January 31

"Berlioz says nothing in his music, but he says it magnificently."

James Gibbons Huneker
(01/31/1857 – 02/09/1921)
US critic

"He who helps destroy the boll-weevil has done as constructive work as he who plants the seed."

Rupert Hughes
(01/31/1872 – 09/09/1956)
US writer (uncle of Howard Hughes)

"When I see the Ten Most Wanted lists, I always have this thought: If we'd made them feel wanted earlier, they wouldn't be wanted now."

Eddie Cantor
(01/31/1892 – 10/10/1964)
US entertainer

"The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance."

Charles H. Spurgeon
(06/19/1834 – 01/31/1892)
English clergy

"The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised."

Dame Freya Madeline Stark
(01/31/1893 – 05/09/1993)
French-born English writer

"I thought I told you to wait in the car."

Tallulah Bankhead
(01/31/1902 – 12/12/1968)
US actor , greeting an ex-lover after several years

"The quality of debate [in the House of Lords] is pretty high—and it is, I think, good evidence of life after death."

Rev. Donald Soper
(01/31/1903 – 12/22/1998)
English clergy

"So who's perfect? Washington had false teeth. Franklin was nearsighted. Mussolini had syphilis. Unpleasant things have been said about Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde. Tchaikovsky had his problems, too. And Lincoln was constipated."

John O'Hara
(01/31/1905 – 04/11/1970)
US writer

"The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little."

Thomas Merton
(01/31/1915 – 12/10/1968)
French monk

"If those absolutely important things are ignored, of how we speciated, how we adapted to the planet, then we're going to lose something precious. There won't be anywhere to go and no place to come home to."

Alan Lomax
(01/31/1915 – 07/19/2002)
US musicologist

"Are you looking for a Negro who won't fight back?"

Jackie Robinson
(01/31/1919 – 10/24/1972)
US baseball player , on being recruited as the first professional black player

"Heck, I drank no more than John Wayne or Ward Bond or Spencer Tracy or Alan Ladd or Robert Walker. But it got me into a lot more trouble."

John Agar
(01/31/1921 – 04/07/2002)
US military, actor (was married to Shirley Temple)

"I've enjoyed wonderful health. The only time I ever got sick was when I watched Barbra Streisand in 'Hello, Dolly!' on an airplane."

Carol Channing
(01/31/1921 – 01/15/2019)
US singer, actor

"For me it was like I was an old car and I was being taken out for a ride at one hundred mph; and I kind of liked it, because I was really getting rid of a lot of rust."

Norman Mailer
(01/31/1923 – 11/10/2007)
US writer , on attending a Ramones concert

"We've come a long way, but it's like nibbling at the edge of darkness."

Benjamin L. Hooks
(01/31/1925 – 04/15/2010)
US jurist, minister

"They gave you a book of checks. They didn't ask for any deposits." *

Joseph Daniel Early
(01/31/1933 – 11/09/2012)
US Rep (MA) , on bouncing checks and the House banking scandal

"The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy."

John Galsworthy
(08/14/1867 – 01/31/1933)
English writer

"I don't sit around and wait for great parts. I'm an actress, and I love being one, and I'll probably be doing it till I'm 72, standing around the backlot doing 'Gunsmokes.'"

Suzanne Pleshette
(01/31/1937 – 01/19/2008)
US actor , died 12 days short of 72

"We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand."

James G. Watt
(01/31/1938 – )
US Secretary of Interior

"Understand that sexuality is as wide as the sea. Understand that your morality is not law. Understand that we are you. Understand that if we decide to have sex whether safe, safer, or unsafe, it is our decision."

Derek Jarman
(01/31/1942 – 02/19/1994)
English filmmaker

"Only the mediocre are always at their best."

Jean Giraudoux
(10/29/1882 – 01/31/1944)
French writer

"One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries."

A. A. Milne
(01/18/1882 – 01/31/1956)
English writer (Winnie the Pooh, etc.)

"I think she's just a bad, bad brain with an unused fanny."

Johnny Rotten
(01/31/1956 – )
English singer (Sex Pistols, PiL) (also see Sid Vicious, Malcolm McLaren) , on Margaret Thatcher

"People go 'You look a lot like Minnie Driver.' Once I said, 'Thanks, Minnie is a great actress.' But, it blew up in my face. This person said, 'Nah, didn't like the last movie she did.'"

Minnie Driver
(01/31/1970 – )
English actor

"You live with the fear people might find out. Then you actually have the courage to tell people and they go, I don't think you are gay. It's enough to drive you crazy."

Portia de Rossi
(01/31/1973 – )
Australian actor (married to Ellen DeGeneres)

"If you don't disagree with me, how will I know I'm right?"

Samuel Goldwyn
(08/17/1879 – 01/31/1974)
US film producer

"I may not ever get over her. I really do still love that girl."

Justin Timberlake
(01/31/1981 – )
US singer (married to Jessica Biel) , on ex-girlfriend Britney Spears

"I personally prefer a nice frozen TV Dinner at home, mainly because it's so little trouble. All you have to do is have another drink while you're throwing it in the garbage."

Jack Douglas
(07/17/1908 – 01/31/1989)
US comic, writer

"Trouble rather the tiger in his lair than the sage amongst his books. For to you Kingdoms and their armies are things mighty and enduring, but to him they are but toys of the moment, to be overturned by the flicking of a finger..."

Gordon R. Dickson
(11/01/1923 – 01/31/2001)
Canadian writer

"In Texas, we do not hold high expectations for the governor's office; it's mostly been occupied by crooks, dorks and the comatose."

Molly Ivins
(08/30/1944 – 01/31/2007)
US writer

Mary Theresa Eleanor Higgins Clark Conheeney

"Now, children, go to sleep. I don't want you to worry when you hear the creaking on the stairs. The ghost promised he wouldn't show up tonight."

Mary Higgins Clark
(12/24/1927 – 01/31/2020)
US writer