This is a collection of quotes that is still growing. If you have any comments on these quotes, or others you'd like to share email me but PLEASE don't send me any anonymous or self quotes.
"Experience teaches you that the man who looks you straight in the eye, particularly if he adds a firm handshake, is hiding something." - Clifton Fadiman
"When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before." - Cliff Fadiman
"Did you ever sit back and evaluate your life and think, 'Boy, things are going just as I always wanted them to?' I didn't think so." - Jimmy and Gloria Fallon, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life
"Don't keep reaching for the stars, because you'll just look like an idiot, stretching like that for no reason." - Jimmy and Gloria Fallon, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life
"Don't put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today... And if you die in your sleep tonight, you wasted your last day on Earth doing laundry." - Jimmy and Gloria Fallon, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life
"Live each day as if it were your last... So you want me to lie around in a hospital bed with an I.V. and an oxygen tank? My last day's going to be bad enough without rehashing it day after day." - Jimmy and Gloria Fallon, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life
"Someone should invent action figures that are lanky and have no super powers. Then the youth of today might respect people like me." - Jimmy and Gloria Fallon, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life
"Sometimes it feels like I'm the only one who cares about my welfare. I guess that's because I am the only one who cares about my welfare." - Jimmy and Gloria Fallon, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life
"There's plenty of fish in the sea... And most are like the one who just dumped you." - Jimmy and Gloria Fallon, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life
"When I see professional clowns, mimes, or people that make balloon animals, I always think of their relatives and how disappointed they must be." - Jimmy and Gloria Fallon, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life
"Wherever I go, there I am, and I hate this place." - Jimmy and Gloria Fallon, I Hate This Place: The Pessimist's Guide to Life
"Right now your kid is thinking about sex" - ad by Family Health Council
"When women hold off from marrying men, we call it independence. When men hold off from marrying women, we call it fear of commitment." - Warren Farrell
"Happened after he got to Hollywood. Reagan got carried away by stories of the Communist Party helping the unemployed, the homeless, the dispossessed. Some of his friends, people he respected, were Party members. So he turned to them. Said he wanted to become a communist... Said he was determined to join. They discussed it with the local Party leader, who asked around, and word came back that Reagan was a flake... They said Reagan couldn't be trusted with a political opinion for more than 20 minutes. So the decision was taken to prevent him from joining, but to use him as a friend of the Party." - Howard Fast as quoted by Edmund Morris, - Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan
"If you're naturally kind, you attract a lot of people you don't like." - William Feather
"Your people never cry enough... uncried tears remain inside you, like poison." - Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts, Servant of the Empire
"Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off.
How many are left? Answer: five.
Why?
Because there's a difference between deciding and doing." - Mark L. Feldman & Michael F. Spratt
"All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers... Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than to the particular country in which he was born." - Francois Fenelon
"There are two possible outcomes: If the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery." - Enrico Fermi
"You're not dying. You just can't think of anything good to do." - Ferris Bueller's Day Off
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." - Richard Feynman
"There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers." - Richard Feynman
"If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us least live so as to deserve it." - Immanuel Hermann Fichte
"It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else's eyes." - Sally Field
"Adversity is the trial of principle. Without it, a man hardly knows whether he is honest or not." - Henry Fielding
"I like children, if they're properly cooked." - W.C. Fields
"I used to be indecisive, now I'm not so sure." - W.C. Fields
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it." - W.C. Fields
"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself." - Harvey Fierstein
"Long Island: It's so ethnically diverse. Have you been to a garage sale? Have you tried therapy? - Deb Filler
"Every time you think of me I hope you think of true romance and every time you want to leave you give us both another chance... if I can't be with you I would rather have a different face and if I can't be near you I would rather be adrift in space and if the gods desert us I would burn this chapel into flames and if someone tries to hurt you I would put myself in your place." - Neil Finn
"They have showered me with riches and they say that I am worthy of their love and their attention. But they still don't know the truth." - Neil Finn
"I can't help it if I stretch the truth, not if that's the way it happened." - Tim Finn
"I'd prefer to have you near to me making the shape that used to be. How'm I gonna sleep without you?... I don't need this endless night, this lonely night... How'm I gonna sleep when I'm all alone? How'm I gonna sleep, this house is not a home. How'm I gonna take that dreamy ride thru space? This comet lacks a tail" - Tim Finn
"Things change when you learn to loosen your grip. I think one way and the future is desperate. I think another way everything is in sight. Trees bend so branches don't have to break. We mend the wounds of our last mistake... I live one way holding onto the fence post. I live another way sliding off into space. Each life is loosely assembled... Birds swim, fish do fly. Proud man begins to cry. Birds swim, fish do fly. Things change, so why can't I?" - Tim Finn
"Walking beside you I want for nothing." - Tim Finn
"Weave me a rope from this dark despair, from this dull-eyed pain... Weave me a rope from this endless night, from this distant shore... Weave me a rope that will pull me through these impossible times." - Tim Finn
"When you learn how to trust your feelings then you'll know how to recognize it - That part of you that needs no healing is like a swollen river rising. So choke me with a violent passion and drown me in a deep emotion. You've got to help me build this feeling. I'm swimming in a stagnant ocean. Been blinded by smoke and mirrors and crippled by a fear of tomorrow. If you don't help me shake this feeling, then I'll be marking time in Limbo." - Tim Finn
"You, sleeping on your bed of nails. Weeping an ocean beyond the pale. Strange, sorrow is your greatest skill. You're suffering from overkill... Choose whether to laugh or to cry. Menace and promise mingle in your eye. Wait, it's only a matter of time. You know everything will be fine... Rain falls down and the seas run high. When you're by my side we can rise above it. Let me dry all the tears inside. On your way you cannot hide from the howling wind and the roaring tide. You might get hurt but your fears will subside when you at last escape from the tears inside." - Tim Finn
"I've a good and a bad side and they're one and the same" - William Finn and James Lapine, Falsettos
"Guy: You know, you have to kiss a lot of frogs, before you find your prince.
Gwen: [kisses him] There, one frog closer." - Fired Up
"Hello seeker! Now don't feel alone here in the New Age, because there's a seeker born every minute." - The Firesign Theatre
"Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification." - Martin Fischer
"The specialist is a man who fears the other subjects." - Martin H. Fisher
"Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own jokes." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Never confuse a single mistake with a final mistake."- F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it is unfamiliar territory" - Paul Fix
"You couldn't get a clue during the clue mating season in a field of horny clues if you smeared your body with clue musk and did the clue mating dance." - Edward Flaherty
"What a man says drunk he has thought sober." - Flemish Proverb
"The true opposite of love is not hate but indifference." - Joseph Fletcher
"You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note." - Doug Floyd
"It is impossible to please all the world and one's father." - Jean de La Fontaine
"A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it." - Jean De La Fontaine
"Better to be occasionally cheated than perpetually suspicious." - B.C. Forbes
"If you have a job without aggravation, you don't have a job." - Malcolm Forbes
"Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are." - Malcom Forbes
"I think sleeping was my problem in school. If school had started at 4:00 in the afternoon, I'd be a college graduate today." - George Foreman
"Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat." - Harry Emerson Forsdick
"Liberty is always dangerous - but it is the safest thing we have." - Harry Emerson Forsdick
"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." -E. M. Forster
"One grows accustomed to being praised, or being blamed, or being advised, but it is unusual to be understood." - E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
"Think of musical comedy - the most glorious words in the English language." - 42nd Street
"I've learned that the greater a person's sense of guilt, the greater his need to cast blame on others." - 46-year-old
"Try out the unlikely option." - Fortune cookie
"You are a poor, pathetic, gullible fool who seeks advice from bakery products." - Fortune cookie
"The best way to become a successful writer is to read good writing, remember it, and then forget where you remember it from." - Gene Fowler
"What if you had a happy ending and didn't notice?" - Karen Joy Fowler, Jane Austen Book Club
"If a million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France
"It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be." - Anatole France
"The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." - Anatole France
"To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture." - Anatole France
"Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." - St. Francis of Assisi
"I don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that remains" - Anne Frank
"It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build my hopes on a foundation of confusion, misery and death... And yet... I think... This cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again." - Anne Frank
"And yet, when I look up to the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more." - Anne Frank
"Bush senior used to say that we have more will than wallet. So he urged the country to attack poverty with a thousand points of light, none of which could be eaten." - Barney Frank
"The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left’s on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality... I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet." - Barney Frank, Politico.com
"They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who's getting beaten up at school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't know how to promote homosexuality. Do I hire Don King?" - U.S. Rep. Barney Frank
"No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same." - Viktor Frankl
"When we can no longer change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves." - Victor Frankl
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" - Ben Franklin
"He that blows the coals in quarrels he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face." - Benjamin Franklin
"The heart of the fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart." - Benjamin Franklin
"I am what I am and that's all that I am and if I'm supposed to be somebody else, why do I look like me?" - Benjamin Franklin
"I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work." - Ben Franklin
"If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting." - Benjamin Franklin
"If you'd lose a troublesome visitor, lend him money." - Benjamin Franklin
"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are." - Benjamin Franklin
"No nation was ever ruined by trade." - Benjamin Franklin
"The noblest question in the world is, 'What good can I do in it?'" - Benjamin Franklin
"One filled with joy preaches without preaching." - Benjamin Franklin
"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment." - Benjamin Franklin
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
"Who has deceived you so often as yourself?" - Benjamin Franklin
"If I'm not free to fail, I'm not free to take risks, and everything in life that's worth doing involves a willingness to risk failure." - Mrs. Hugh Franklin
"How can men possibly use sex to get what we want? Sex is what we want!" - Frasier
"So long as there's different types of music, rap will always be around. Besides, there will always be people that can't sing." - Fresh Prince
"What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books." - Sigmund Freud
"Part of the American dream is to live long and die young." - Edgar Z. Friedenberg
"It is the inside you that is important. Dress up and look good so you attract people who can find out how nice, interesting and valuable you are." - Patricia Fripp
"Dancing is a vertical expression of a horizontal desire." - Robert Lee Frost
"Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up." - Robert Frost
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper." - Robert Frost
"Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense." - Robert Frost
"Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it." - Robert Frost
"If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom." - Robert Frost
"A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." - Robert Frost
"The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work." - Robert Frost
"Three words sum up what you can count on in life: It goes on." - Robert Frost
"Justice without wisdom is impossible." - James Anthony Froude
How to Raise Your I.Q. by Eating Gifted Children - Book title by Lewis B. Frumkes
"Does capital punishment tend to the security of the people? By no means. It hardens the hearts of men, and makes the loss of life appear light to them; it renders life insecure, inasmuch as the law holds out that property is of greater value than life." - Elizabeth Fry
"We must dare to think 'unthinkable' thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world. We must learn to welcome and not to fear the voices of dissent. We must dare to think 'unthinkable things' because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless." - James W. Fulbright
"Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is better to hold hands and stick together." - Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
"1) Children are not pets.
2) The life they actually live and the life you perceive them to be living is not the same life.
3) Don't take what your children do too personally.
4) Don't keep scorecards on them - a short memory is useful.
5) Dirt and mess are a breeding ground for wellbeing.
6) Stay out of their rooms after puberty.
7) Stay out of their friendships and love-life unless invited in.
8) Don't worry that they never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you.
9) Learn from them; they have much to teach you.
10) Love them long; let them go early." - Robert Fulghum, It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It
"I do not want to talk about what you understand about this world. I want to know what you will do about it. I do not want to know what you hope. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle. As the wagon driver said when they came to a long, hard hill, 'Them that's going on with us, get out and push. Them that ain't, get out of the way.'" - Robert Fulghum, It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It
"By 2000, politics will simply fade away. We will not see any political parties." - Buckminster Fuller in 1966
"I am enthusiastic over humanity's extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuities. If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat may come along and make a fortuitous life preserver. This is not to say, though, that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday's fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem." - R Buckminster Fuller
"Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering." - Buckminster Fuller
"Better break your word than do worse in keeping it." - Thomas Fuller
"If it were not for hopes, the heart would break." - Thomas Fuller
"Life is just a series of trying to make up your mind." - Timothy Fuller
"Those see nothing but faults that seek for nothing else." - Thomas Fuller
To get quotes from me and others in the mail:
Quotes of Aa through Am
Quotes of F
Quotes I've heard from people I've known