H. L. Mencken Quotes

It seems to me that you are better off, as a writer and as an American, in a small town than you'd be in New York. I thoroughly detest New York, though I have to go there very often.... Have you ever noticed that no American writer of any consequence lives in Manhattan? Dreiser tried it (after many years in the Bronx), but finally moved to California.

H. L. Mencken

• American
• Small
• California

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Quotes to Explore

• I like quiet. No television cameras. I'm not the Hollywood type.

  

  Tadashi Shoji
  • Television
  • Hollywood
  • Quiet

• The first time I thought I should be an actor was in school. I thought, 'At least this is something for which I won't have to study.' But I've realised that an actor needs to be constantly unsure about what he's doing and about what's going on around him. The moment you think you've nailed it, you're dead.

  

  Ranbir Kapoor
  • Time
  • School
  • Study

• In those days, even as a boy, I watched some people that I knew were living way beyond their means.

  

  Jackie Cooper
  • People
  • Boy
  • Living

• You can't take yourself too seriously; it's important to poke fun at yourself. Once in a while, it is great to show your inadequacies, too.

  

  Ram Kapoor
  • Great
  • Important
  • Fun

• Death is a zero sum game for which there is no cure.

  

  S. Jay Olshansky
  • Game
  • Death
  • Cure

• I remember being a teenager and seeing Seymour Cassel across a crowded room and being incredibly star struck, and not having the courage to say, 'Hello.'

  

  Ira Sachs
  • Remember
  • Star
  • Courage

• The physicians of one class feel the patients and go away, merely prescribing medicine. As they leave the room they simply ask the patient to take the medicine. They are the poorest class of physicians.

  

  Ramakrishna
  • Feel
  • Medicine
  • Medical

• My reading and drawing drew me away from the ordinary interests, and I lived a great deal in the world of imagination, feeding upon any book that fell into my hands. When I had got hold of a really thick book like Hugo's 'Les Miserables,' I was happy and would go off into a corner to devour it.

  

  Jacob Epstein
  • World
  • Great
  • Book

• It's weird how people were always asking us, 'Are you real? Are you joking?' That seems like something Americans care about a lot. You can't answer the question 'Are you real?' If we're anything, we're documentary fiction.

  

  Yolandi Visser
  • People
  • Real
  • Question

• There have been periods of my life when I was heavier, like right after high school I definitely gained that freshman 15. It was tough to lose. Ever since then, I know that I can gain weight, so I try to be careful.

  

  Camilla Luddington
  • Life
  • School
  • High

• We need to remember that politics is all about people, not programs. We shouldn't want to take the humanness out of the political arena.

  

  J. C. Watts
  • People
  • Remember
  • Political

• I never sing in the shower either.

  

  Barbra Streisand
  • Never
  • Sing
  • Shower

• I was interested in aerospace and flying, and the U.S. is really the best place in the world for flying.

  

  Kalpana Chawla
  • World
  • Best
  • Flying

• The truth is that the history of Mexico is a history in the image of its geography: abrupt and tortuous. Each historical period is like a plateau surrounded by tall mountains and separated from the other plateaus by precipices and divides.

  

  Octavio Paz
  • Truth
  • History
  • Period

• When you're imagining peace, you can't kill anyone. That's good isn't it?

  

  Yoko Ono
  • Good
  • You
  • Peace

• Any psychologist will tell you that healing comes from honest confrontation with our injury or with our past. Whatever that thing is that has hurt us or traumatized us, until we face it head on, we will have issues moving forward in a healthy way.

  

  Nate Parker
  • Past
  • Moving
  • Hurt

• I continue to aspire to serve Colombia as president.

  

  Ingrid Betancourt
  • President
  • Continue
  • Aspire

• The great joy of doing 'The Daily Show' for me is that I get to sit on the fence between cultures. I am commenting on the absurdity of both sides as an outsider and insider. Sometimes I'm playing the brown guy, and sometimes I'm not, but the best stuff I do always goes back to being a brown kid in a white world.

  

  Aasif Mandvi
  • World
  • Great
  • Guy

• Be modest, humble, simple. Control your anger.

  

  Abraham Cahan
  • Control
  • Simple
  • Humble

• Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

  

  Maya Angelou
  • Book
  • Reading
  • Child

• Carol Guess's poems are sexy, intuitive, angry, and hopeful. These lyrical narratives measure the impossibly small distance between love and fear. They are a reminder that we're all vulnerable little vessels filled by the people who can break us.

  

  Zachary Schomburg
  • People
  • Fear
  • Small

• As weird as it is, as much as I love Southern California, the reality is I'm going to be somewhere else next season.

  

  Kassim Osgood
  • Reality
  • California
  • Seasons

• But as you say, the fundamental stumbling block is the question of the future of the economy. And it's not just the sort of economic laboratory question, of what kind of system would best generate growth, which is the way it's presented.

  

  Joe Slovo
  • Future
  • Question
  • Growth

• It seems to me that you are better off, as a writer and as an American, in a small town than you'd be in New York. I thoroughly detest New York, though I have to go there very often.... Have you ever noticed that no American writer of any consequence lives in Manhattan? Dreiser tried it (after many years in the Bronx), but finally moved to California.

  

  H. L. Mencken
  • American
  • Small
  • California