United States writer noted for his humorous essays (1899-1985)

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It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half the time.
Heredity is a strong factor, even in architecture. Necessity first mothered invention. Now invention has little ones of her own, and they look just like grandma.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.
I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they happen to strike me.
I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
Loneliness is a strange gift.
Somehow not only for ChristmasBut all the long year through,The joy that you give to othersIs the joy that comes back to you.
The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war.
Weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society -- things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.
Writing is hard work and bad for the health.
You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.

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