Wilson Mizner

I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education.

I've spent several years in Hollywood and I still think the movie heroes are in the audience.

I hate careless flattery, the kind that exhausts you in your efforts to believe it.

Do not be desirous of having things done quickly. Do not look at small advantages. Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly. Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.

The most efficient water power in the world - women's tears.

If you count all your assets you always show a profit.

A drama critic is a person who surprises the playwright by informing him what he meant.

Don't talk about yourself, it will be done when you leave.

A good listener is not only popular everywhere but after a while he knows something.

There is something about a closet that makes a skeleton terribly restless.

All anger is not sinful because some degree of it and on some occasions is inevitable. But it becomes sinful and contradicts the rule of Scripture when it is conceived upon slight and inadequate provocation and when it continues long.

The first hundred years are the hardest.

A slave has but one master. An ambition man has as many as there are people who helped him get his fortune.

Art is science made clear.

Be nice to people on your way up because you'll meet them on your way down.

The best way to keep your friends is not to give them away.

In the battle of existence Talent is the punch, Tact is the clever footwork.

A fellow who is always declaring he's no fool usually has his suspicions.

Those who welcome death have only tried it from the ears up.

Life's a tough proposition and the first hundred years are the hardest.

To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it.

If you steal from one author it's plagiarism, if you steal from many it's research.

I'd rather know a square guy than own a square mile.

I can usually judge a fellow by what he laughs at.

I know of no sentence that can induce such immediate and brazen lying as the one that begins 'Have you read - .'

Hollywood is a sewer with service from the Ritz Carlton.

You sparkle with larceny.

Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing for something.

God help those who do not help themselves.

I've had ample contact with lawyers and I'm convinced that the only fortune they ever leave is their own.

Popularity is exhausting. The life of the party almost always winds up in a corner with an overcoat over him.

It is not in life but in art that self-fulfillment is to be found.

To my embarrassment I was born in bed with a lady.

Failure has gone to his head.

Most hard-boiled people are half-baked.

The cuckoo who is on to himself is halfway out of the clock.

The difference between chirping out of turn and a faux pas depends on what kind of a bar you're in.