August 24

"The man that has no friend at court,
Must make the laws confine his sport,
But he that has, by dint of flaws,
may make his sport confine the laws."

Thomas Chatterton
(11/20/1752 – 08/24/1770)
English writer

"To give an accurate and exhaustive account of the period would need a far less brilliant pen than mine."

Sir Max Beerbohm
(08/24/1872 – 05/20/1956)
English writer and artist ("Zuleika Dobson")

"Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere."

Jean Rhys
(08/24/1890 – 05/14/1979)
Welsh-Dominican writer ("Wide Sargasso Sea")

"They tell you that you'll lose your mind when you grow older. What they don't tell you is that you won't miss it much."

Malcolm Cowley
(08/24/1898 – 03/27/1989)
US writer ("Exile's Return")

"The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb."

Jorge Luis Borges
(08/24/1899 – 06/14/1986)
Argentine writer ("Ficciones (Fictions)")

"If the gods had intended for people to vote, they would have given us candidates."

Howard Zinn
(08/24/1922 – 01/27/2010)
US historian ("A People's History of the United States")

"Every child born into the world is a new thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility."

Kate Douglas Wiggin
(09/28/1856 – 08/24/1923)
US writer (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm), educator

"Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you."

Yasser Arafat
(08/24/1929 – 11/11/2004)
Palestinian president

"Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses."

Simone Weil
(02/03/1909 – 08/24/1943)
French philosopher, mystic, activist ("The Need for Roots")
(sister of Andre Weil)

"I like the rapid punch of solid-state for the bottom, and the rodent-gnawing distortion of the tubes on top." *

John Cipollina
(08/24/1943 – 05/29/1989)
US guitarist (Quicksilver Messenger Service et al) ("Happy Trails") , on his guitar rig

"She has no heart but her brains are in the right place."

Cyril Asquith
(02/05/1890 – 08/24/1954)
English barrister
(son of Herbert Henry Asquith, but not his wife Margot Asquith)

"It is stupid of modern civilization to have given up believing in the devil, when he is the only explanation of it."

Ronald Knox
(02/17/1888 – 08/24/1957)
English writer, theologian

"When you've seen a nude infant doing a backward somersault, you know why clothing exists."

Stephen Fry
(08/24/1957 – )
English writer, actor

"Silence is the last thing the world will ever hear from me."

Marlee Matlin
(08/24/1965 – )
US actor

"You can't sit on the lid of progress. If you do, you will be blown to pieces."

Henry J. Kaiser
(05/09/1882 – 08/24/1967)
US industrialist

"Somebody broke into my house once; this is a good time to call the police, but mm mm, nope. The house was too nice. It was a real nice house, but they'd never believe I lived in it. They'd be like 'He's still here!'"

Dave Chappelle
(08/24/1973 – )
US comic

"I don't meet competition. I crush it."

Charles Revson
(10/11/1906 – 08/24/1975)
Canadian executive, Revlon founder

"To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true."

Bayard Rustin
(03/17/1912 – 08/24/1987)
US civil rights leader

"Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself and know that everything in life has a purpose."

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
(07/08/1926 – 08/24/2004)
Swiss psychiatrist (Five stages of grief)

"At my age the only problem is with remembering names. When I call everyone darling, it has damn all to do with passionately adoring them, but I know I'm safe calling them that. Although, of course, I adore them too."

Sir Richard Attenborough
(08/29/1923 – 08/24/2014)
English director
(brother of David Attenborough; died near his birthday)

"It is a paradox that as we reach our prime, we also see there is a place where it finishes."

Gail Sheehy
(11/27/1937 – 08/24/2020)
US writer