“Remember: blue side up.”
Some “earthy words of wisdom” from a group of amateur pilots quoted by Michael Leo Donovan in Reader’s Digest Canadian Edition September 2005.
“This is a pleasant surprise, Archie. I would not have believed it. That of course is the advantage of being a pessimist; a pessimist gets nothing but pleasant surprises, an optimist nothing but unpleasant.”
Nero Wolfe to Archie Goodwin in Rex Stout Fer de Lance
“Yes, ‘hereafter’ was everything: without that prospect, all life would have been a nasty joke…”
The internal monologue of Eddie Cain in “Lex Talionis” in Russell Kirk Ancestral Shadows
“Please leave your values at the front desk.”
A sign in a Paris hotel elevator, part of a collection of accidental mistranslations into English, quoted by Frances Farrell in Gilbert! magazine Vol. 5 # 3 (Dec. 2001)
Re a scene in Romeo and Juliet “That’s not ‘realistic,’ of course: in whatever real life may be, lovers don’t start cooing in sonnet form.”
Northrop Frye (I think in a book Frye on Shakespeare but my note to myself on the subject was cryptic)
“History is the mighty Tower of Experience, which Time has built amidst the endless fields of bygone ages. It is no easy task to reach the top of this ancient structure and get the benefit of the full view. There is no elevator, but young feet are strong and it can be done.”
Hendrick Van Loon, The Story of Mankind
“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.”
Eric Hoffer, quoted on “Preacher’s Illustrative Nuggets” (www.hound-dog-media.com/2014/01/gamblers-fools-and-egotists-59-still_31.html)