Kevin Stilley

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June 25, 2014 by kevinstilley

Steven Wright – select quotes

StevenWright.001

42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

A beautiful woman moved in next door. So I went over and returned a cup of sugar. “You didn’t borrow this.” “I will.”

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

A cop stopped me for speeding. He said, “Why were you going so fast?” I said, “See this thing my foot is on? It’s called an accelerator. When you push down on it, it sends more gas to the engine. The whole car just takes right off.”

A fool and his money are soon partying.

A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I’m afraid of widths.

All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to rob a department store…with a pricing gun. She said, “Give me all of the money in the vault, or I’m marking down everything in the store.”

All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.

Borrow money from pessimists-they don’t expect it back.

Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo!

Change is inevitable….except from vending machines.

Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

“Did you sleep well?” “No, I made a couple of mistakes.”

Drugs may lead to nowhere, but at least it’s the scenic route.

Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.

Even snakes are afraid of snakes.

Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don’t have film.

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.

For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier…I put them in the same room and let them fight it out.

Half the people you know are below average.

Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.

How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?

I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

I bought a dog the other day…I named him Stay. It’s fun to call him… “Come here, Stay! Come here, Stay!” He went insane.

I bought a house, on a one-way dead-end road. I don’t know how I got there.

I brought a mirror to Lovers’ Lane. I told everybody I’m Narcissus.

I bought a self learning record to learn Spanish. I turned it on and went to sleep; the record got stuck. The next day I could only stutter in Spanish.

I bought my brother some gift-wrap for Christmas. I took it to the Gift Wrap department and told them to wrap it, but in a different print so he would know when to stop unwrapping.

I bought some batteries, but they weren’t included.

I bought some powdered water, but I don’t know what to add to it.

I can remember the first time I had to go to sleep. Mom said, “Steven, time to go to sleep.” I said, “But I don’t know how.” She said, “It’s real easy. Just go down to the end of tired and hang a left.” So I went down to the end of tired, and just out of curiosity I hung a right. My mother was there, and she said “I thought I told you to go to sleep.”

I couldn’t find the remote control to the remote control.

I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.

I didn’t get a toy train like the other kids. I got a toy subway instead. You couldn’t see anything, but every now and then you’d hear this rumbling noise go by.

I got a garage door opener. It can’t close. Just open.

I got food poisoning today. I don’t know when I’ll use it.

I got my driver’s license photo taken out of focus on purpose. Now when I get pulled over the cop looks at it (moving it nearer and farther, trying to see it clearly)…and says, “Here, you can go.”

I had amnesia once or twice.

I had some eyeglasses. I was walking down the street when suddenly the prescription ran out.

I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day because that means it’s going to be up all night

I have a microwave fireplace in my house…The other night I laid down in front of the fire for the evening in two minutes.

I have two very rare photographs. One is a picture of Houdini locking his keys in his car. The other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating up a child.

I hooked up my accelerator pedal in my car to my brake lights. I hit the gas, people behind me stop, and I’m gone.

I installed a skylight in my apartment…The people who live above me are furious!

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

I invented the cordless extension cord.

I love to go shopping. I love to freak out salespeople. They ask me if they can help me, and I say, “Have you got anything I’d like?” Then they ask me what size I need, and I say, “Extra medium.”

I made a chocolate cake with white chocolate. Then I took it to a potluck. I stood in line for some cake. They said, “Do you want white cake or chocolate cake?” I said, “yes”.

I mixed this [water] myself. Two parts H, one part O. I don’t trust anybody!

I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window. I put a new engine in my car, but forgot to take the old one out. Now my car goes 500 miles per hour. The harmonica sounds *amazing*

I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don’t know what to feed it.

I put contact lenses in my dog’s eyes. They had little pictures of cats on them. Then I took one out and he ran around in circles.

I put my air conditioner in backwards. It got cold outside. The weatherman on TV was confused. “It was supposed to be hot today.”

I rented a lottery ticket. I won a million dollars. But I had to give it back.

I saw a bank that said “24 Hour Banking”, but I don’t have that much time.

I saw a close friend of mine the other day… He said, “Stephen, why haven’t you called me?” I said, “I can’t call everyone I want. My new phone has no five on it.” He said, “How long have you had it?” I said, “I don’t know… my calendar has no sevens on it.”

I saw a sign: “Rest Area 25 Miles”. That’s pretty big. Some people must be really tired.

I spilled spot remover on my dog. Now he’s gone.

I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.

I still have my Christmas Tree. I looked at it today. Sure enough, I couldn’t see any forests.

I took a course in speed reading. Then I got Reader’s Digest on microfilm. By the time I got the machine set up, I was done.

I took a course in speed waiting. Now I can wait an hour in only ten minutes.

I took lessons in bicycle riding. But I could only afford half of them. Now I can ride a unicycle.

I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.

I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn’t park anywhere near the place.

I was born by Caesarian section…but not so you’d notice. It’s just that when I leave a house, I go out through the window.

I was in the first submarine. Instead of a periscope, they had a kaleidoscope. “We’re surrounded.”

I was in the grocery store. I saw a sign that said “pet supplies”. So I did. Then I went outside and saw a sign that said “compact cars”.

I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet. So I said, “Got any shoes you’re not using?”

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.

I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking that if they left earlier they wouldn’t have to go so fast.

I wear my heart on my sleeve. I wear my liver on my pant leg.

I went into this bar and sat down next to a pretty girl. She looked at me and said, “Hey, you have two different colored socks on.” I said, “Yeah, I know, but to me they’re the same because I go by thickness.”

I went to a 7-11 and asked for a 2×4 and a box of 3×5’s. The clerk said, “ten-four.”

I went to a fancy french restaurant called “Deja Vu.” The headwaiter said, “Don’t I know you?”

I went to a garage sale. “How much for the garage?” “It’s not for sale.”

I went to a general store. They wouldn’t let me buy anything specifically.

I went to a haunted house, looked under the kitchen table, and found spirit gum.

I went to a restaurant that serves “breakfast at any time”. So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.

I went to San Francisco. I found someone’s heart.

I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, “What for?” I said, “I’m going to buy some sugar.”

I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.

I worked in a health food store once. A guy came in and asked me, “If I melt dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?”

I wrote a few children’s books…not on purpose.

I wrote a song, but I can’t read music so I don’t know what it is. Every once in a while I’ll be listening to the radio and I say, “I think I might have written that.”

I xeroxed a mirror. Now I have an extra xerox machine.

I xeroxed my watch. Now I have time to spare.

I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

If a word in the dictionary were misspelled, how would we know?

If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

If at first you don’t succeed, then skydiving definitely isn’t for you.

If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

If you can wave a fan, and you can wave a club, can you wave a fan club?

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate.

If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?

If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before.

If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?

In school, every period ends with a bell. Every sentence ends with a period. Every crime ends with a sentence.

In my house on the ceilings I have paintings of the rooms above…so I never have to go upstairs.

Is “tired old cliche” one?

It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.

Join the Army, meet interesting people, kill them.

Many people quit looking for work when they find a job.

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.

My aunt gave me a walkie-talkie for my birthday. She says if I’m good, she’ll give me the other one next year.

My dental hygienist is cute. Every time I visit, I eat a whole package of Oreo cookies while waiting in the lobby. Sometimes she has to cancel the rest of the afternoon’s appointments.

My girlfriend does her nails with white-out. When she’s asleep, I go over there and write misspelled words on them.

My house is made out of balsa wood, so when I want to scare the neighborhood kids I lift it over my head and tell them to get out of my yard or I’ll throw it at them.

My house is on the median strip of a highway. You don’t really notice, except I have to leave the driveway doing 60 MPH.

My neighbor has a circular driveway…he can’t get out.

My socks DO match. They’re the same thickness.

My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.

Officer, I know I was going faster than 55MPH, but I wasn’t going to be on the road an hour.

OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

One night I walked home very late and fell asleep in somebody’s satellite dish. My dreams were showing up on TV’s all over the world.

One time a cop pulled me over for running a stop sign. He said, “Didn’t you see the stop sign?” I said, “Yeah, but I don’t believe everything I read.”

Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.

Right now I’m having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.

Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.

Smoking cures weight problems…eventually…

Support bacteria – they’re the only culture some people have.

The Bermuda Triangle got tired of warm weather. It moved to Alaska. Now Santa Claus is missing.

The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

The other night I came home late, and tried to unlock my house with my car keys. I started the house up. So, I drove it around for a while. I was speeding, and a cop pulled me over. He asked where I lived. I said, “right here, officer”. Later, I parked it on the freeway, got out, and yelled at all the cars, “Get out of my driveway!”

The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.

The sign said “eight items or less”. So I changed my name to Les.

The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.

There aren’t enough days in the weekend.

There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot.

There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators.

Tinsel is really snakes’ mirrors.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

Today I dialed a wrong number… The other person said, “Hello?” and I said, “Hello, could I speak to Joey?”… They said, “Uh… I don’t think so… he’s only 2 months old.” I said, “I’ll wait.”

The sun never sets on the British Empire. But it rises every morning. The sky must get awfully crowded.

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

What’s another word for Thesaurus?

When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

When I’m not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.

When I get bored I go to a Seven-Eleven and ask for a two-by-four and a box of three-by-fives.

When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot, then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I’m leaving.

When I turned two I was really anxious, because I’d doubled my age in a year. I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I’m six I’ll be ninety.

When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box. I was an only child….eventually.

When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms with me. I said, “Well, what do you need?”

When I was in boy scouts, I slipped on the ice and hurt my ankle. A little old lady had to help me across the street

When I was little, my grandfather used to make me stand in a closet for five minutes without moving. He said it was elevator practice.

When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, “Did you sleep good?” I said, “No, I made a few mistakes.”

Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity…If you wanted to run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your head. If you wanted to cook, you had to pull off a sweater real quick.

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?

Yesterday I saw a chicken crossing the road. I asked it why. It told me it was none of my business.

Yesterday I told a chicken to cross the road. It said, “what for?”

You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?

You know how it is when you’re reading a book and falling asleep, you’re reading, reading…and all of a sudden you notice your eyes are closed? I’m like that all the time.

You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: comedy, Humor, Quotes

September 2, 2013 by kevinstilley

Bated Breath, or Baited Breath?

Cruel Clever Cat

by Geoffrey Taylor

Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

Filed Under: Blog, Humor Tagged With: English, Humor, language, poetry

September 1, 2013 by kevinstilley

The Dangerous Animals Club – a few thoughts and quotes

Book CoverThe Dangerous Animals Club is not exactly a Southern Baptist preachery kind of book. Drugs, alcohol, nakedness, and the kinds of things that accompany drugs, alcohol and nakedness. And yet, this is a funny and enjoyable book that I am glad I read.

Stephen Tobolowsky is a master storyteller – interesting, funny, polished, and insightful. I wish I could get him to come to Sunday afternoon lunch so we could drink sweet tea and trade stories back and forth across the kitchen table.

Before Tobolowsky was that Hollywood actor that everyone recognizes but no one knows his name, he was a good ol’ North Texas boy.  And, many of his stories include that North Texas dimension; water moccasin throwing, tarantula hunting, driving naked through Dallas, coping with strange SMU professors, — you know, routine North Texan life.  Then, he moves on to talk about racoons in the attic, bull-fighting, Jewish mysticism, quantum physics, — you know, routine Hollywood life.

__________

And now, a short note to Tobolowsky, himself.

Tobo, I know you will never read this, but just in case, I wanted to let you know that I am actively thinking about those important four people in my life.  Thanks for the stimulus.

KS

__________

And, here are a few quotes from the book:

DON’T ASK ME, “How are the kids?” I never have any idea. I know they eat and get dressed and go to school, but as to what is going on in their lives and in their heads, forget it. It is the secret world: the world that every child has and that no parent gets to see. Ann and I are active parents. We try to meet all of our kids’ friends and their parents and ask questions and look under the bed, and check in the closets, tap their phones— but we still don’t know the various deals with Satan they may make when they leave the house. We’re not unique. Every parent is in the dark. (p. 1)

* * *

Her face changed as most women’s do when they listen to their men: from amusement to horror to incomprehensibility. (p. 15)

* * *

It’s funny how much trust we put in science when its track record throughout history has been so bad. The problem is that science not only tries to describe the observable, like the tides and the height of mountains, but also the unobservable. (p. 59)

* * *

Hob was a true academic and consequently no one could understand what he was talking about. (p. 170)

* * *

“If I am not for myself, who is? If I am for myself alone, what am I? And if not now, when?” ~ Rabbi Hillel (p. 175)

* * *

Fairly or unfairly, many people are tried in life. The mistake people make is that they think the trial is a sign of failure. It’s not. It’s only a doorway that leads to who you really are. (p. 182)

* * *

It is difficult to define what men look for in women and what women look for in men. One thing is for certain: it’s not the same thing. (p. 213)

* * *

All of this time I had only known Hob as a sort of academe to the third power: a man who would never call a spade a spade when he could call it a partially conical metal digging implement used primarily in recreational agriculture. (p. 230)

* * *

“The reason you can’t get a handle on life is because it’s not a bucket.” (p. 239)

* * *

The “yeah, but” is the way we have developed to diminish our own lives into footnotes. To demoralize, trivialize, and squander the greatest gift we have been given— the joy of watching the sun rise for another day, even if it is only to have the opportunity to fail. (p. 240)

* * *

As a rule in life, if you want to feel thin, hang out with fat people. If you want to feel better about your prospects, talk to friends who are worse off than you. (p. 241)

* * *

There is almost nothing more powerful than the current of unhappiness. It can carry you far away. It can separate friends and family. It can even separate you from yourself. (p. 242)

* * *

Determination is often mistaken for purpose. Usually it is only a sign of a lack of imagination. (p. 289)

* * *

I have never been to a psychiatrist…. It’s hard to find a good one. There are so many bad ones, and to get the name of a good one you have to ask friends who go to psychiatrists and they’re usually crazy. (p. 291)

* * *

It’s amazing how comforting the simple things were— like trees, or a mountain, or snow. When I turned my attention from my own pain to look at the amazing world around me, I started feeling better. I was rediscovering the miracle of my own life. (pp. 297-298)

* * *

When I was addicted to cocaine several years later, a dealer told me something important. He said addiction is not just made up of the time you spend getting high. It is also made up of the time you spend thinking about drugs, earning money to buy drugs, and driving around trying to find drugs. (p. 332)

* * *

Our life isn’t necessarily measured by what we accumulate, but how we spend our time. There is a pressure to value achievement by focusing on the finish line. I often think more praise should be bestowed on those who make sure we’re starting at the right place. (p. 332)

____________

[update]

@kevinstilley Kevin. It was beautiful. Thank you.

— Stephen Tobolowsky (@Tobolowsky) September 2, 2013

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Humor Tagged With: book review, Humor, Stephen Tobolowsky, storytelling

August 12, 2013 by kevinstilley

Actual Stilley Household Conversations

Conversation #1

Me: “Are you going to wear that?”

Son: “Yes.”

Me: “Well, at least comb your hair.”

Son: “Why? We are just going to Wal-Mart.”

I fully expect to someday see his picture on the internet under the heading “The People of Wal-Mart.

* * *

Conversation #2

[Sound of crashing/spilling from upstairs . . . ]

Child 1: “Uh Oh!”

Wife: “What spilled up there?”

Child 2: “Toxic acid and we will all be dead in minutes.”

At least this way I won’t have to worry about seeing pictures of my kids on The People of Wal-Mart.

Filed Under: Blog, Family Circus, Humor Tagged With: Humor, Stilley, Wal-Mart

July 22, 2012 by kevinstilley

Flip Wilson – select quotes

Funny is an attitude.

Get well cards have become so humorous that if you don’t get sick you’re missing half the fun.

If I had my entire life to live over, I doubt if I’d have the strength.

It’s later than it’s ever been.

The cost of living is going up and the chance of living is going down.

Violence is a tool of the ignorant.

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: comedy, Flip Wilson, Funny, Humor, quotations, Quotes

June 3, 2012 by kevinstilley

Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemons) – select quotes

Mark Twain Quotes

I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being–that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.
~ in Harper Magazine, Sept. 1899

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
~ in the New York Tribune, Sept. 27, 1871

Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is a sort of low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time his is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the “noblest work of God.”
~ in Letters from the Earth

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
~ in Following the Equator

It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you.
~ in Following the Equator

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is cowardice.
~ in Following the Equator

How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.
~ in The Diaries of Adam and Eve

I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.
~ quoted by Frank Luntz in Words That Work

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

A powerful agent is the right word: it lights the reader’s way and makes it plain. A close approximation to it will answer, and much traveling is done in a well-enough fashion by its help, but we do not welcome it and rejoice in it as we do when the right word blazes out at us. Whenever we come upon one of these intensely right words in a book or a newspaper, the resulting effect is physical as well as spiritual, and electrically prompt. It tingles exquisitely around through the walls of the mouth and tastes as tart and crisp and good as the autumn butter that creams the sumac berry.

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.

Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

An Englishman is a person who does things because they have been done before. An American is a person who does things because they haven’t been done before.

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read.

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.

Do something every day that you don’t want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.

Few sinners are saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

Go to heaven for the climate, hell for the company.

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.

Honesty is the best policy – when there is money in it.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The minute it crops up, all our irritations and resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes their place.

I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won’t.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.

I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

In religion and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.

In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

It is easier to stay out than get out.

It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

It’s easy to give up smoking; I’ve done it many times.

It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

It’s not what I don’t understand about the Bible that bothers me; it’s what I do understand that bothers me.

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed.

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

Only presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms ought to have the right to use the editorial we.

Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter–’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.

The lack of money is the root of all evil.

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

The worst loneliness is not to be comfortable with yourself.

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not.

There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

When in doubt tell the truth.

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet deep down in his private heart no man much respects himself.

When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them–then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart.

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

The history of our race, and each individual’s experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.
Familiarity breeds contempt – and children.

Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.

Man is the only blushing animal—and the only one that needs to.

__________

Bibliography

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1867)
General Washington’s Negro Body-Servant (1868)
My Late Senatorial Secretaryship (1868)
The Innocents Abroad (1869)
Memoranda (1870-1871)
Mark Twain’s (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance (1871)
Roughing It (1872)
The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873)
Sketches New and Old (1875)
Old Times on the Mississippi (1876)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage (1876)
A True Story and the Recent Carnival of Crime (1877)
The Invalid’s Story (1877)
Punch, Brothers, Punch! and other Sketches (1878)
A Tramp Abroad (1880)
1601: Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors (1880)
The Prince and the Pauper (1882)
Life on the Mississippi (1883)
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889)
The American Claimant (1892)
Merry Tales (1892)
Those Extraordinary Twins (1892)
The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories (1893)
Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894)
The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894)
Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896)
Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (1896)
How to Tell a Story and other Essays (1897)
Following the Equator (1897)
Is He Dead? (1898)
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900)
A Salutation Speech From the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth (1900)
The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated (1901)
Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany (1901)
To the Person Sitting in Darkness (1901)
A Double Barrelled Detective Story (1902)
A Dog’s Tale (1904)
Extracts from Adam’s Diary (1904)
King Leopold’s Soliloquy (1905)
The War Prayer (1905)
The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (1906)
What Is Man? (1906)
Eve’s Diary (1906)
Christian Science (1907)
A Horse’s Tale (1907)
Is Shakespeare Dead? (1907)
Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven (1909)
Letters from the Earth (1909)
Queen Victoria’s Jubilee (1910)
My Platonic Sweetheart (1912)
The Mysterious Stranger (1916)
Mark Twain’s Autobiography (1924)
Mark Twain’s Notebook (1935)
Letters from the Earth (1962)
No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (1969)
Concerning the Jews (1985)
Mark Twain’s Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War. (1992)
The Bible According to Mark Twain: Writings on Heaven, Eden, and the Flood (1995)

Filed Under: Blog, Books, Quotes Tagged With: American, aphorisms, Blog, Books, History, Humor, literature, Mark Twain, Missouri, quips, Quotes, river, sly, wisdom, witicism

December 19, 2011 by kevinstilley

Dave Barry – select quotes

Once again, we come to the Holiday Season, a deeply religious time that each of us observes, in his own way, by going to the mall of his choice.

Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it’s open to anybody who owns hideous clothing.

The best baby-sitters, of course, are the baby’s grandparents. You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida.

When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy.

Filed Under: Blog, Humor, Quotes Tagged With: Anecdotes, comedy, Dave Barry, Funny, Humor, jokes

May 14, 2011 by kevinstilley

Laughter Trivia

Laughing lowers levels of stress hormones and strengthens the immune system. Six-year-olds laugh an average of 300 times a day. Adults only laugh 15 to 100 times a day.

__________

Book Cover

Filed Under: Blog, Trivia Tagged With: Blog, comedy, Humor, laughter, Trivia

March 8, 2011 by kevinstilley

Sense of Humor – select quotes

A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.
– Dwight D. Eisenhower

Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it.
-Cullen Hightower

A sense of humor… is needed armor. Joy in one’s heart and some laughter on one’s lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.
~ Hugh Sidey

__________

RELATED CONTENT

  • Index To Great Quotes

__________

Book Cover

Filed Under: Blog, Humor, Quotes Tagged With: comedy, Humor, quotations, quote

February 9, 2011 by kevinstilley

Robert Frost – select quotes

frost

Freedom lies in being bold.

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.

Filed Under: Blog, Quotes Tagged With: American, Humor, literature, poem, poetry, Quotes, Robert Frost, rural

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