Peter De Vries
22 quotes
Biography
Peter De Vries was an American editor and novelist known for his satiric wit.
"The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance."
"Murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums."
"Life is a zoo in a jungle."
"I love being a writer. What I can't stand is the paperwork."
"Call me, Ishmael. Feel absolutely free to."
"Man is vile, I know, but people are wonderful."
"We must love one another, yes, yes, that's all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other."
"He takes satisfaction in having quite lived by his stoic creed: give what you can and take what comes. Concession not freely given is in the end forcibly extracted anyway. For we are all swimmers ephemerally buoyed by what will engulf us at the last; still dreaming of islands though the mainland has been lost; swept remorselessly out to sea while we spread our arms to the beautiful shore."
"The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly."
"A suburban mother's role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after."
"I was thinking that we all learn by experience, but some of us have to go to summer school."
"Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us."
"The murals in restaurants are on par with the food in museums."
"The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds - they mature slowly."
"The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character."
"Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults."
"Human nature is pretty shabby stuff, as you may know from introspection."
"Deep down, he's shallow."
"Nostalgia ain't what it used to be."
"Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked."
"The tuba is certainly the most intestinal of instruments, the very lower bowel of music."
"There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you."
"Let us hope...that a kind Providence will put a speedy end to the acts of God under which we have been laboring."
"If there's anything I hate it's the word humorist - I feel like countering with the word seriousist."
"The rich aren't like us they pay less taxes."