Judy Tenuta
“Judy, you don’t know nothin’ about the South. You don’t even know the difference between the North and the South.”
I said, “Oh yes I do. In the North, there’s a cut-off age for sleeping with your parents.”
Mary Russo
Making a spectacle out of oneself seemed a specifically feminine danger. The danger was of exposure. Men, I learned somewhat later in life, “exposed themselves,” but that operation was quite deliberate and circumscribed. For a woman, making a spectacle out of herself had more to do with inadvertency and loss of boundaries: the possessors of large, aging, and dimpled thighs displayed at the public beach, of overly rouged cheeks, of a voice shrill with laughter, or out of sliding bra strap — a loose, dingy bra strap especially — were at once caught out by fate and blameworthy … anyone, any woman, could make a spectacle out of herself if she was not careful.
Rosanne
This bugs me the worst. That’s when the husband thinks that the wife knows where everything is, huh? Like they think the uterus is a tracking device.
He comes in: “Hey, Roseanne! Roseanne! Do we have any Cheetos left?” Like he can’t go over and lift up that sofa cushion himself.
Dorothy Parker
I am going in for a course of study at the knee of Mrs. Post. Maybe, some time in the misty future, I shall be Asked Out, and I shall be ready. You won’t catch me being intentionally haughty to subordinates or refusing to be a pallbearer for any reason except serious ill health. I shall live down the old days, and with the help of Mrs. Post and God (always mention a lady’s name first) there will come a time when you will be perfectly safe in inviting me to your house, which should never be called a residence except in printing or engraving.
Judith Martin
This will come as a shock, but society’s laws about which events one may rejoice over and which one may not do not necessarily correspond to the true feelings of the participant. For example, if your nasty, crotchety, quarrelsome, critical old great-uncle dies and leaves you a fortune, you must try to look solemn, if not actually grieved. If your 14-year-old daughter is having a baby, you are supposed to act delighted. You may call this hypocrisy. As a matter of fact, Miss Manners calls it hypocrisy, too. The difference is probably that you don’t consider hypocrisy one of the social graces, and she does. In any case, one does not brag about a divorce, however much personal satisfaction it may bring one. There is no formal announcement. Anything along the lines of hiring an airplane to write it in the sky is considered to be in poor taste.
Anita Loos
Charlie Breene’s Mother had always been quite anxious for him to be married, and settle down, and drink in his own home instead of in night clubs, where everybody saw him disgrace the old family name.
Fran Lebowitz
White grapes are very attractive but when it comes to dessert people generally like cake with icing.
Cheese that is required by law to append the word food to its title does not go well with red wine or fruit.
Inhabitants of underdeveloped nations and victims of natural disasters are the only people who have ever been happy to see soybeans.
