Memorable Quotations

Quotations stick to me like flies to flypaper. Once hearing one, I never forget it. I've probably memorized a few hundred. Here are some of my favorites — some profound, some whimsical. Somehow, the whimsical ones seem to hold more truth.

It's better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt. —Mark Twain

I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception. —Groucho Marx

...if you hear of my being stood up against a Mexican stone wall and shot to rags please know that I think that a pretty good way to depart this life. It beats old age, disease, or falling down the cellar stairs. —Ambrose Bierce, in a letter to his sister. He was never seen or heard from again.

Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life. —Brooke Shields

Any idiot can face a crisis — it's this day-to-day living that wears you out. —Anton Chekhov

I'm not unmindful of man's seeming need for some kind of faith; basically, I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel's. —Frank Sinatra

If you come to a fork in the road, take it. —Yogi Berra

Man thrives where angels would die of ecstasy and pigs would die of disgust. —Kenneth Rexroth

I love sparklers. They're sparkly. I love sparkly things. And glitter. —Taylor Swift

I never killed anyone before, but I’ve had a great deal of pleasure from time to time reading the obituaries. —Clarence Darrow

I think we ought to have as great a regard for religion as we can, so as to keep it out of as many things as possible. —Sean O'Casey

I'm not afraid to die — I just don't want to be there when it happens. —Woody Allen

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun. —Katharine Hepburn

You can always rely on Americans to do the right thing — after they've exhausted every other possibility. —Winston Churchill

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. —Oscar Wilde

A woman drove me to drink. I never wrote to thank her. —W. C. Fields

Well, George, we finally knocked the bastard off. —Sir Edmund Hillary to his friend George Lowe on returning from his historic ascent of Mount Everest

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence in their behalf. —George Orwell

Between two evils, I always pick the one I haven't tried before. —Mae West

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow; don't walk behind me, I may not lead; walk beside me, and just be my friend.  —Albert Camus

I've wrestled with reality for years. I finally won out over it. —James Stewart in Harvey

Famous Quotes Nobody Said:
 Play it again, Sam. —Attributed to Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca. I've watched that movie many times, and he never says it, nor does anyone else.

Beam me up, Scotty. —Take it from a hardcore Trekkie, nobody ever uttered those words in the entire history of Star Trek.

Elementary, my dear Watson. —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective never spoke this line which somehow became permanently associated with him in the popular imagination.

Just the facts, ma'am. —Did Jack Webb's character, Joe Friday in Dragnet, ever really say this frequently quoted line? Nope!

Houston, we have a problem. —Not exactly. In the movie, Tom Hanks, starring as Commander Jim Lovell, calmly spoke this line when the oxygen tank exploded on Apollo 13. In reality, Astronaut Jack Swigert first yelled, "Hey, Houston, we've got a problem here!" When Houston control asked him to repeat, Lovell repeated for him, "Houston, we've had a problem." 

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