July 21

"They never taste who always drink;
They always talk, who never think."

Matthew Prior
(07/21/1664 – 09/18/1721)
English writer ("Alma; or, The Progress of the Mind")

"Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame."

Robert Burns
(01/25/1759 – 07/21/1796)
Scottish poet ("To a Louse")

"A college is a place where pebbles are polished and diamonds dimmed."

Robert G. Ingersoll
(08/11/1833 – 07/21/1899)
US writer ("Some Mistakes of Moses")

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."

Ernest Hemingway
(07/21/1899 – 07/02/1961)
US writer ("The Old Man and the Sea")
(grandfather of Margaux and Mariel Hemingway)

"Those who make a distinction between education and entertainment don't know the first thing about either."

Marshall McLuhan
(07/21/1911 – 12/31/1980)
Canadian writer, social critic ("The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects")

"There are more bad musicians than there is bad music."

Isaac Stern
(07/21/1920 – 09/22/2001)
Polish-US musician ("From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China")

"Coroners' inquests by learned societies can't make Shakespeare a dead man."

Dame Ellen Terry
(02/27/1847 – 07/21/1928)
English actor ("Potter's Clay")

"In fact, I'm not really a Jew. Just Jew-ish. Not the whole hog, you know."

Jonathan Miller
(07/21/1934 – 11/27/2019)
English comic (Beyond the Fringe), opera director, actor, doctor

"The good lawyer is the great salesman."

Janet Reno
(07/21/1938 – 11/07/2016)
US Secretary of State

"The phone rings and I curse.
Literary editor.
Seasonal verse."

Wendy Cope
(07/21/1945 – )
English poet ("Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis")

"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."

Robin Williams
(07/21/1951 – 08/11/2014)
US comic, actor ("Good Morning, Vietnam")

"I heard you call me immature earlier. Well, you're just a big poop-head."

Jon Lovitz
(07/21/1957 – )
US comic actor (SNL)

"If one could make alive again for other people some cobwebbed skein of old dead intrigues and breathe breath and character into dead names and stiff portraits. That is history to me!"

G. M. Trevelyan
(02/16/1876 – 07/21/1962)
English historian ("A Shortened History of England")

"I hope one day I will be able to be completely myself. Maybe I'll be wilder."

Charlotte Gainsbourg
(07/21/1971 – )
English-French actor ("21 Grams")
(daughter of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg)

"Never write an advertisement which you wouldn't want your family to read. You wouldn't tell lies to your own wife. Don't tell them to mine."

David Ogilvy
(06/23/1911 – 07/21/1999)
English chef, salesman, research poll assistant, secret service agent, gentleman farmer, and advertising guru ("Confessions of an Advertising Man")

"I married Saroyan the second time because I couldn't believe how terrible it was the first time. I married Walter because I love to sleep with him."

Carol Grace Matthau
(09/11/1924 – 07/21/2003)
US actor ("Gangster Story")
(was married to William Saroyan, Walter Matthau)

"I think, first, that there's too much music in films today."

Jerry Goldsmith
(02/10/1929 – 07/21/2004)
US composer ("The Omen")

"Are you more likely to tolerate drivel than you were four years ago? I think the answer is yes. Four years of Reagan has deadened the senses against a barrage of uninterrupted nonsense."

Alexander Cockburn
(06/06/1941 – 07/21/2012)
Scottish writer ("The Golden Age Is in Us: Journeys and Encounters")

"Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."

E. L. Doctorow
(01/06/1931 – 07/21/2015)
US writer ("Ragtime")

"Irreverence is our only sacred cow."

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