Don Marquis

By the time a bartender knows what drink a man will have before he orders, there is little else about him worth knowing.

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.

An old stomach reforms more whiskey drinkers than a new resolve.

Bores bore each other too; but it never seems to teach them anything.

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.

One of the most important things to remember about infant care is: don't change diapers in midstream.

He is so unlucky that he runs into accidents which start out to happen to somebody else.

The trouble with the public is that there is too much of it; what we need in public is less quantity and more quality.

It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld.

In all systems of theology the devil figures as a male person. Yes, it is women who keep the church going.

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors. I would rather start a family than finish one. Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint

Successful people are the ones who think up things for the rest of the world to keep busy at.

An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience.

The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram.

We pay for the mistakes of our ancestors, and it seems only fair that they should leave us the money to pay with.

Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.

Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue.

Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.

Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.

By the time a bartender knows what drink a man will have before he orders there is little else about him worth knowing.

A hypocrite is a person who but who isnt

Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.

Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man's hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them.

As the skull of the man grows broader, so do his creeds. And his gods they are shaped in his image and mirror his needs. And he clothes them with thunders and beauty, He clothes them with music and fire, Seeing not, as he bows by their altars, That he worships his own desire.

It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld.

Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.

I would rather start a family than finish one.

A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself.

A demagogue is a person with whom we disagree as to which gang should mismanage the country.

If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.

Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into.

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.

Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

Some persons are likeable in spite of their unswerving integrity.

Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.

A fierce unrest seethes at the core of all existing things it was the eager wish to soar that gave the gods their wings.

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work ask him Whose

Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.

In order to influence a child one must be careful not to be that childs parent or grandparent.

Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

There is nothing so habit-forming as money.

Did you ever notice that when a politician does get an idea he usually gets it all wrong.

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'

A hypocrite is a person who - but who isn't?

In order to influence a child, one must be careful not to be that child's parent or grandparent.

A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.

Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.