Let Inga Tell You: Quotable quotes of wisdom through the decades

Over the years, I’ve been collecting favorite quotes — way too many to list here. I first published my list in March 2018 and got such a huge response that I like to run an updated version of it every few years with new additions.

As before, some of these quotes seem truly prescient:

• “In America, anybody can be president. That’s one of the risks you take.” — Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)

• “The past is a foreign country.  They do things differently there.” First line of the book “The Go-Between” by L.P. Hartley (1953)

• “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.” — Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003) and others

• “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” — Journalist A.J. Liebling

• “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that don’t work.” — Thomas Edison

• “The older you get, the better you get. Unless you’re a banana.” — Betty White

• “Things always get worse before they get a lot worse” — Lily Tomlin

• “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.” — Attributed to various leaders

• “The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t decide.” — Unknown

• “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” — William Faulkner

• “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” — Thomas Watson (1874-1956), chairman of IBM, 1943

• “My body isn’t me. I just live here.” — Magnet on Inga’s refrigerator

• “Most editors are failed writers. So are most writers.” — T.S. Eliot

• “A drug is any substance that, when injected in a rat, gives rise to a scientific paper.” — Darryl Inaba (1984)

• “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now.” — Chinese proverb

• “We never wanted to divorce at the same time.” — Friends of Inga’s when asked the secret of their 50-year marriage

• “Not having to worry about your hair anymore may be the secret upside of death.” — Nora Ephron

• “In our judicial system, you are assumed guilty until proven rich or lucky.” — John Oliver

• A scientist friend who was invited to present at a professional meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, observed to the organizer that the schedule, as set, was not being even remotely followed. The reply: “You should think of the schedule more as a first draft of a play that will be given improvisationally.”

• “The only way to be reliably sure the hero gets the girl at the end of the story is to be both the hero and the girl.” — “Becoming Duchess Goldblatt: A Memoir”

• “A closed mouth gathers no feet.” — Inga’s personal motto, poorly followed

• “What you accept, you teach.” — Inga’s parents’ motto, well-followed.

• “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” — George Bernard Shaw

• “May you step on Legos in the middle of the night.” — Curse

• “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” — Thomas Edison

• “I’ve had a wonderful time, but this wasn’t it.” — Groucho Marx (1895-1977)

• “A lot of people ask me if I were shipwrecked and could only have one book, what would it be? I always say ‘How to Build a Boat.’” — Stephen Wright

• “I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.” —  Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)

• “After a failure, there’s always someone who wished there was an opportunity they’d missed.” — Lily Tomlin

• “All swash and no buckle.” — Variation on “All hat and no cattle”

• “I am not young enough to know everything.” — Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

• “We didn’t lose the game; we just ran out of time.” — Vince Lombardi

• “There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” — Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964)

• “My brain seems to be working for a different organization now.” —  Inga’s friend Julia referring to menopause

• “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” — Milton Berle

• “The wages of sin are death, but after taxes are taken out, it’s just kind of a tired feeling.” — Paula Poundstone

• “Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn’t cure.” — Ross MacDonald (1915-1983)

• “The chief cause of problems is solutions.” — Journalist Eric Sevareid (1912-1992)

• “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde

• “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” — Mario Andretti

• “Happiness is good health and a bad memory.” — Ingrid Bergman (1917-1982)

Inga’s lighthearted looks at life appear regularly in the La Jolla Light. Reach her at inga47@san.rr.com.