I wake each morning torn between the desire to improve the world and the desire to enjoy it. It makes it hard to plan the day
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Advice to young writers who want to get ahead without annoying delays: donÆt write about Man, write about 'a' man
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Liberty is never out of bounds or off limits; it spreads wherever it can capture the imagination of men
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Whatever else an American believes or disbelieves about himself, he is absolutely sure he has a sense of humor.
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Heredity is a strong factor, even in architecture. Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.
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Every American, to the last man, lays claim to a "sense" of humor and guards it as his most significant spiritual trait, yet rejects humor as ...
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Wilbur burst into tears. 'I dont want to die,' he moaned. 'I want to stay alive, right here in my comfortable manure pile with all my friends. I want to breathe the beautiful air and lie in the beautiful sun.'
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An intelligence service is, in fact, a stupidity service.
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Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.
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You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.
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If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
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Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time
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I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.
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Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog: Nobody really enjoys it and the frog generally dies as a result.
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I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
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I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they happen to strike me.
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Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
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Every American, to the last man, lays claim to a 'sense' of humor and guards it as his most significant spiritual trait, yet rejects humor as ...
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Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
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Weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society -- things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.
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The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war.
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Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
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Loneliness is a strange gift.
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It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
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Somehow not only for ChristmasBut all the long year through,The joy that you give to othersIs the joy that comes back to you.
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Wilbur burst into tears. "I dont want to die," he moaned. "I want to stay alive, right here in my comfortable manure pile with all my friends. I want to breathe the beautiful air and lie in the beautiful sun."
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