (2008)
Source: Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

“That's why people take vacations. No to relax or find excitement or see new places. To escape the death that exists in routine things.”

Don DeLillo book White Noise

Source: White Noise

Death, People

“Leaving sex to the feminists is like letting your dog vacation at the taxidermist.”

Camille Paglia (1947) American writer

As quoted in Sex from Plato to Paglia : A Philosophical Encyclopedia (2006) by Alan Soble, Volume 2, p. 378, ISBN 9780313334252

Dogs, Sex

“Maybe that's the best part of going away for a vacation-coming home again.”

Madeleine L'Engle book Meet the Austins

Source: Meet the Austins

Peaceful, Home, Parting

“I felt lethal, on the verge of frenzy. My nightly bloodlust overflowed into my days and I had to leave the city. My mask of sanity was a victim of impending slippage. This was the bone season for me and I needed a vacation.”

Bret Easton Ellis book American Psycho

Source: American Psycho

Season

“What's all this about yanking poor Magnus and Alec back from their vacation?" Isabelle demanded. "They have opera tickets!”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

“If we would give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.”

Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879–1958) American author and social activist

Life, Question, Business, Falseness

“You know how I feel about love. It was invented to sell wedding cakes. And vacations to Waikiki.”

Carolyn Mackler book The Future of Us

Source: The Future of Us

Love, Feeling, Wedding

“So many of us find ourselves saying, “but he was so great!” Yes, and the people who got on the Titanic thought they were going on vacation. Things changed and it’s important to remember that they did.”

Greg Behrendt (1963) American comedian

Source: It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy

People, Change

“Sometimes you’re just the sweetest thing. Like Christmas, summer vacation, and a brand-new puppy rolled into one.”

Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart

Source: Sputnik Sweetheart

Christmas, Summer

“Here’s to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy.”

Charlaine Harris (1951) American writer

Books

“There's nothing like a mission to save the world to liven up a vacation.”

Donita K. Paul (1950) American writer

Source: DragonQuest

World

“The rest of our weekend—sleeping arrangements, hand-done work, hand-prepared food—was simple enough to please Thoreau, who I am convinced was a nice fellow who confused rustic vacations with life.”

Alexei Panshin book Rite of Passage

Source: Rite of Passage (1968), Chapter 11 (p. 157).

Life, Food, Sleep

“Audiences who have been forced to wade through the thick middle-class padding of more expensively made movies to get to the action enjoy the nose-thumbing at "good taste" of cheap movies that stick to the raw materials. At some basic level they like the pictures to be cheaply done, they enjoy the crudeness; it’s a breather, a vacation from proper behavior and good taste and required responses. Patrons of burlesque applaud politely for the graceful erotic dancer but go wild for the lewd lummox who bangs her big hips around. That’s what they go to burlesque for.”

Pauline Kael book Going Steady

Going Steady (1969), Trash, Art and the Movies (February 1969)

Behavior

“Until last year, although this town was barely fifty miles from Denver, the road had been bad and only a handful of visitors had chanced on it. The increasing tendency for people to take mountain vacations, however, since the sea had become too filthy to be tolerable, could not be ignored. The road now was excellent and the area had exploded.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

January “SNOW JOB”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

People, Mountain, Chance, Sea

“Stewart: Living. Living. Everyday living. At home, in the garden, around the house, with the kids, um, on vacation, and it has always been for me a very serious subject. But to persuade other people that it's a serious subject, not my readers, not my, not my followers, I don't want to call them followers, my friends, but to persuade…”

Martha Stewart (1941) American businesswoman, writer, television personality, and former fashion model

On Charlie Rose, 15 September 1995

People, Home, Housing

“What Dad means by "see" of course, is "drive past at 67 miles per hour." Dad feels it is a foolish waste of valuable vacation time to get out of the car and actually go look at an attraction.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need (1991)

Cars, Feeling, Time, Past

“I love working. I'm not a vacation guy. Right? Like Obama, he plays golf in Hawaii. He flies in a 747.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Hardball with Chris Matthews, August 4, 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC_3IxKcQIA April 21, 2016 rally 2010s, 2016, April

Love, Guy

“I was officially advised that during the long vacation it might be profitable to attain at least a nodding acquaintance with the curriculum, and thus stave off the already likely possibility that I would receive a degree classified so low it would be tantamount to a certificate of mental disability.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

Source: Memoirs, May Week Was in June (1990), p. 45

“Isn't there some great, grim irony in the fact that the whole country gets a day off work in honor of a man who struggled against and died to end oppression, even after having re-elected one of the greatest would-be oppressors of the last century? And that the threat of freedom for a minority may have been what finally tipped the electoral scales in Dominar Bush's favor? Yes, I think that's what it is, a great, grim irony. King said, "No one is free until we are all free." Somehow, the Reverend Bernice King has missed that part, as have so many other Americans. All or nothing. Personally, I think that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day should have been suspended this year in recognition of Bush's second term. A nation cannot simultaneously pat itself on the back for granting this group of people freedom and strive to deny freedom to this other group. Or, rather, it can, but it should not be permitted to do so. The vacation has not been earned because the work is not finished.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

(17 January 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005

People, Thinking, Freedom, Parting

“It started out — my mom and dad took a little vacation to Mexico and they left $250 for food. But instead of food we went and bought some instruments. We got a bass, guitar and a set of drums. … I was 19. Dennis was 15. Carl was 17. Mike was 18. Al was 19. And so we wrote a song called "Surfin'" in my living room. We were all playing and singing and Mike and I wrote a song called "Surfin'" and that's how it all started.”

Brian Wilson (1942) American musician, singer, songwriter and record producer

CNN interview (2004)

Food, Moms, Singing

“It saddens me to see the entrepreneurial world in Brazil, because it's a misfortune to be a boss in our country, with so many labor laws. […] Between a man and a young woman, what will the entrepreneur think? 'Damn, this woman's got a ring on her finger, she'll be pregnant soon, she'll be on maternity leave for six months…' […] Who's going to pay the bill? The employer. In the end it's deducted from social security but he says "the work rhythm is broken. And when she returns, she'll take a month-long vacation. In the end, she works five months in one year." […] I'm a liberal. If I want to hire you at my company paying you R$ 2,000.00 a month and Ms. Mary paying her R$ 1,500.00, and if Ms. Mary doesn't want to earn that amount, she must look for another job! If you think you also are not earning so much, look for another job. It is I who am paying you; I am the boss.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

In an interview with Zero Hora newspaper https://gauchazh.clicrbs.com.br/politica/noticia/2014/12/bolsonaro-diz-que-nao-teme-processos-e-faz-nova-ofensa-nao-merece-ser-estuprada-porque-e-muito-feia-cjkf8rj3x00cc01pi3kz6nu2e.html on 10 December 2014. Brazil presidential candidate Bolsonaro's most controversial quotes https://www.yahoo.com/news/brazil-presidential-candidate-bolsonaros-most-controversial-quotes-012652084.html. Yahoo!, 29 September 2018.

World, Law, Thinking, Maternity

“What do I want to take home from my summer vacation? Time. The wonderful luxury of being at rest. The days when you shut down the mental machinery that keeps life on track and let life simply wander. The days when you stop planning, analyzing, thinking and just are. Summer is my period of grace.”

Ellen Goodman (1941) American journalist and writer

Attributed

Life, Home, Thinking, Time

“Conversation once colored by esteem
Became dialogue as a diagram of a play for blood.
Took a vacation, my palate got clean.
Now I could taste your agenda
While you're spitting your cud.”

Fiona Apple (1977) singer-songwriter, musician

Not About Love
Song lyrics, Extraordinary Machine (2005)

Color

“I have just finished one painting and am already at work on the preliminary drawings for the next one. I must do something in order to get rid of such habits or I won't manage to find time for any vacation. I have had this new painting in my mind since January, and must get it down on canvas.”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote from his letter to Freundlich, 15 July 15, 1938; as cited in Kandinsky in Paris: 1934-1944 - exhibition catalog, published by The Solomon K. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1985, p. 27
1930 - 1944

Time, Drawing, Painting

“When did you last bask in the sun, friends? When did you last dare drink from a creek? When did you last risk picking fruit and eating it straight from the tree? What were your doctor’s bills last year? Which of you live in cities where you don’t wear a filtermask? Which of you spent this year’s vacation in the mountains because the sea is fringed with garbage?”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

November “THERE IS HOPE YET”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Mountain, Drink, Tree, Sun

“During my cadet years, West Point was still a military cloister, linked tenuously to the outside world by the West Shore Railway, the excursion boats on the Hudson, and a winding road leading westward into New Jersey. A cadet normally entered the Academy in July and never left it on vacation until his second Christmas. In the meantime, he led a completely regimented life, arising at six, going to bed at ten and rarely having a moment without a duty to occupy it.”

Maxwell D. Taylor (1901–1987) United States general

Source: Swords and Plowshares (1972), p. 25

Life, World, Christmas

“Do you know how long a year takes when it's going away?" Dunbar repeated to Clevinger. "This long." He snapped his fingers. "A second ago you were stepping into college with your lungs full of fresh air. Today you're an old man."
"Old?" asked Clevinger with surprise. "What are you talking about?"
"Old."
"I'm not old."
"You're inches away from death every time you go on a mission. How much older can you be at your age? A half minute before that you were stepping into high school, and an unhooked brassiere was as close as you ever hoped to get to Paradise. Only a fifth of a second before that you were a small kid with a ten-week summer vacation that lasted a hundred thousand years and still ended too soon. Zip! They go rocketing by so fast. How the hell else are you ever going to slow down?" Dunbar was almost angry when he finished.
"Well, maybe it is true," Clevinger conceded unwillingly in a subdued tone. "Maybe a long life does have to be filled with many unpleasant conditions if it's to seem long. But in that event, who wants one?”

Joseph Heller book Catch-22

"I do," Dunbar told him.
"Why?" Clevinger asked.
"What else is there?"
Catch-22 (1961)

Life, Death, Age, School

“I think there's a time to work, and everyone has to kind of adjust. And then there's a time to relax, and be the mom or take the kids on vacation when you need to wind down. So it's a matter of planning, and being able to map out your year or your week or let's start with the day. It is just being multi-tasking and being available.”

Vanessa L. Williams (1963) American actress, singer and former Miss America

Vanessa Williams: 'Vacation' http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vanessa-williams-vacation/ (April 6, 2004)

Moms, Thinking, Time

“If you're in the White House, who wants to take a vacation? You're in the White House!… What's better than the White House? Why these vacations?”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Hardball with Chris Matthews, August 4, 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC_3IxKcQIA December 5, 2015 rally 2010s, 2015

Housing

“Lemony Snicket: (narrating) When you are invited to dine, particularly with people you do not know very well, it always helps to have a conversational opener, a phrase which here means "an interesting sentence to say out loud in order to get people talking." Although lately it has become more and more difficult to attend dinner parties without the evening ending in gunfire or tapioca, I keep a list of good and bad conversational openers in my commonplace book in order to avoid awkward pauses at the dinner table. "Who would like to see an assortment of photographs taken while I was on vacation?" for instance, is a very poor conversational opener, because it is likely to make your fellow diners shudder instead of talk, whereas good conversational openers are sentences such as "What would drive a man to commit arson?," "Why do so many stories of true love end in tragedy and despair?," and "Madame diLustro, I believe I've discovered your true identity!," all of which are likely to provoke discussions, arguments, and accusations, thus making the dinner party much more entertaining.”

Daniel Handler book The Grim Grotto

The Grim Grotto (2004)

Love, People, Books, Help

“These stories offer us a model of how real refreshment of body and spirit is achieved. Three things are worth noting. First, rest comes as an invitation from Jesus. Recently, Pope Francis recommended to a group of priests that they should be open to the rest that comes from Jesus, rather than relying on other ways to relax, some of which can be very unhealthy, if not destructive. We can use entertainment, mind altering substances and other means that only serve as a temporary release of tension and fatigue. Superficial at best, these efforts end up provoking more restlessness and lethargy, especially if they bring upon guilt and depression. It is known, for instance, that alcohol can be a depressant and impact our overall mood. Jesus offers us the gift of rest, and so the first step is to surrender to the kind of rest he offers, and accept his invitation, rather than taking on this burden ourselves. Second, his invitation is to go to an “out of the way” place, a deserted place. This is not an invitation to take a vacation to an exotic location, but rather a summons to enter into those places in our lives that we ignore, yet which have an impact on us.”

Blase J. Cupich (1949) Catholic bishop

"The gift of rest", from the online edition of The Catholic New World, the Chicago archdiocesan newspaper, in the Archbishop's Column (July 26 - August 8, 2015)

Alcohol, Way, Mood, Effort

“The family is always the family but during vacations it is an extended family and that is exhausting”

Gertrude Stein book Paris France

Source: Paris France (1940), p. 107

Family

“A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.”

Robert Orben (1928) American magician and writer

Bill Husted (April 27, 2008) "Local legal eagle stages sendup", The Denver Post, p. B-03.
Attributed

“Yes, but there is the problem. It would have been banal. Mediocre. We had been trained to despise everything which was not excellent. How disgusting to see the father of one of our classmates or friends on vacation playing cards or, even worse, siting on the sofa watching television. We blush with shame for our unfortunate little friend.”

André Weil (1906–1998) French mathematician

From At home with André and Simone Weil by Sylvie Weil, p. 30 https://books.google.com/books?id=OdeDlT9-GBUC&pg=PA30 Quote About

Problem, Training

“If the gospel is to challenge the public life of our society, if Christians are to occupy the "high ground" which they vacated in the noon time of "modernity," it will not be by forming a Christian political party, or by aggressive propaganda campaigns. Once again it has to be said that there can be no going back to the "Constantinian" era. It will only be by movements that begin with the local congregation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known, and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. But that will only happen as and when local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life, and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as sign, instrument, and foretaste of God's redeeming grace for the whole life of society.”

Lesslie Newbigin (1909–1998) Christian missionary

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. Eerdmans, 1989 (reprinted 2002), 232-233.

Life, Women, Men, God

“I've been thinking of combustication as a welcome vacation from the burdens of planet Earth - like gravity, hypocrisy, the perils of being in 3-D, and thinking so much differently.”

Brandon Boyd (1976) American rock singer, writer and visual artist

Lyrics, Make Yourself (1999)

Thinking

“That man, the king of vacations… the king of vacations in his ranch said nothing but: "You have to flee." and didn't say how… that cowboy, the cowboy mentality.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Hugo Chávez criticizes George W. Bush's handling of Hurricane Katrina, during a cabinet meeting broadcast live on television (August 31, 2005). http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9150860/ 2005

“What a social welfare system does is enable people to live with dignity if they don’t have the means on their own. It enables households that are relatively low-income to have a place for their children to get a quality education. It allows everybody to have a dignity of work by having some vacation time or paid leave or maternity leave or father’s leave. And this is decency. This is what it means. We’re rich countries now. We should have the decency to provide dignity for everybody. I happen to live in a country that doesn’t believe it. We soaked up the libertarian ideas. I can tell you what it’s like. We have a large part of our population living in duress, in extreme poverty in the United States. It’s horrible. Because we have this philosophy, “You’re on your own.” Well, “you’re on your own” in this world means living in misery, dying many years earlier, children having no chance in the educational system. People working round the clock, no time off, no paid leave, no opportunities. It’s horrible.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

Climate, Welfare..., Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 15 October, 2018 http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4892252.htm

Children, People, World, Education

“We got email today from an LGF reader who was browsing the Lexis research system and discovered that anti-American, anti-capitalist icon Noam Chomsky has embarrassingly capitalist tastes; among other expensive property he owns a 36,155 square foot home near Cambridge, a 13,503 square foot vacation home, and four boats. And we won’t even mention the cars. Teaching kids to hate their own country seems to pay quite well.”

Charles Foster Johnson (1953) American musician

July 23, 2002 http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=3577&only

Hate, Cars, Home, Country

“It took us two years to write, produce and arange the new album [90 Millas]. Aside from that, I wrote the two children's books based on Noelle, my bulldog, and I was fortunate enought that they ended up on the New York Times bestseller list. By now, we've got seven restaurants and two hotels, which we're very hands-on with, and we're building a third one in Vero Beach, Florida, And I took a vacation for once, because ever since Emilio and I got married in'78, every trip we've take has been for work. So last year, we went to Egypt, Panama, the Bahamas and Greece. It was fantastic!”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

Latina Magazine (September, 2007)
2007, 2008

Children, Books, Time

“Why should not conscience have vacation
As well as other courts o' th' nation?”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

Canto II, line 317
Source: Hudibras, Part II (1664)

“Her body and her mind were sluggish and lazy, and deep down she fought a tired envy of the people who, so she thought, experienced good things while she went through life a gray cloud in a gray room. Having few actual perceptions, she lived by rules. Education is good. Self-control is necessary. Everything in its time and place. Travel is broadening. And it was this last axiom which had forced her finally on the vacation to Mexico.”

John Steinbeck book The Wayward Bus

About Bernice Pritchard in Ch. 5
The Wayward Bus (1947)

Life, People, Education, Travel

“The world 'bubble' is in the dictionary, as is the word 'peacock,' the word 'vacation,' and the words 'the,' 'author's,' 'execution,' 'has,' 'been,' 'cancelled,' which make up a sentence that is always pleasant to hear. So, if you were to read the dictionary, rather than this book, you could skip the parts about 'nervous' and 'anxious' and read about things that wouldn't keep you up all night, weeping and tearing your hair out. But this book is not a dictionary, and if you were to skip the parts about 'nervous' and 'anxious' you would be skipping the most pleasant parts of the entire story. Nowhere in this book will you find the words 'bubble,' 'peacock,' 'vacation,' or, unfortunately for me, anything about an execution being cancelled.”

Daniel Handler book The Ersatz Elevator

Lemony Snicket
The Ersatz Elevator (2001)

Books, World, Tear, Reading

“Family trips of my childhood always began with a prayer. I suppose when one goes on vacation, one is courting death in some fashion, tying the morgue tags onto one’s suitcase. But then, too, vacations are respites from death, from thoughts of death. I have sometimes wondered why friends under medical death sentences have undertaken arduous trips or undertaken arduous labors. To put some distance between themselves and death—the obvious answer.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

Death, Family, Fashion, Childhood

“Once some engineers from the veneer trust laboratory came to me for consultation with a quite skilful presentation of their problems. Diﬀerent productivity is obtained for veneer-cutting machines for diﬀerent types of materials; linked to this the output of production of this group of machines depended, it would seem, on the chance factor of which group of raw materials to which machine was assigned. How could this fact be used rationally?
This question interested me, but nevertheless appeared to be quite particular and elementary, so I did not begin to study it by giving up everything else. I put this question for discussion at a meeting of the mathematics department, where there were such great specialists as Gyunter, Smirnov himself, Kuz’min, and Tartakovskii. Everyone listened but no one proposed a solution; they had already turned to someone earlier in individual order, apparently to Kuz’min. However, this question nevertheless kept me in suspense. This was the year of my marriage, so I was also distracted by this. In the summer or after the vacation concrete, to some extent similar, economic, engineering, and managerial situations started to come into my head, that also required the solving of a maximization problem in the presence of a series of linear constraints.
In the simplest case of one or two variables such problems are easily solved—by going through all the possible extreme points and choosing the best. But, let us say in the veneer trust problem for ﬁve machines and eight types of materials such a search would already have required solving about a billion systems of linear equations and it was evident that this was not a realistic method. I constructed particular devices and was probably the ﬁrst to report on this problem in 1938 at the October scientiﬁc session of the Herzen Institute, where in the main a number of problems were posed with some ideas for their solution.
The universality of this class of problems, in conjunction with their difficulty, made me study them seriously and bring in my mathematical knowledge, in particular, some ideas from functional analysis.
What became clear was both the solubility of these problems and the fact that they were widespread, so representatives of industry were invited to a discussion of my report at the university.”

Leonid Kantorovich (1912–1986) Russian mathematician

L.V. Kantorovich (1996) Descriptive Theory of Sets and Functions. p. 39; As cited in: K. Aardal, ‎George L. Nemhauser, ‎R. Weismantel (2005) Handbooks in Operations Research and Management Science, p. 15-26

Marriage, Search, Mathematics, Idea

“Mussolini never killed anyone, he just sent dissenters abroad for vacation.”

Silvio Berlusconi (1936) Italian politician

As quoted in La voce di Rimini (11 September 2003) Variant translation: He never killed anyone, he sent people on holiday to confine them. "Did I say This? in The Observer (20 April 2008) http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/20/italy 2003

“The 16 August, 1946 communal riots broke out in Calcutta after a few days. I would have been killed by a Muslim mob in the early hours of that day as I walked back towards my home from the coffee house which I had found closed. My fluent Urdu and my Western dress saved me. My wife and two year old son had joined me a few days earlier in a small room in a big house bordering on a large Muslim locality. On the evening of the 17th we had to vacate that house and scale a wall at the back to escape murderous Muslim mobs advancing with firearms. Had not the army moved in immediately after, I would not have lived to write what I am writing today.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

How I became a Hindu (1982)

Home, Communication, Coffee, Housing

“Many decry the loss of “real time” to capturing moments on-screen, claiming that the recording of memories as they happen threatens to replace the actual memories you have of that moment. I’ve read many articles in which parents bemoan the fact their kids were seeing family vacations through GoPro cameras, rather than actually living them. After a day on the ski slopes, they edit their raw footage into action-packed greatest moments and post it to social media, where it’s shared and commented on by their friends, hyperextending their time on the mountain. For a generation raised on reality TV to be able to replay those moments over and over through a mediated interface is a way of reliving an eternal present, loved for a moment then replaced by the next day’s upload. In this way, we’re simultaneously archiving and forgetting: archiving because we continuously upload media, and forgetting because we rarely go back to visit what we have uploaded. Today’s upload is the best upload and keeps us very much present and mindful in the here and now.”

Kenneth Goldsmith (1961) American writer

Wasting Time on the Internet, 2016

Love, Family, Way, Mountain

“This year we take our vacation somewhere else. Where is there where Americans aren’t likely to be stoned by a howling mob? Spain, Greece? No, got to be out of range of the stench from the Med.
Looks like we might as well stay home.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

May “BLANKET”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Home

“In the United States a man builds a house to spend his latter years in it and he sells it before the roof is on. He plants a garden and lets it just as the trees are coming into bearing. He brings a field into tillage and leaves other men to gather the crops. He embraces a profession and gives it up. He settles in a place which he soon afterward leaves to carry his changeable longings elsewhere. If his private affairs leave him any leisure he instantly plunges into the vortex of politics and if at the end of a year of unremitting labour he finds he has a few days' vacation, his eager curiosity whirls him over the vast extent of the United States, and he will travel fifteen hundred miles in a few days to shake off his happiness.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XV-IXX, Chapter XXIX.

Men, Travel, Tree, Housing

“While parents are naturally in a leadership role, strong families strive to share decision-making. They resolve differences by respecting other viewpoints and accepting compromise solutions. One family decided to spend money on a son's music lessons rather than replace worn carpeting. The compromise was to pitch in and clean the carpet. In another family, everyone but the youngest daughter loved to ski. They rented a vacation condo with plenty of activities for the daughter, and the skiers accepted an hour's drive to the slopes.”

Joyce Brothers (1927–2013) Joyce Brothers

10 Keys to a Strong Family (2002)

Love, Money, Family, Music

“There is a saying 'justice delayed is justice denied'. Everyone knows of it, you do too. I have done three major things in Gujarat. I have increased court hours by 30 minutes every day; reduced court vacations by seven days; started evening courts with the same infrastructure.”

Narendra Modi (1950) Prime Minister of India

2009, "The nation is waiting for a strong, experienced leader", 2009

Justice

“Since completing this memoir in 1995 I've returned to Palestine every year. In fact, apart from traveling abroad to lecture, Palestine is the only place I've been since I first journeyed there 15 years ago. I sometimes fantasize vacationing in Greece or Italy but never do. If I have time and cost isn't prohibitive, I always return to Palestine. I do so mostly from a sense of duty - do I have a right to be elsewhere? - relieved by the authentic affection I've developed for friends. I cannot say I enjoy going back. From the moment I arrive, even before arriving, I count the minutes left before I depart. The eminent Hebrew University sociologist Baruch Kimmerling has described Gaza as "the largest concentration camp ever to exist." The West Bank ranks only a mite less awful. Once the Israeli wall currently under construction is finished, the West Bank will replace Gaza with top honors. Bordered on both sides by four meter deep trenches, fortified with guard towers at regular intervals, and topped with barbed wire, this massive barricade will stretch across fully 347 kilometers - twice the size of the Berlin Wall.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

Postscript to German edition of The Rise and Fall of Palestine
Other sourced statements

Travel, Sense, Universe, Time

“I married a woman who loves to camp and I am what you would call indoorsy. I'm surprised we can still get people to camp. "Hey, wanna burn a couple of vacation days sleeping on the ground outside?" "Uh, No!" "What if I told you you get to crap standing up in the woods?" "I still wouldn't wanna go." "You'll wake up freezing covered in a rash."”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

"… All right, I'll go."
King Baby

Love, People, Sleep

“With government driving up the cost of labor, it's driving down the number of jobs. You're going to see automation not just in airports and grocery stores, but in restaurants. This is the problem with Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, and progressives who push very hard to raise the minimum wage. Does it really help if Sally makes $3 more an hour if Suzie has no job? If you're making labor more expensive, and automation less expensive — this is not rocket science. They're always polite, they always upsell, they never take a vacation, they never show up late, there's never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.”

Andrew Puzder (1950) American businessman

Fast-food CEO says he's investing in machines because the government is making it difficult to afford employees http://www.businessinsider.com/carls-jr-wants-open-automated-location-2016-3 (March 16, 2016)

Age, Sex, Problem, Science

“We [Emilio and I] fell in love with the Old World Florida ambience, beautiful beaches and warm people. We discovered Vero Beach when we were looking for a vacation home that was close to Miami but gave us a different feel than what we were used to. We hope to increase the awareness of Vero Beach by hightlighting the many wonderful things that made us fall in love with it. We want the rest of the world to realize what a gem this place is. We hope to welcome our friends from the entertainment world at the opening as well as members of the community. It will be a warm, special and intimate event. We will open our doors the same way that Vero Beach opened its doors to us.”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

comment regarding opening of the Estefans' new luxury hotel,Costa d'Este (East Coast), in Vero Beach, Florida in January of 2008 www.sun-sentinel.com (June 23, 2007)
2007, 2008

Love, People, World, Beauty

“Not long ago, an American magazine wrote that what was worst about National Socialism was its women. They said that National Socialism did more for women than any other nation. It improved their social position. It began to bring them together in tremendous organizations. It sent the women of the educated classes into the factories so that female workers could go on vacation, and so on. The paper concluded that the democracies could not imitate this.”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

As quoted in The Third Reich: A New History by Michael Burleigh, p. 2842
Other remarks

Women, Education, Democracy

“I settled everything with Mrs. Grey, while you were putting on your bonnet," replied he. "She said I might have her consent, if I could obtain yours; and I asked her, in case I should be so happy, to come and live with us — for I was sure you would like it better. But she refused, saying she could now afford to employ an assistant, and would continue the school till she could purchase an annuity sufficient to maintain her in comfortable lodgings; and, meantime, she would spend her vacations alternately with us and your sister, and should be quite contented if you were happy. And so now I have overruled your objections on her account. Have you any other?"
"No — none."
"You love me then?”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

said he, fervently pressing my hand.
"Yes."
Source: Agnes Grey (1847), Ch. XXV : Conclusion

Love, School, Sister, Happiness

“I never know what South Carolina thinks of a measure. I never consult her. I act to the best of my judgment, and according to my conscience. If she approves, well and good. If she does not, or wishes any one to take my place, I am ready to vacate. We are even.”

John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) 7th Vice President of the United States

Reported in Walter J. Miller, "Calhoun as a Lawyer and Statesman"' part 2, The Green Bag (June 1899), p. 271. Miller states "I will cite his own words", but this quotation is reported as not verified in Calhoun's writings in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).

Thinking

“During the warm season (August 8 and 9), Maine is a true "vacation paradise," offering visitors a chance to jump into crystal-clear mountain lakes and see if they can get back out again before their bodily tissue is frozen as solid as a supermarket turkey.”

Dave Barry (1947) American writer

Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need (1991)

Mountain, Chance, Season

“Tucker: You guys going to Milwaukee?
Guy: Yes sir, heading home after a vacation.
Tucker: Did you know there are midgets in Milwaukee?
[The man and his wife are silent and confused. ]
Tucker: HUNDREDS OF THEM!”

Tucker Max (1975) Internet personality; blogger; author

The Midget Story http://www.tuckermax.com/archives/entries/date/the_midget_story.phtml, The Tucker Max Stories

Guy, Home

“At Black Mountain College in 1952, I organized an event that involved the paintings of Bob Rauschenberg, the dancing of Merce Cunningham, films, slides, phonograph records, radios, the poetries of w:Charles Olson and M. C. Richards recited from the tops of ladders, and the pianism of David Tudor, together with my 'Juilliard lecture', which ends: 'A piece of string, a sunset, each acts.' The audience was seated in the center of all this activity. Later that summer, vacationing in New England, I visited America's first synagogue, to discover that the congregation was there seated precisely the way I had arranged the audience at Black Mountain.”

John Cage (1912–1992) American avant-garde composer

Quote in: 'Silence: lectures and writings by John Cage'; publisher Middletown, Conn. Wesleyan University Press, June 1961, Foreword/ix
1960s

Way, Mountain, Dance, Summer

“[taking a vacation with his family in Costa Rica]
I go "what is it?" And she goes "we're going on a shark feeding frenzy!" Okay, wait… we're in a boat looking down in the water? "No, that's the best part! We're in the water with the sharks!"”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

And I go "have you lost your mind???"
Aged and Confused (2009)

Family, Water, Waiting, Parting

“In the 1950s, industrial workers had become the largest single group in every developed country, and unionized industrial workers in mass-production industry (which was then dominant everywhere) had attained upper-middle-class income levels. They had extensive job security, pensions, long paid vacations, and comprehensive unemployment insurance or "lifetime employment." Above all, they had achieved political power… Thirty-five years later, in 1990, industrial workers and their unions were in retreat. They had become marginal in numbers. Whereas industrial workers who make or move things had accounted for two fifths of the American work force in the 1950s, they accounted for less than one fifth in the early 1990s--that is, for no more than they had accounted for in 1900, when their meteoric rise began… By the year 2000 or 2010, in every developed free-market country, industrial workers will account for no more than an eighth of the work force. Union power has been declining just as fast… By the year 2000 or 2010, in every developed free-market country, industrial workers will account for no more than an eighth of the work force. Union power has been declining just as fast.”

Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant

About the rise and fall of the blue-collar worker
1990s and later, "The Age of Social Transformation." 1994

Country

“One can become overwhelmed on vacation—I have become so—by thinking thoughts that are too large. There is a condition identified in psychology textbooks as the Stendhal syndrome, also called, or related to, the Jerusalem syndrome, that describes a tourist’s overwhelmed response to great works of art or to a sudden apprehension of scale, antiquity, multitude, death—the accompanying fear is of one’s insignificance, but also of squandered opportunity.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography (2013)

Death, Fear, Art, Thinking

“I was very interested in the reproductions of your [ Calder's ] sculptures. I have looked at them many times [Calder sent him], and they are something completely unexpected. You are taking a path full of great possibilities. Bravo! Sculpture is of enormous interest to me right now. For the last two years [1944-46], during summer vacation, that's all I have been doing and it's very good for a painter to get away from the old story of canvas and frame every now and again.”

Joan Miró (1893–1983) Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist

In a letter to his friend Calder, Barcelona, 18 March 1946; as quoted in Calder Miró, ed. Elizabeth Hutton Turner / Oliver Wick; Philip Wilson Publishers, London 2004, p. 268
1940 - 1960

Time, Summer