November 01

"Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l'admire.
(A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.)"

Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
(11/01/1636 – 03/13/1711)
French writer ("l'Oeuvres diverses")

"Public office is the last refuge of the incompetent."

Boies Penrose
(11/01/1860 – 12/31/1921)
US senator (PA)

"A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe, 'That fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.'"

Stephen Crane
(11/01/1871 – 06/05/1900)
US writer ("The Red Badge of Courage")

"It has been said that writing comes more easily if you have something to say."

Sholem Asch
(11/01/1880 – 07/10/1957)
Polish-Yiddish writer ("Got fun Nekomeh (God of Vengeance)")

"All wars are planned by old men, in council rooms apart."

Grantland Rice
(11/01/1880 – 07/13/1954)
US writer

"The world has always gone through periods of madness so as to advance a bit on the road to reason."

Hermann Broch
(11/01/1886 – 05/30/1951)
Austrian writer ("Die Schlafwandler (The Sleepwalkers)")

"Keep it light so you can say a lot more, especially if it's something you care about."

Naomi Mitchison
(11/01/1897 – 01/11/1999)
Scottish writer ("Memoirs of a Spacewoman")
(sister of J. B. S. Haldane)

"We shall not have succeeded in demolishing everything unless we demolish the ruins as well. But the only way I can see of doing that is to use them to put up a lot of fine, well-designed buildings."

Alfred Jarry
(09/08/1873 – 11/01/1907)
French "pataphysical" writer ("Ubu Roi")

"Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it."

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

"The harder you work, the luckier you get."

Gary Player
(11/01/1935 – )
US golfer

"Sometimes the best songs almost write themselves."

"Whispering" Bill Anderson
(11/01/1937 – )
US singer, songwriter ("Thanks To You")

"I even went so far as to become a Southern Baptist for a while, until I realized that they didn't hold 'em under long enough."

Kinky Friedman
(11/01/1944 – )
US singer, songwriter ("Arsehole From El Paso")

"Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain—and most fools do."

Dale Carnegie
(11/24/1888 – 11/01/1955)
US writer ("How to Win Friends and Influence People")

"He who levitates is loft."

Steven Miller
(11/01/1957 – )
US self, artist, writer, editor, musician, photographer, and model of humility ("BirthdayDeathday.com")

"Never eat Mexican food east of Mississippi or north of Dallas."

Lyle Lovett
(11/01/1957 – )
US singer songwriter ("That's Right, You're Not From Texas")
(was married to Julia Roberts)

"You can converge a toaster and refrigerator, but these things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user."

Tim Cook
(11/01/1960 – )
US executive

"I write so the endangered thoughts roaming naked and vulnerable through the misty jungles of my mind aren't slain by the guns of practical living."

Kim Krizan
(11/01/1961 – )
US writer, actor ("Before Sunrise")

"I inherited my father's insatiable desire to meet all the beautiful girls in the world."

Anthony Kiedis
(11/01/1962 – )
US singer (Red Hot Chili Peppers) ("Otherside")
(also see Flea)

"Serve the dinner backward, do anything but for goodness' sake, do something weird."

Elsa Maxwell
(05/24/1883 – 11/01/1963)
US writer, hostess ("How to Do It, or the Lively Art of Entertaining")

"Every man of genius is considerably helped by being dead."

Robert Staughton Lynd
(09/26/1892 – 11/01/1970)
US sociologist ("Middletown: A Study in Contemporary American Culture")

"Literature is news that stays news."

Ezra Pound
(10/30/1885 – 11/01/1972)
US poet ("Hugh Selwyn Mauberley")
(died near his birthday)

"Sometimes life hits you on the head with a saucepan. But I'm not here to talk about saucepans."

Toni Collette
(11/01/1972 – )
Australian actor ("United States of Tara")

"I was a puke brunette."

Jenny McCarthy
(11/01/1972 – )
US model, actor
(dated Jim Carrey)

"For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word."

Catherine Drinker Bowen
(01/01/1897 – 11/01/1973)
US writer ("Miracle at Philadelphia")

"Every woman over fifty should stay in bed until noon."

Mamie Eisenhower
(11/14/1904 – 11/01/1979)
US first lady (41)
(wife of Dwight David Eisenhower)

"He got a reputation as a great actor by just thinking hard about the next line."

King Vidor
(02/08/1894 – 11/01/1982)
US writer-director ("Northwest Passage") , on Gary Cooper

"If you want to win anything—a race, yourself, your life—you have to go a little berserk."

Dr. George Sheehan
(11/05/1918 – 11/01/1993)
US physician, running enthusiast ("Running & Being: The Total Experience")
(died near his birthday)

"I don't have to jump up and smile just because TV wants me to."

Walter Payton
(07/25/1954 – 11/01/1999)
US football player

"I believe that the supreme duty of the historian is to write history, that is to say, to attempt to record in one sweeping sequence the greater events and movements that have swayed the destiny of man."

Sir Steven Runciman
(07/07/1903 – 11/01/2000)
English historian ("A History of the Crusades")

"The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis."

William Styron
(06/11/1925 – 11/01/2006)
US writer ("Sophie's Choice")

"After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood."

Fred Thompson
(08/19/1942 – 11/01/2015)
US actor, Senator (TN)

"When they drowned that place, they drowned my whole guts. And I will never forgive the bastards. May they rot in hell."

Katie Lee
(10/23/1919 – 11/01/2017)
US singer, environmentalist ("Stay as Sick as You Are") , on the men who dammed the Glen Canyon