You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.
There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.
They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm.
Salary is no object: I want only enough to keep body and soul apart.
Excuse my dust.
Drink and dance and laugh and lie,
Love, the reeling midnight through,
For tomorrow we shall die!
(But, alas, we never do.)
I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound; if I can remember any of the damn things.
One more drink and I'd have been under the host.
That woman speaks eighteen languages, and can't say No in any of them.
Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful,
Nooses give,
Gas smells awful.
You might as well live.