A Quote by Judith Viorst

Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational - but how much does it cost you to knock on wood? — © Judith Viorst
Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational - but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?
Before I drop in, I tend to knock on my snowboard. You know how when you jinx yourself, they're like, 'Knock on wood.' My snowboard's wood, so in case I jinxed myself sometime in the past, I just knock on my board. It just makes me feel a lot more comfortable.
No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.
My,' she said. 'We're lucky that you found the place.' We're always lucky,' I said and like a fool I did not knock on wood. There was wood everywhere in that apartment to knock on too.
Knock on wood is a saying for good luck. I think that started when someone went to someone's door to see if someone was home. "I hope Joe's home, knock on wood!"
For too long, our country's version of an energy policy has consisted of Americans waking up every day and wondering how much it will cost to drive to work, how much it will cost to keep their business running, how much it will cost to heat or cool their homes.
Tastes and behavior are important in economics. Nobody denies that. But the question is: How much of behavior is irrational, and how much of the irrational behavior really affects prices? It turns out that's very difficult to answer.
People need to understand. If they go to a show on Broadway and find seventy people working but only fifty spectators, how much would the ticket cost? That's what El Bulli's about. There are seventy actors who are playing for just fifty spectators. Is the price expensive? It's relative. How much does a normal dinner at a five-star hotel restaurant cost? Four hundred dollars. It's the same as El Bulli. But you can also think of it this way: How much would it cost to eat something that nobody else is eating?
I understand shipping - you have to expect to pay for the stamps or for the freight company - but what's this handling they always have? How much does handling cost, anyway? I don't want a lot of people handling something I'm going to buy before I get it. How much would it cost if you didn't handle it before you sent it to me?
No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not work those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself.
In fact a man in love or one consumed with hatred creates symbols for himself, as a superstitious man does, from a passion of conferring uniqueness on things or persons. A man who knows nothing of symbols is one of Dante's sluggards. This is why art mirrors itself in primitive rites or strong passions, seeking for symbols, revolving round the primitive taste for savagery, for what is irrational (blood and sex).
Can a woodchuck chuck wood? Because the question is, "how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if," so you haven't established or proved without any shadow of a doubt that a woodchuck could chuck wood. Frankly, I believe that they chew wood. I don't think they can chuck wood at all! I take offense to the whole chucking question.
For kids like me, being called childish can be a frequent occurrence. Every time we make irrational demands, exhibit irresponsible behavior, or display any other signs of being normal American citizens, we are called childish.
There is superstition in science quite as much as there is superstition in theology, and it is all the more dangerous because those suffering from it are profoundly convinced that they are freeing themselves from all superstition.
How I wish we could all see the cost of our choices as clearly as a price tag on items in a store. If I know how much something is going to cost me, I make much wiser choices. But we have an enemy who schemes against us to keep the cost of dumb decisions concealed until it's too late.
I think everybody gets caught up in superstitions. But I don't put much stock in them ... knock on wood.
How is it possible that a process can be democratic when it comes by way of money? If there is money then it can be elected a senator, it can be elected a representative. Do you know how much it cost to be elected president of the United States? The amount has reached, billions of dollars, 2 billion, 3 billion, 4 billion dollars, that's how much a presidential campaign costs. How much does a senatorial campaign cost? It costs 80 to 90 million dollars; or the campaign of a representative, 40 to 50 million. Is that really a democracy?
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