Ogden Nash Quotes

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

Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.

Basketball, a game which won't be fit for people until they set the basket umbilicus-high and return the giraffes to the zoo.

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.

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!

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

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

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

The codfish is a staple food For which I'm seldom in the mood. This fish is such an utter loss That people eat it with egg sauce.

Then blessings on thee, my afternoon torpor Thou makest a prince of a mental porpor.

Here is a pen and here is a pencil, here's a typewriter, here's a stencil, here's a list of today's appointments, and all the flies in all the ointments, the daily woes that a man endures -- take them, George, they're yours!

The burnt child, urged by rankling ire, Can hardly wait to get back at the fire.

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

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

I don't care how unkind the things people say about me so long as they don't say them to my face.

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

Wind is caused by the trees waving their branches.

They take the paper and they read the headlines. So they've heard of unemployment and they've heard of bread-lines. And they philanthropically cure them all by getting up a costume charity ball.

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?

Another good thing about gossip is that it is within everybody's reach, And it is much more interesting than any other form of speech.

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

How easy for those who do not bulge to not overindulge!

Every new year is the direct descendant, isn't it, of a long line of proven criminals?

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.

All that glitters is sold as gold.

This is my dream, It is my own dream, I dreamt it. I dreamt that my hair was kempt. Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.

No matter how deep and dark your pit, how dank your shroud, their heads are heroically unbloody and unbowed.

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.

The highest form of wisdom is to get drunk and go to pieces. The highest form of wisdom is to get drunk and go to pieces. Candy is dandy But liquor is quicker.

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

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.

Bankers are just like anybody else, only richer

Some one invented the telephone, And interrupted a nation's slumbers, Ringing wrong but similar numbers.

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

One would be in less danger From the wiles of the stranger If one's own kin and kith Were more fun to be with.

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.

I claim there ain't Another Saint As great as Valentine.

One bliss for which There is no match Is when you itch To up and scratch.

Linguistics becomes an ever eerier area, like I feel like I'm in Oz, Just trying to tell it like it was.

The dog is man's best friend. He has a tail on one end. Up in front he has teeth. And four legs underneath.

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.

To maintain your marriage brimming, with really like in the wedding cup, anytime you are incorrect, admit it each time you're proper, shut up.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.