Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Grumpy Yvette



Yeah, I'm having one of those days and I've found the perfect book to wile away the hours until my 'normal' less grumpy state returns or until I figure out a way to make a vodka martini without the vermouth.

WHATEVER IT IS I'M AGAINST IT 
An Encyclopedic Compendium of Classical and Contemporary Abhorrence, Abomination, Abuse, Acrimony, Anger, Animosity, Annoyance, Antipathy, Aversion Bitchery, Bitterness, Calumny, Cynicism, Derogation, Detestation, Disaffection, Disgust, Disparagement, Distemper, Excretion, Hostility, Insolence, Insult, Invective, Loathing, Malevolence, Malice, Malignity, Misanthropy, Odium, Perversity, Pique, Rancor, Resentment, Revulsion, Sarcasm, Spite, Spleen, Umbrage, Venom, Vilification, Vituperation and Downright Nastiness - All lovingly compiled and edited by Nat Sapiro. (I added the 'All lovingly')

'There's nothing like venting someone else's spleen.' 

Yvette Banek

'Damn the great executives, the men of measured merriment, damn the men with careful smiles, damn the men that run the shops, oh, damn their measured merriment.'

Sinclair Lewis (Arrowsmith, 1925)

'One of the privileges of the great is to witness catastrophes from a terrace.'

Jean Giraudoux

'Politics ruins the character.'

James Thurber

'Fewer things are harder to put up with then the annoyance of a good example' 

Mark Twain

'Whenever I feel the urge to exercise I lie down until it passes.'

Robert Hutchins

'Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes'

Oscar Wilde

'I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.' 

George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman, 1903)

'Life is too short to learn German.' 

Richard Porson

'Show me a good loser and I'll show you an idiot.'

Leo Durocher

'The world is disgracefully managed, one hardly knows to whom to complain.'  

Ronald Firbank

'The most dangerous of our calculations are those we call illusions.'

George Bernanos

'Hell is paved with good intentions.'

Samuel Johnson 

'Henry James was one of the nicest old ladies I ever met.' 

attributed to William Faulkner

'He who laughs has not yet heard the bad news.' 

Bertolt Brecht

'A little sincerity is dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.'

Oscar Wilde

'From the cradle to the coffin, underwear comes first.'

Bertolt Brecht

'I do not like work even when another person does it.'

Mark Twain

'Why do we live? But to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in return.'

Jane Austen

'There's nothing in the world worse than woman - save some other woman.'

Aristophanes

'Woman may be said to be an inferior man.'

Artistotle

'I hate women because they always know where things are.'

attributed to James Thurber

'You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.'

Evelyn Waugh

'Man is nature's sole mistake.'

W.S. Gilbert

'Men my dear, are very queer animals - a mixture of horse-nervousness, ass-stubbornness and camel-malice.'

Thomas Henry Huxley

'We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over.'

Aneurin Bevan

'Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to read about in history books - but it is terrible when one has to live it.'

Jean Anouilh

'Life is a long headache in a noisy street.'

John Mansfield

'Life is just one damned thing after another.'

attributed to Frank Ward O'Malley

'Life is a gamble, at terrible odds - if it was a bet, you wouldn't take it.'

Tom Stoppard

'There are moments when everything goes well; don't be frightened, it won't last.'

Jules Renard

'We have Art in order that we may not perish from Truth.'

Friedrich Nietzsche

'...any dish that has either a taste or an appearance that can be improved by parsley is ipso facto a dish unfit for human consumption.'

Ogden Nash

13 comments:

  1. Terrific stuff, Yvette! Twain, Wilde and Thurber are some of my favourite humourists as is Groucho Marx. Shaw and Churchill often got each other's goat — pure entertainment. There's Evelyn Waugh, of course.

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  2. hello Yvette:
    This looks such a good read! And, surely this is bound to lift one of the deepest gloom as the quotations are simply delicious.

    Whatever is making you grumpy cannot be worth it. Laughter is the best medicine or, failing that, a gin and tonic!!

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  3. This is so completely perfect, particularly that second one you quote.

    New boss. Meeting happy. That should accurately portray my new situation. Ugh. Grumpy Jenn wishes Grumpy Yvette a much sunnier afternoon. :)

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  4. There are some great lines here that I haven't seen anywhere else. It looks like a great read!

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  5. Evelyn Waugh was, from everthing I've read, a nasty little man. I read somewhere that someone said (I'm paraphrasing...) that Waugh could never be happy with the fact that he was not born a tall, handsome, aristocrat with a title. :)

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  6. You said it about laughter, Jane and Lance. :) Although as you say, a good gin and tonic wouldn't hurt.

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  7. Thanks, Grumpy Jenn. :)

    Cheer up, at least you've got a job. Good luck!

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  8. It's a fun read, Mark. I bought it years ago for my ex-husband. He was the type who spread negativity wherever he went. Very helpful. Ha.

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  9. Very good lines. Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, others, so wise, so witty.

    Their lines should help get rid of the grumpiness. They caused me to grin.

    The line about letting the urge to exercise pass is in one of Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr books, which I quote often. Only he said, "Whenever I get the urge to jog, I lie down and let it pass."

    I use that line to myself about house-cleaning.

    Only no women here? I would have thought a few choice lines by Dorothy Parker would have shown up. Even Mae West, an excellent deliverer of one-liners.

    Love the title of that book. Some days are just like that.

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  10. Didn't even realize I'd left off quotes from women. Oops.

    At any rate, glad you enjoyed reading the post anyway, Kathy.

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  11. I've been feeling this way at times, too, Yvette! Selling/buying a house can be a big headache and I'm sure packing, and moving and unpacking will be no picnic. SIGH. I just wish it were all over and we were settled into the new place.

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  12. Pat, been there, done that. It's overwhelming. But the fun begins when you settle down in your new domain.

    Jeez, and just when the Nets are cominig to town.

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