H. L. Mencken Quotes
Shave a gorilla and it would be almost impossible, at twenty paces, to distinguish him from a heavyweight champion of the world. Skin a chimpanzee, and it would take an autopsy to prove he was not a theologian.
Quotes to Explore
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I can enjoy anywhere, and I can leave it. Life is about moving on.
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If you're in a dark place, you're there for a reason. And the only way to get through to those kids or to other people going through the same thing is really to meet them in that dark place and then slowly bring them to the light.
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In 1958, my father invested everything he had in a business venture and became the largest automobile dealership in Chicago for Ford's new Edsel line. But Edsel sales plummeted and my father fell into bankruptcy. I watched him struggle; working long hours to protect us from poverty.
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Americans are really obsessed with their teeth being white and straight, aren't they? I saw this little girl the other day with one of those whole head braces. Elastic all the way around! How traumatizing for a child to have to wear one of those! You look like a monster.
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We have established a new basis in our country in which economic liberalization would continue to flourish alongside democratic forces and deregulated power structure.
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I believe that I have been basically anarchistic, anti-religion and anti-industry and business. In other words, anti-bureaucracy. I would like to see people behave well without having to have priests stand by, politicians stand by, or people collecting bills.
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I always put my fantasies in the realm of goals.
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One of the greatest gifts I've ever gotten is my daughter.
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When you love something, it doesn't feel like work.
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In our family health, it's about having a balanced life, about laughing and staying on a positive note.
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A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it's been tested by recession and all manner of challenges - I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.
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When I hear theists and atheists pontificating on how they know God does or does not exist, I can only smile at the irrationality and, yes, vanity of the notion.
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I was raised on the streets, in hot, steamy Brooklyn, with stifled air.
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I'm wondering how many elected figures any of us could find who do not, in the front or back of their minds, remember who does them favors, who doesn't.
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That's the reality of my life - I do normal things and then get to go to film festivals and wear borrowed clothes and turn up at premieres and talk about things I am passionate about. But then you click back to normality and your family and friends.
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I'm an academic. I teach at the university, and that's where I will go back to.
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My mother taught me about the power of inspiration and courage, and she did it with a strength and a passion that I wish could be bottled.
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If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in person.
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I'm much more into old-world, intimate conversations on the phone. I like to write letters.
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I think the novel is at one end of the art-entertainment continuum - the play in the middle - while TV and cinema veer a bit more towards entertainment.
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Balance, that's the secret. Moderate extremism.
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'Dr. Strangelove' was and is one of my favorite movies ever, and I just can't believe they actually blew up the world after that.
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September 2001. A sunny day in New York. Many of us who are writers were at work on the transformation of life into a poem, story, a chapter of a novel, when terror pounced from the sky, and the world made witness to it.
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Shave a gorilla and it would be almost impossible, at twenty paces, to distinguish him from a heavyweight champion of the world. Skin a chimpanzee, and it would take an autopsy to prove he was not a theologian.
