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War, at first, is the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn’t any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone’s being worse off.

Karl Kraus

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.

Joseph Conrad

I was walking down Fifth Avenue today, and I found a wallet. I was going to keep it, rather than return it, but I thought: Well, if I lost $150, how would I feel? And I realized I would want to be taught a lesson.

Emo Philips

The honeymoon is over when he phones that he’ll be late for supper — and she has already left a note that it’s in the refrigerator.

Bill Lawrence

The dying process begins the minute we are born, but it accelerates during dinner parties.

Carol Matthau

After twelve years of therapy my psychiatrist said something that brought tears to my eyes: “No hablo inglés.”

Ronnie Shakes

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

Douglas Adams

Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.

Albert Schweitzer

The most striking contradiction of our civilization is the fundamental reverence for truth that we profess, and the thoroughgoing disregard for it that we practice.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson

Cars today are almost the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals: I mean the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists, and consumed . . . by a whole population which appropriates them as a purely magical object.

Roland Barthes