Charles McCabe

“For the happiest life, days should be rigorously planned, nights left open to chance.”

“The poor wish to be rich, the rich wish to be happy, the single wish to be married, and the married wish to be dead.”

“There is only one thing you can do about the past, and that is to forget it.”

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of the IRS is the beginning of taxation.”

“To be an ideal guest, stay at home.”

“The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.”

“Any clod can have the facts; having opinions is an art.”

“Diets are for people who are thick and tired of it.”

“Man is the only animal that can be skinned more than once.”

“The only thing wrong with the younger generation is that we don't belong to it anymore.”

“A professional is a man who can do his job when he doesn't feel like it. An amateur is a man who can't do his job when he does feel like it.”

“The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.”

“Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep.”

“The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain.”

“Creditors have better memories than debtors.”