My favourite magazine issue that I pick-up every year. Laugh and find your own observations validated. All of the experiences of the lives below were not wasted due to the morsels of wisdom that they now share. (Lp)
© Esquire 2009
The Best of "What I've Learned," Part One
You gotta try your luck at least once a day, because you could be going around lucky all day and not even know it. --Jimmy Dean
The bigger people are in life, the more big-league they are. That's been my experience. You meet less shits the higher up you go. --Ted Williams
Man is cursed with the ambition to be the best hunter in the tribe. When a guy came home to the village covered with blood, there was no argument when he asked for a gourd of water or a piece of ass. --Rod Steiger
Second place is really the first loser. --George Steinbrenner
Time and tide and hookers wait for no man. --Rodney Dangerfield
Dealing with adversity is like the brake pedal in the car. It just happens instinctively. You go through it or you perish. --Roman Polanski
Drama is very important in life: You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have drama if it's done right. Even a pancake. --Julia Child
No matter how bad things are, they can always be worse. So what if my stroke left me with a speech impediment? Moses had one, and he did all right. --Kirk Douglas
If not for me, the H-bomb would have been developed in Russia first. In the U.S., we would now be speaking Russian. --Edward Teller
Vietnam we saw as a function of the cold war. The CIA appraisal was, and Eisenhower's appraisal was, that the loss of Vietnam and Laos would trigger an extension of communist hegemony across much of Southeast Asia. This would weaken the security of the West across the world. Therefore, it was necessary to prevent that. That's why we were in Vietnam. It was an incorrect appraisal. --Robert McNamara
I got no religion in me. I could never see through it. Basically, I'm a facts man; if I can't see through it, I say it's not possible. --J.R. Simplot, billionaire, potato magnate, aka Mr. Spud
I never go to the track. I don't like horses. They take too long. --Yogi Berra
Laughing juries don't convict. --F. Lee Bailey
I hate mineral-water freaks. Drink from the tap and take what's coming to you. --Ralph Steadman
The terrible truth with which we must all contend is that the day may come when nuclear arms fall under the control of some idiot someplace in the world. And that will be the day of reckoning. --John Kenneth Galbraith
Garry Shandling always said to me, "Don't get mad, get funny." It changed my life. --Rip Torn
Since I'm one of those people who are not happy unless they are not happy, it's comforting to know that mental health doesn't always mean being happy. If it did, nobody would qualify. --Phil Spector
Why leave the nut you got for one you don't know? --Loretta Lynn
Bad dreams are more likely the result of strong cheeses than suppressed guilt. --David Brown, movie producer
The truth about foxhole humor is it's never funny when it's happening. --Larry King
Of the five most important things in life, health is first, education or knowledge is second, and wealth is third. I forget the other two. --Chuck Berry
Sometimes I think there's no reason to get out of bed...then I feel wet, and I realize there is. --Homer Simpson
Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. --Carrie Fisher
Contradiction exists in everyone. There's really nothing wrong with the fact that the same people who sing "Whiskey River" at the show tonight also sing "Amazing Grace." When I was back teaching Sunday school, I used to teach the same people on Sunday mornings that I sang to on Saturday nights. Nothing wrong with that, either. --Willie Nelson
Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen. More often than not, work is salvation. --Chuck Close, artist
Profits are the lifeblood of enterprise. Don't let anyone tell you different. --Andy Grove
Monogamy? What's that? --Richard Branson
Everything is a hole. When you're born, two holes -- there's a hole at the head of your penis, and you come out of a hole. So you come out, and everything is about holes. When you eat? Hole. When you breathe, it's a hole. When you see, it's a hole. When you hear, it's a hole. And when you die, where you goin'? Right back in the hole. If you get too much money, you gonna be in a hole. If you don't get enough, you're definitely gonna be in a hole. So to me, the best thing to do is stop tryin' to stay outta the hole: Get in the hole and find out what's happenin' with the hole and try to control the hole. And then you can have the hole, because you understand the hole. --Ike Turner
If sex is a pain in the ass, then you're doing it wrong. --Rodney Dangerfield
Without money, there is no freedom. Without money, there is no art. Say what you want, but it's true: When you walk in the door with money in your hand, people start listening. --Faye Dunaway
You shall not covet thy neighbor's wife? Well, how about if she goddamn covets me? What do you think about that? --Gene Simmons
When you're young, deferring gratification is not a honed skill. As you get older, you get better at the marathon mentality. --Jeff Bezos
If you can't control your emotions, you could wind up looking at the ceiling of a death chamber from a gurney. --Jim Willett, former warden, Huntsville, Texas
A man's gift makes room for him. --Rev. Al Green
If you think you're getting bad love, that means you're giving it, too. --Roseanne
Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know? --Julia Child
When you're hiring someone to do something, you ought to first have an appreciation for what the job entails. There are certain jobs that entail very large arms and a broad neck and perhaps asocial behavior. --Gen. Tommy Franks
Some guys have it real fucked up in prison, real hard. Some guys will be doing somebody's laundry. Some guys will be on their stomach with the pillow in their mouth. Some guys will be getting stabbed. If you're a man on the streets and you eat well, you'll eat well in prison. It just might be different food. --Suge Knight
Formal education is a marvelous thing. But unless it's liberally sprinkled with plain old common horse sense, it's not worth a shit. --Jimmy Dean
Work honestly and build, build, build. That's all I can tell you. --J.R. Simplot
The number-one rule of the road is never go to bed with anyone crazier than yourself. You will break this rule, and you will be sorry. --Kris Kristofferson
My best pick-up line is "My name is Hugh Hefner." --Hugh Hefner
If it flies, floats, or fucks, rent it. --Conrad Dobler
If you're keeping score, win. --Red Auerbach
You may be drawing a circle for the thousandth time, but maybe it's a slightly better circle. --Lou Reed
It's easier to write songs when you're single. --Lucinda Williams
If you're lucky enough to have a pretty girl love you and share herself and sleep with you, make that your secret. The best way to spoil love is by talking to too many people about it. --Rip Torn
Wear the cape; never let the cape wear you. --Siegfried & Roy
If you're gonna swagger, it's better to be big. --Bill O'Reilly
When I first started racing, my father, one of the first things he said, he said, "Win the race as slow as you can." --Richard Petty
No matter where you go in this world, you will always find a Jew sitting in the beach chair next to you. --Don Rickles
It's not money, it's not politics -- it's who controls the pussy that controls the world. --Larry Flynt
Surprise is the lubrication of adventure. --Rod Steiger
A friend of mine once said, "The moment of truth is a lie." He was being funny. I keep looking for it. I've had a few. But you can't explain it. It's deeply moving, and yet then when it's over, you're back in the street again, saying, "What the hell happened? What the hell happened? What was that flash of light? I want it again." --Peter Boyle
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. --John Wooden
Some people would say that because we don't know, it can't be. I would say that because we don't know, we don't know. --Charles H. Townes, Nobel laureate, physicist
Pick very few objects and place them exactly. --Philip Johnson
Nobody repays any debts in Hollywood. Until you're dead. Then they give you the Thalberg Award. --Roseanne
If a guy hasn't got any gamble in him, he isn't worth a crap. --Evel Knievel
The good old days weren't so good when you were sitting in a dentist's chair. --Bobby Bowden
After seventy, if you wake up without pains, you're dead. --David Brown
One man's justice is another man's injustice -- depends on whose pig is being poked. And that's the final analysis. --Conrad Dobler
It's unequivocally clear that life begins at birth and ends at death. And if most of the people on this planet understood that, they would lead their lives very differently. We always try to find religious or mysterious forces to fill in for our inadequacies, but heaven and hell are both here on earth every day, and we make our lives around them. --J. Craig Venter, molecular biologist, mapper of the human genome
I'm sure you slow down a little bit, but I'm also sure that you'll probably be getting a hard-on until they throw dirt on you. --Kris Kristofferson
© Esquire 2009
