O misery, misery, mumble and moan!
Someone invented the telephone,
And interrupted a nation’s slumbers,
Ringing wrong but similar numbers.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Technology
A little incompatibility is the spice of life, as long as he has income and she is pattable.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Marriage
A husband is a guy who tells you when you’ve got on too much lipstick and helps you with your girdle when your hips stick.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Marriage, Husbands
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other milk.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Just for Fun, Animals
A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Dogs
One man’s remorse is another man’s reminiscence.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Remorse
Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Parents, Parenting
Some tortures are physical
And some are mental,
But the one that is both
Is dental.
—Ogden Nash
No man is greater than his respect for sleep.
—Ogden Nash
There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience, or none at all.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Conscience, Happiness, Integrity
Some primal termite knocked on wood;
and tasted it, and found it good.
That is why your Cousin May
fell through the parlor floor today.
—Ogden Nash
Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgets them.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Birthdays
Middle age is when you’ve met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Age, Aging
Sleep is perverse as human nature, Sleep is perverse as a legislature, Sleep is as forward as hives or goiters, And where it is least desired, it loiters.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Sleep
Life is not having been told that the man has just waxed the floor.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Life and Living, Life
There is only one thing for a man to do who is married to a woman who enjoys spending money, and that is enjoy earning it.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Marriage
I think remorse ought to stop biting the consciences that feed it.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Conscience
People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Jobs, Work, Money
Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Friendship
Here is a pen and here is a pencil, here’s a typewriter, here’s a stencil, here’s a list of today’s appointments, and all the flies in all the ointments, the daily woes that a man endures—take them, George, they’re yours!
—Ogden Nash
The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Happiness
I don’t mind their having a lot of money, and I don’t care how they employ it, but I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Riches, Wealth
No matter how deep and dark your pit, how dank your shroud, their heads are heroically unbloody and unbowed.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Grieving, Grief
And one of his partners asked “Has he vertigo?” and the other glanced out and down and said “Oh no, only about ten feet more.”
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Suicide
Your hair may be brushed, but your mind’s untidy. You’ve had about seven hours of sleep since Friday. No wonder you feel that lost sensation. You’re sunk from a riot of relaxation.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Leisure, Rest
If some confectioners were willing
To let the shape announce the filling,
We’d encounter fewer assorted chocs,
Bitten into and returned to the box.
—Ogden Nash
Every New Year is the direct descendant, isn’t it, of a long line of proven criminals?
—Ogden Nash
Professional men, they have no cares; whatever happens, they get theirs.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Professionalism
Here lies my past, Goodbye I have kissed it; Thank you kids, I wouldn’t have missed it.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Past, Reflection
Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who cannot sleep with window shut, and a woman who cannot sleep with the window open.
—Ogden Nash
Topics: Marriage
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Russell Hoban American Author
- Dorothy L. Sayers English Novelist, Playwright
- Helen Gurley Brown American Publisher
- Mark Van Doren American Poet, Critic
- Wallace Stevens American Poet
- Will Rogers American Humorist, Actor
- Frank O’Hara American Poet, Art Critic
- Conrad Aiken American Poet, Novelist
- Stanley Kunitz American Poet
- Henry Adams American Historian
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