Ogden nash quotes

An occasional lucky guess as to what makes a wife tick is the best a man can hope for, Even then, no sooner has he learned how to cope with the tick than she tocks.

A bit of talcum Is always walcum.

The cow is of the bovine ilk: One end is moo, the other, milk.

If some confectioners were willing To let the shape announce the filling, We'd encounter fewer assorted chocs, Bitten into and returned to the box.

When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window.

I drink because she nags, she said I nag because he drinks. But if the truth be known to you, He's a lush and she's a shrew.

I'd rather be a great bad poet than a good bad poet.

When I ponder my mind I consistently find It is glued On food.

Remorse is violent dyspepsia of the mind.

And you stagger down to break your fast. Greasy bacon and lacquered eggs And coffee composed of frigid dregs.

Abracadabra, thus we learn The more you create, the less you earn. The less you earn, the more you're given, The less you lead, the more you're driven, The more destroyed, the more they feed, The more you pay, the more they need, The more you earn, the less you keep, And now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to take If the tax-collector hasn't got it before I wake.

Too much Chablis can make you whablis.

But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them, With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.

Life has a tendency to obfuscate and bewilder, Such as fating us to spend the first part of our lives being embarrassed by our parents and the last part being embarrassed by our children.

When you're wrong admit it, when you're right, shut up.

Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons, or Celts, Can't seem just to say anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.

Smallpox is natural; vaccine ain't.

Professional men, they have no cares; whatever happens, they get theirs.

Some primal termite knocked on wood. And tasted it, and found it good. And that is why your Cousin May Fell through the parlor floor today.

Marriage is the only known example of the happy meeting of the immovable object and the irresistible force.

A husband is a man who two minutes after his head touches the pillow is snoring like an overloaded omnibus.

Tonight's December thirty-first, something is about to burst. The clock is crouching, dark and small, like a time bomb in the hall. Hark, it's midnight, children dear. Duck! Here comes another year!

At another year I would not boggle Except that when I jog I joggle.

Progress might have been all right once, but it's gone on too long.

Don't over-analyze your marriage; it's like yanking up a fragile indoor plant every 20 minutes to see how its roots are growing.

Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.

Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up.

Some people's money is merited and other people's is inherited.

Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave, when they think that their children are naive.

Indoors or out, no one relaxes In March, that month of wind and taxes, The wind will presently disappear, The taxes last us all the year.

If called by a panther, don't anther.

The only way I can distinguish proper from improper fractions is by their actions

God in His wisdom made the fly And then forgot to tell us why.

I'm like a backward berry, Unripened on the vine, For all my friends are fifty, And I'm only forty-nine.

No man is greater than his respect for sleep.

O money, money, money. I'm not necessarily one of those who think thee holy, but I often stop to wonder how thou canst go out so fast when thou comest in so slowly.

Ten years ago she split the air To seize what she could spy Tonight she bumps against a chair, Betrayed by milky eye. She seems to pant, Time up, time up! My little dog must die, And lie in dust with Hector's pup; I So, presently, must I.

People expect old men to die, They do not really mourn old men. Old men are different. People look At them with eyes that wonder when ... People watch with unshocked eyes; But the old men know when an old man dies.

O thrice unhappy home Whose master doesn't know the difference between a watt and an ohm!

All that glitters is sold as gold.

Women would rather be right than reasonable.

No, you never get any fun Out of the things you haven't done.

Humor is hope's companion in arms. It is not brash, it is not cheap, it is not heartless. Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit.

The trouble with a kitten is that eventually it becomes a cat.

Snow is all right while it is snowing; it is like inebriation because it is very pleasing when it is coming, but very unpleasing when it is going.

You are much happier when you are happy than when you ain't.

The oboe's a horn made of wood. I'd play you a tune if I could, But the reeds are a pain, And the fingering's insane. It's the ill wind that no one blows good.

The Preacher, the Politicain, the Teacher, Were each of them once a kiddie. A child, indeed, is a wonderful creature. Do I want one? God Forbiddie!

Sleep is perverse as human nature, Sleep is perverse as legislature.... So people who go to bed to sleep Must count French premiers or sheep, And people who ought to arise from bed Yawn and go back to sleep instead.

Some debts are fun while you are acquiring them, But none are fun when you set about retiring them.

Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.

There once was an umpire whose vision Was cause for abuse and derision He remarked in surprise, 'Why pick on my eyes? It's my heart that dictates my decision.'

A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.

Time is like the ocean, always there, always different.

Your hair may be brushed, but your mind's untidy. You've had about seven hours of sleep since Friday. No wonder you feel that lost sensation. You're sunk from a riot of relaxation.

Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets them.

When I remember bygone days I think how evening follows morn So many I loved were not yet dead, So many I love were not yet born.

The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can't cure, Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor.

Senescence begins And middle-age ends The day your descendants Outnumber your friends

The camel has a single hump, The dromedary, two; Or else the other way around; I'm never sure. Are you?

So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and combat Over everything debatable and combatable Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life Particularly if he has income and she is pattable.

There is one fault that I must find With the twentieth century. And I'll put it in a couple of words; Too adventury. What I'd like would be some nice dull monotony If anyone's gotony.

I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all.

Some hate broccoli, some hate bacon I hate having my picture taken. How can your family claim to love you And then demand a picture of you?

Middle-age is when you're sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you.

Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor.

People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.

Home is heaven and orgies are vile, But I like an orgy, once in a while.

There has been a lot of progress during my lifetime, but I'm afraid it's heading in the wrong direction.

It is the sin of omission, the second kind of sin, That lays eggs under your skin.

Where there is a monster, there is a miracle.

Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit. So here we are several billion of us, crowded into our global concentration camp for the duration. How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don't have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves.

The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.

I have an idea that the phrase weaker sex was coined by some woman to disarm some man she was preparing to overwhelm.

Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor.

To love is an active verb.

Celery, raw, Develops the jaw

Man is a victim of dope in the incurable form of hope.

One rule which woe betides the banker who fails to heed it/Never lend any money to anybody unless they don't need it.

But all ladies think they weigh too much.

In the world of mules there are no rules.

I hope my tongue in prune juice smothers, If I belittle dogs and mothers.

People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they don't want it.

I test my bath before I sit, And I'm always moved to wonderment That what chills the finger not a bit Is so frigid upon the fundament.

Here's a toast to the roast that good fellowship lends, with the sparkle of beer and wine; May its sentiment always be deeper, my friends, than the foam at the top of the stein. Then here's to the heartening wassail, wherever good fellows are found; Be its master instead of its vassal, and order the glasses around.

Indeed, everybody wants to be a wow, But not everybody knows exactly how.

Wind is caused by the trees waving their branches.

I am a conscientious man, when I throw rocks at seabirds I leave no tern unstoned.

I do not like to get the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

All husbands are alike, but they have different faces so you can tell them apart.

Whether elected or appointed he considers himself the Lord's anointed, and indeed the ointment lingers on him so thick you can't get your fingers on him.

Winter is the king of showmen, Turning tree stumps into snowmen And houses into birthday cakes And spreading sugar over lakes. Smooth and clean and frosty white, The world looks good enough to bite. That’s the season to be young, Catching snowflakes on your tongue. Snow is snowy when it’s snowing, I’m sorry it’s slushy when it’s going.

Here's a good rule of thumb; too clever is dumb.

A bird in the open never looks Like its picture in the birdie books - Or if it once did, it has changed its plumage, And plunges you back into ignorant gloomage.

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for Would be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and>metaphor.

A dressing is not a compote A dressing is not a custard It consists of pepper and salt, Vinegar, oil and mustard.

A husband is a guy who tells you when you've got on too much lipstick and helps you with your girdle when your hips stick.

Beneath this slab John Brown is stowed. He watched the ads, And not the road.

If you don't want to work, you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.

Here lies my past, Goodbye I have kissed it; Thank you kids, I wouldn't have missed it.

One man's remorse is another man's reminiscence.

Some tortures are physical And some are mental, But the one that is both Is dental.

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.

The doctor gets you when you're born, The preacher, when you marry, And the lawyer lurks with costly clerks If too much on you carry. Professional men, they have no cares; Whatever happens, they get theirs.

I believe that people believe what they believe they believe.

Miranda in Miranda's sight is old, gray and dirty; Twenty-nine she was last night; This morning she is thirty.

When there are monsters there are miracles.

Love is a word that is constantly heard, Hate is a word that is not. Love, I am told, is more precious than gold. Love, I have read, is hot. But hate is the verb that to me is superb, And Love but a drug on the mart. Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But Hating, my boy, is an Art.

The Pig, if I am not mistaken, Supplies us sausage, ham, and Bacon. Let others say his heart is big, I think it stupid of the Pig.

There was a young man of Herne Bay who was making some fireworks one day: but he dropped his cigar in the gunpowder jar. There was a young man of Herne Bay.

Humor is the best means of surviving in a difficult world.

Maybe I couldn't be dafter, But I keep wondering if this time we settle our differences before a war instead of after.

Bankers are just like everybody else, except richer.

I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance, were it not for making living, which is rather a nouciance.

The truth I do not stretch or shove When I state the dog is full of love. I've also proved, by actual test, A wet dog is the lovingest.

My garden will never make me famous, I'm a horticultural ignoramus.

Poets arent very usefulBecause they aren't consumeful or produceful.

Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won't buy, but it's very funny- Have you ever tried to buy them without money?

One thing about the past. It's likely to last.

Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.

There is something about a martini, Ere the dining and dancing begin, And to tell you the truth, It is not the vermouth- I think that perhaps it's the gin.

How confusing the beams from memory's lamp are; One day a bachelor, the next a grampa. What is the secret of the trick? How did I get so old so quick?

The further through life I drift the more obvious it becomes that I am lacking in thrift.

Stuyvesant chats with Kelly and Katz, The professor warms to the broker, And life is good in the brotherhood Of an air-conditioned smoker.

Time is so old and love so brief, love is pure gold and time a thief. We're late, darling, we're late, The curtain descends, everything ends, too soon, too soon.