“What has happened to architecture since the Second World War that the only passers-by who can contemplate it without pain are those equipped with a white stick and a dog?”

– Bernard Levin
The Times, 1983

“The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the authenticity of the biblical miracles is the fact that most of the witnesses in regard to them were fishermen.”

– Arthur Binstead
Pitcher’s Proverbs, 1909

“If any reader of this book is in the grip of some habit of which he is deeply ashamed, I advise him not to give way to it in secret but to do it on television. No-one will pass him with averted gaze on the other side of the street. People will cross the road at the risk of losing their own lives in order to say, ‘We saw you on the telly.’”

– Quentin Crisp
How to Become a Virgin, 1981

A few inspirational quotes for Father’s Day…

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

– Attributed to Mark Twain
The Reader’s Digest, September 1939

“As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.”

– Lord Chesterfield
Letters, 1751

“Fathers should be neither seen nor heard. That is the only proper basis for family life.”

– Oscar Wilde
An Ideal Husband, 1895

“A father is a banker provided by nature.”

– Unknown
Quoted in The Oxford Book of Aphorisms, 1983

“What a dreadful thing it must be to have a dull father.”

– Mary Mapes Dodge
Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates, 1865

“The thing to remember about fathers is, they’re men.
A girl has to keep it in mind:
They are dragon-seekers, bent on improbable rescues.
Scratch any father, you find
Someone chock-full of qualms and romantic terrors,
Believing change is a threat–
Like your first shoes with heels on, like your first bicycle
It took such months to get.”

– Phyllis McGinley
Times Three, 1960

My brother-in-law, Sam, shared the following insight last night:

“PEZ is the Steven Seagal of candies…”

Oddly enough, I found myself nodding in agreement.