Witipedia

Killer quotes often help bring writing alive. I have been an avid collector of quotations, apothegms and aphorisms for many years and list below some of my favourites on a variety of topics. Some are culled from books and magazines, others from newspaper obituaries or picked up randomly.

“I always have a quotation for everything; it saves original thinking.”
Dorothy L. Sayers

“I only drink to make other people interesting.”
Jeffrey Bernard

“I’m still a going concern, but a little concerned about going.”
Laurie Lee in old age

“Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.”
Quentin Crisp

“Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making plans.”
John Lennon

“The two most beautiful words in the English language: cheque enclosed.”
Dorothy Parker

“I don’t mind growing old, I just don’t like growing up.”
Martha Gellhorn

“I feel sorry for the people who don’t drink. They wake up in the morning and that’s the best they’re going to feel all day.”
Dean Martin

“A man can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days.”
Goethe

“I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean.”
G. K. Chesterton

“Nothing matters very much and very little matters at all.”
Arthur Balfour

“It’s true hard work never killed anybody but I figure why take the chance.”
Ronald Reagan

“Wake me up in an emergency – even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”
Ronald Reagan

“I don’t like the idea of living on in the silver screen. I want to live on in my apartment.”
Woody Allen

“The future is not what it was and the past isn’t getting any better either.”
Bernard Levin

“I only drink moderately. In fact, I have a case of moderately in my dressing room.”
Dean Martin

“I’d like to live as a poor man with lots of money.”
Picasso

“When it hurts, we return to the banks of certain rivers.”
Czeslaw Milosz

“As a child I thought I hated everybody but when I grew up I realised it was just children that I didn’t like.”
Philip Larkin

“Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.”
Frank Lloyd Wright

“I have the body of an 18-year-old. I keep it in the fridge.”
Spike Milligan

“Happiness is having a large loving caring close knit family in another city.”
George Burns

“Any idiot can face a crisis. It’s the day to day living that wears you out.”
Anton Chekhov