Don Marquis

I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors. I would rather start a family than finish one. Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

By the time a bartender knows what drink a man will have before he orders, there is little else about him worth knowing.

Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.

Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.

Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into.

One of the most important things to remember about infant care is: don't change diapers in midstream.

Successful people are the ones who think up things for the rest of the world to keep busy at.

The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.

We pay for the mistakes of our ancestors, and it seems only fair that they should leave us the money to pay with.

Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.