Listen as a professional stringer together of words – not to mention a self-certified Trained Observer Of The Human Condition – I am forever stealing word strings out of the mouths of other carbon based life forms.
Over the years I’ve amassed a collection of OPWS (Other People’s Words) that I’ve echoed again and again in my own, um, feeble scribblings
Not to brag, but for 30 years as an editorial writer I kept a well-thumbed volume of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations within handy reach
Because, as my pal Shamrock McShane likes to say: If you’re gonna steal, steal from the best
Here are some of my favorite ‘best’ quotations
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As a professional wordsmith, this is how I rationalize my very existence
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And
I wish I knew who first mangled Kipling’s chestnut. Because I’m pretty sure that person was talking about me
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Apparently she said this every time she answered the door
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Listen, I know Douglas Adams wrote this in large friendly letters – and even threw in a towel for additional reassurance. But if I don’t panic at least once a day I’d lose the core reason for my very existence
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His train quip is the basis of my favorite, oft-told, Dad Joke. Which is why my children will never forgave me or Groucho
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Yeah, I know, there’s no evidence that he actually said this. But the poor man’s been dead for like a century and a half and our politicians are still blaming him for everything from the climate change hoax to wokeism. So I dare you to prove me wrong
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I swear to God he wasn’t talking about me
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Like I told you before, everything I know I learned from the movies. So there’s this
Every day I try to live up to The Duke’s admonition. And every day I find myself apologizing to somebody for some damned thing or other
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What I tell myself when, against all odds, I wake up every morning
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And finally, the best life’s advice I’ve ever read (drumroll please)
Gee, I wish I’d written that
Yes, Shamrock, I know I am contractually obliged by the National Association of English Teachers to include a quote from The Bard. But alas, I am haunted still by the ghost of poor Yorick and it’s all so unbearable
OK, Shamrock, fine.
To thine own self be true
Happy? Wanna to climb down off my back now, pal?
FreeGNV 