A hermit is simply a person to whom civilization has failed to adjust itself.

Humor springs from rage, hay fever, overdue rent and miscellaneous hell.

If a cat does something, we call it instinct; if we do the same thing, for the same reason, we call it intelligence.

I'm a poetry-skipper myself. I don't like to boast, but I have probably skipped more poetry than any other person of my age and weight in this country - make it any other two persons. This doesn't mean that I hate poetry. I don't feel that strongly about it. It only means that those who wish to communicate with me by means of the written word must do so in prose.

As Darwin puts it in The Descent of Man, 'Male snakes, though appearing so sluggish, are amorous.' Isn't that just like Darwin? It was one of his main ideas, you know, that the males of almost all animals have stronger passions than the females. Since then we've learned a thing or two. At any rate, the female snake is right there when spring arrives in the woods.

Alexander III of Macedon is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than any other man of his time.

The trouble with the dictionary is that you have to know how a word is spelled before you can look it up to see how it is spelled.