April 09

"I am going to seek a grand perhaps; draw the curtain, the farce is played."

Francois Rabelais
(02/04/1494 – 04/09/1553)
French writer ("The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel" pentalogy) , last words?
(same dates as Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is."

Francis Bacon
(01/22/1561 – 04/09/1626)
English writer ("Novum Organum")

"I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws."

Charles Baudelaire
(04/09/1821 – 08/31/1867)
French writer ("Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil)")

"Marking dynamos for repair $10,000.00—2 hours labor $10.00; knowing where to mark $9,990.00."

Charles Steinmetz
(04/09/1865 – 10/26/1923)
Prussian scientist , invoice

"Was it a friend or foe that spread these lies?
Nay, who but infants question in such wise,
'twas one of my most intimate enemies."

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(05/12/1828 – 04/09/1882)
English artist, poet ("Ecce Ancilla Domini (Behold the handmaiden of the Lord)")
(brother of Christina)

"She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook."

Tommy Manville
(04/09/1894 – 10/09/1967)
US heir and socialite, married 13 times, to 11 women

"The patter of their feet as they walk through Jim Crow barriers to attend school is the thunder of the marching men of Joshua, and the world rocks beneath their tread."

Paul Robeson
(04/09/1898 – 01/23/1976)
US actor, singer, activist ("The Emperor Jones") , on the children of Little Rock

"We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes."

J. William Fulbright
(04/09/1905 – 02/09/1995)
US Senator (Arkansas) ("The Price of Empire")

"The trouble with nude dancing is that not everything stops when the music stops."

Sir Robert Helpmann
(04/09/1909 – 09/28/1986)
Australian dancer and actor ("The Red Shoes") , on the musical "Oh! Calcutta!"

"The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet."

Edward Thomas
(03/03/1878 – 04/09/1917)
English poet ("Four and Twenty Blackbirds")

"The major civilizing force in the world is not religion, it is sex."

Hugh Hefner
(04/09/1926 – 09/27/2017)
US entrepreneur, publisher ("Playboy")

"Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it."

Tom Lehrer
(04/09/1928 – )
US math professor, singer, pianist, songwriter ("That Was the Year That Was")

"There is indeed a business like show business. It's the news."

Paul Krassner
(04/09/1932 – 07/21/2019)
US writer, comedian, editor ("The Realist")

"When you were quite a little boy, somebody ought to have said "hush" just once."

Mrs. Patrick Campbell
(02/09/1865 – 04/09/1940)
English actor ("Riptide") , to George Bernard Shaw

"It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(02/04/1906 – 04/09/1945)
German theologian ("The Cost of Discipleship")
(same dates as Francois Rabelais)

"Everybody just wants to be famous first, and then maybe learn how to act."

Dennis Quaid
(04/09/1954 – )
US actor ("The Big Easy")
(was married to Meg Ryan)

"If the paintings are too large, cut them in half!"

Frank Lloyd Wright
(06/08/1867 – 04/09/1959)
US architect (Marin County Civic Center) , on the low ceilings in the Guggenheim museum

"Misquotation is, in fact, the pride and privilege of the learned. A widely-read man never quotes accurately, for the rather obvious reason that he has read too widely."

Hesketh Pearson
(02/20/1887 – 04/09/1964)
English actor, writer ("Modern Men and Mummers")

"My boyfriend thinks I lost my true calling to be a librarian."

Paulina Porizkova
(04/09/1965 – )
Czech supermodel ("Thursday")
(was married to Ric Ocasek)

"When a man is intoxicated by alcohol, he can recover, but when intoxicated by power, he seldom recovers."

James F. Byrnes
(05/02/1882 – 04/09/1972)
US Governor (SC)

"They were torn between two fires." *

John H. Dent
(03/10/1908 – 04/09/1988)
US Representative (PA)

"All great work is preparing yourself for the accident to happen."

Sidney Lumet
(06/25/1924 – 04/09/2011)
US director ("12 Angry Men")
(was married to Gloria Vanderbilt)

"When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife."

Prince Philip
(06/10/1921 – 04/09/2021)
British royal family
(was married to Queen Elizabeth II, father with her of Prince Charles)

Yesterday Home Tomorrow