Top 219 Quotes & Sayings by Ogden Nash

Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave when they think that their children are naive.

Every Englishman is convinced of one thing, viz.: That to be an Englishman is to belong to the most exclusive club there is.

Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore, and that's what parents were created for.

The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.

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

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

There are people who are very resourceful, at being remorseful, and who apparently feel that the best way to make friends is to do something terrible and then make amends.

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

Professional men, they have no cares; whatever happens, they get theirs.

Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.

I do not like to get the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

The only people who should really sin are the people who can sin and grin.

Commitments the voters don't know about can't hurt you.

Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.

Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.

The trouble with a kitten is that eventually it becomes a cat.

Progress might have been alright once, but it has gone on too long.

To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up.

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

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

I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance, Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance.

No, you never get any fun out of the things you haven't done.

I think remorse ought to stop biting the consciences that feed it.

People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.

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.

I hope my tongue in prune juice smothers, If I belittle dogs and mothers.

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

There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.

Women would rather be right than reasonable.

A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold.

The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.

If you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.

Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets them.

Too clever is dumb.

Do you think my mind is maturing late, or simply rotted early?

I have an idea that the phrase 'weaker sex' was coined by some woman to disarm the man she was preparing to overwhelm.

One man's remorse is another man's reminiscence.

Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind.

I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all.

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

The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo, the other milk.

Certainly there are things in life that money can't buy, but it's very funny - Did you ever try buying them without money?

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

Humor is the best means of surviving in a difficult world.

If called by a panther, don't anther.

Wind is caused by the trees waving their branches.

Too much Chablis can make you whablis.

I believe that people believe what they believe they believe.

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.

Some tortures are physical And some are mental, But the one that is both Is dental.

God in His wisdom made the fly And then forgot to tell us why.

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.

I think that I shall never see A billboard lovely as a tree. Perhaps, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all.

Time is like the ocean, always there, always different.

The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.

Some primal termite knocked on wood. And tasted it, and found it good. And that is why your Cousin May Fell through the parlor floor today.

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

If you don't want to work, you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work.

Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up.

How confusing the beams from memory's lamp are; One day a bachelor, the next a grampa. What is the secret of the trick? How did I get so old so quick?