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"But far more numerous was the herd of such,
Who think too little and who talk too much."

John Dryden
(08/19/1631 – 05/12/1700)
English writer ("The Wild Gallant")

"I was much distressed by next door people who had twin babies and played the violin; but one of the twins died, and the other has eaten the fiddle, so all is peace."

Edward Lear
(05/12/1812 – 01/29/1888)
English painter, writer ("The Book of Nonsense")

"Were there none who were discontented with what they have, the world would never reach anything better."

Florence Nightingale
(05/12/1820 – 08/13/1910)
English nurse (born in Florence, Italy) ("Cassandra")

"The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank."

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

"If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun."

Katharine Hepburn
(05/12/1907 – 06/29/2003)
US actor ("The Philadelphia Story")
(relationships with Spencer Tracy, Howard Hughes; no relation to Audrey Hepburn)

"So many women just don't know how great they really are. They come to us all vogue outside and vague on the inside."

Mary Kay Ash
(05/12/1918 – 11/22/2001)
US entrepreneur

"Happiness, to some elation;
Is to others, mere stagnation."

Amy Lowell
(02/09/1874 – 05/12/1925)
US writer ("What's O'Clock")
(granddaughter of Abbott Lawrence Lowell)

"I don't know if it's good for baseball, but it sure beats the hell out of rooming with Phil Rizzuto!"

Yogi Berra
(05/12/1925 – 09/22/2015)
US baseball great , on the marriage of Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe

"Miss Streisand looks like a cross between an aardvark and an albino rat surmounted by a platinum-coated horse bun."

John Simon
(05/12/1925 – 11/24/2019)
Serbian-US critic ("Private Screenings: Views of the Cinema of the Sixties")

"A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of."

Burt Bacharach
(05/12/1928 – )
US songwriter ("Walk On By")
(was married to Angie Dickinson, Carole Bayer Sager)

"I have never fallen in love with my own voice, but I've always had an attraction for it."

Tom Snyder
(05/12/1936 – 07/29/2007)
US TV talk show host

"I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect."

George Carlin
(05/12/1937 – 06/22/2008)
US comic

"There's always one person on every gig who does your secret sign to you. They come up afterwards and get hold of you — always here, on the elbow, where it's really secure—and go, 'I know.'"

Ian Dury
(05/12/1942 – 03/27/2000)
English singer ("Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll")

"It was either Voltaire or Charlie Sheen who said, 'We are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. And anything in between that can give us the illusion that we're not, we cling to.'"

Gabriel Byrne
(05/12/1950 – )
Irish actor ("Miller's Crossing")
(was married to Ellen Barkin)

"Writing is a lonely job, unless you're a drinker, in which case you always have a friend within reach."

Emilio Estevez
(05/12/1962 – )
US actor ("Repo Man")
(son of Martin Sheen (pictured), brother of Charlie Sheen; was married to Paula Abdul)

"In this life he laughs longest who laughs last."

John Masefield
(06/01/1878 – 05/12/1967)
English writer ("The Midnight Folk")

"Art doesn't go to sleep in the bed made for it. It would sooner run away than say its own name: what it likes is to be incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what its own name is."

Jean Dubuffet
(07/31/1901 – 05/12/1985)
French artist ("Monument au Fantôme (Monument to the Phantom)")

"People who see a drawing in the "New Yorker" will think automatically that it's funny because it is a cartoon. If they see it in a museum, they think it is artistic; and if they find it in a fortune cookie they think it is a prediction."

Saul Steinberg
(06/15/1914 – 05/12/1999)
Romanian cartoonist ("View of the World from 9th Avenue")

"For the amount of talent I had (and I couldn't dance, act, or tell a joke) I enjoyed a tremendous career."

Perry Como
(05/18/1912 – 05/12/2001)
US singer, actor
(died near his birthday)

"There's not much to be said about the period except that most writers don't reach it soon enough."

William Zinsser
(10/07/1922 – 05/12/2015)
US grammarian ("On Writing Well")

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