Quotes About Quote

untimely death is a common but really quite inane expression. When ever was a death timely?

The Old English word for a slave was thrall, which is why when we are enslaved by an emotion we are enthralled.

Never has anyone milked a single thought more vigorously and successfully than he did. The line for which he is remembered was "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion," still known as Parkinson's Law. It was first elucidated in a comic essay he wrote for The Economist in 1955 while he was a professor at the University of Malaya in Singapore.

There are two problems with notions of panspermia, as extraterrestrial theories are known.

It would be just my luck, of course, to be savaged by an animal with a flea collar and a medical history. I imagined lying on my back, being extravagantly ravaged, inclining my head slightly to read a dangling silver tag that said: "My name is Mr. Bojangles. If found please call Tanya and Vinny at 924-4667.

cosmological constant to his theory, at the Lowell Observatory in

I wanted a little of that swagger that comes with being able to gaze at the horizon through eyes of chipped granite and say with a slow, manly sniff, 'Yeah, I've shit in the woods

In Iowa, we were not used to seeing the houses of well-known people on account of there were no well-known people in Iowa.

Consider the oft-quoted statement "the exception proves the rule." Most people take this to mean that the exception confirms the rule, though when you ask them to explain the logic in that statement, they usually cannot. After all, how can an exception prove a rule? It can't. The answer is that an earlier meaning of prove was to test (a meaning preserved in proving ground) and with that meaning the statement suddenly becomes sensible—the exception tests the rule.

If you are going to have a system of hereditary privilege, then surely you have to take what comes your way no matter how ponderous the poor fellow may be or how curious his taste in mistresses.

there any evidence that Henry ever uttered the other famous remark attributed to him: "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death." Indeed, there is no evidence that Henry ever said anything of substance or found space in his head for a single original thought. He

If you sell out to outsiders, you must accept that it will be people from other lands who decide what snacks you eat and where your sauces are concocted. And

activity. Often a sign of prolixity, as here: 'The warnings followed a week of earthquake activity throughout the region' (Independent). Just make it 'a week of earthquakes'.

camouflage (rather oddly from camouflet, meaning "to blow smoke up someone's nose," a pastime that appears on the linguistic evidence to be specific to the French)

Even Christ reputedly made a pun when He said: "Thou art Peter: upon this rock I shall build my Church." It doesn't make a lot of sense from the wordplay point of view until you realize that in ancient Greek the word for Peter and for rock was the same.

This is the worst characteristic of the Germans. Well, actually a predilection for starting land wars in Europe is their worst characteristic, but this is right up there with it.

In short, and as always, a devoted reader can find support for nearly any position he or she wishes in Shakespeare. (Or, as Shakespeare himself put it in a much misquoted line: The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.)

The belief that and should not be used to begin a sentence is without foundation. And that's all there is to it.

interesting? And here's another interesting fact, which I didn't tell you about earlier because I've been saving it: Wyatt Earp was from Pella, the little Iowa town with the windmills. Isn't that great?

certainty. The urge to switch from subjunctive to indicative is, to paraphrase Alastair Fowler, always a powerful

wondering how many tens of thousands of days have passed since BBC One last showed a program that anyone not on medication would want to watch.

A lot of people conclude from this that the FBI and its agents are dangerously inept.

the favourite activity is drinking a lot of beer and the second is throwing it up again)

the only thing special about the elements that make you is that they make you. That is the miracle of life.