The important thing, I think, is not to be bitter. You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think that he’s evil. I think that the worst thing you could say about him is that basically he’s an underachiever. After all, you know, there are worse things in life than death.
—Woody Allen, 1975
Archive
Quotes
I don’t believe in an afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.
—Woody Allen, 1971The happy ending is our national belief.
—Mary McCarthy, 1947A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence university education.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903I have been ever of the opinion that revolutions are not to be evaded.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1844Why is a ship under sail more poetical than a hog in a high wind? The hog is all nature, the ship is all art.
—Lord Byron, 1821Everyone should know nowadays the unimportance of the photographic in art—that truth, life, or reality is an organic thing which the poetic imagination can represent or suggest, in essence, only through transformation, through changing into other forms than those which were merely present in appearance.
—Tennessee Williams, 1944The true mission of American sports is to prepare young men for war.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower, c. 1952Business? Why, it’s very simple; business is other people’s money.
—Alexandre Dumas, 1857A monument is money wasted. My memory will live on if my life has deserved it.
—Pliny the Younger, c. 109Of all the creatures that breathe and creep on the surface of the earth, none is more to be pitied than man.
—Homer, c. 750 BCThe character which results from wealth is that of a prosperous fool.
—Aristotle, c. 322 BCPut national causes first and personal grudges last.
—Sima Qian, c. 91 BC