Ogden Nash Quotes

Middle-age is when you're sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you.

The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.

Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.

Behold the Zebra on the plains, And shudder at his mighty manes!

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.

So I think there is one rule every host and hostess ought to keep with the comb and nail file and bicarbonate and aromatic spirits on a handy shelf, Which is don't spoil the denouement by telling the guests everything is terrible, but let them have the thrill of finding it out for themselves.

When I remember bygone days I think how evening follows morn So many I loved were not yet dead, So many I love were not yet born.

Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets them.

Winter is the king of showmen, Turning tree stumps into snowmen And houses into birthday cakes And spreading sugar over lakes. Smooth and clean and frosty white, The world looks good enough to bite. That’s the season to be young, Catching snowflakes on your tongue. Snow is snowy when it’s snowing, I’m sorry it’s slushy when it’s going.

There was a young man of Herne Bay who was making some fireworks one day: but he dropped his cigar in the gunpowder jar. There was a young man of Herne Bay.

Some debts are fun while you are acquiring them, But none are fun when you set about retiring them.

I drink because she nags, she said I nag because he drinks.

But if the truth be known to you, He's a lush and she's a shrew.

Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.

Tonight's December thirty-first, something is about to burst.

The clock is crouching, dark and small, like a time bomb in the hall. Hark, it's midnight, children dear. Duck! Here comes another year!

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and>metaphor.

Love is a word that is constantly heard, Hate is a word that is not.

Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. Love, I have read, is hot. But hate is the verb that to me is superb, And Love but a drug on the mart. Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But Hating, my boy, is an Art.

Beneath this slab John Brown is stowed. He watched the ads, And not the road.

Time is so old and love so brief, love is pure gold and time a thief.

We're late, darling, we're late, The curtain descends, everything ends, too soon, too soon.

The oboe's a horn made of wood. I'd play you a tune if I could, But the reeds are a pain, And the fingering's insane. It's the ill wind that no one blows good.

There has been a lot of progress during my lifetime, but I'm afraid it's heading in the wrong direction.

Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind.

Man is a victim of dope in the incurable form of hope.

When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window.

Professional men, they have no cares; whatever happens, they get theirs.

A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.

People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.

So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and combat Over everything debatable and combatable Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life Particularly if he has income and she is pattable.

To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you're wrong, admit it; whenever you're right, shut up.

The truth I do not stretch or shove When I state the dog is full of love. I've also proved, by actual test, A wet dog is the lovingest.

Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons, or Celts, Can't seem just to say anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.

No man is greater than his respect for sleep.

I test my bath before I sit, And I'm always moved to wonderment That what chills the finger not a bit Is so frigid upon the fundament.

Miranda in Miranda's sight is old, gray and dirty; Twenty-nine she was last night; This morning she is thirty.

Here's a toast to the roast that good fellowship lends, with the sparkle of beer and wine; May its sentiment always be deeper, my friends, than the foam at the top of the stein. Then here's to the heartening wassail, wherever good fellows are found; Be its master instead of its vassal, and order the glasses around.

The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.

Here lies my past, Goodbye I have kissed it; Thank you kids, I wouldn't have missed it.

It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin, That lays eggs under your skin.

Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor.

And you stagger down to break your fast. Greasy bacon and lacquered eggs And coffee composed of frigid dregs.

There once was an umpire whose vision Was cause for abuse and derision He remarked in surprise, 'Why pick on my eyes? It's my heart that dictates my decision.'

There is something about a martini, Ere the dining and dancing begin, And to tell you the truth, It is not the vermouth- I think that perhaps it's the gin.

The more you earn, the less you keep, And now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to take, If the tax-collector hasn't got it before I wake.

I claim there ain't Another Saint As great as Valentine.

Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,And that's what parents were created for.

A husband is a guy who tells you when you've got on too much lipstick and helps you with your girdle when your hips stick.

Celery, raw, Develops the jaw

In the world of mules there are no rules.

Bankers are just like anybody else, only richer

The cow is of the bovine ilk: One end is moo, the other, milk.