November 13

"O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet."

Saint Augustine
(11/13/0354 – 08/28/0430)
Algerian religious person ("On the City of God Against the Pagans")

"Mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

Lady Caroline Lamb
(11/13/1785 – 01/25/1828)
English writer ("Glenarvon") , on Lord Byron
(was married to William Lamb Melbourne; had a bit of a fling with Lord Byron)

"An actor is a sculptor who carves in snow."

Edwin Booth
(11/13/1833 – 06/07/1893)
US actor

"I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion."

Robert Louis Stevenson
(11/13/1850 – 12/03/1894)
Scottish writer

"Behind every argument is someone's ignorance."

Louis D. Brandeis
(11/13/1856 – 10/05/1941)
US Supreme Court justice

"Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive."

Arthur Hugh Clough
(01/01/1819 – 11/13/1861)
English writer
(assistant to Florence Nightingale)
("Poems")

"A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you."

Bert Leston Taylor
(11/13/1866 – 03/19/1921)
US writer ("The East Window")

"Wagner has lovely moments but awful quarters of an hour."

Gioacchino Rossini
(02/29/1792 – 11/13/1868)
Italian composer ("The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution")

"Would there be this eternal seeking if the found existed?"

Antonio Porchia
(11/13/1885 – 11/09/1968)
Italian writer
(died near his birthday)

"Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare
And left the flushed print in a poppy there."

Francis Thompson
(12/16/1859 – 11/13/1907)
English writer

"I've been around so long that all the statues in Symphony Hall were little boys when I started."

Harry Ellis Dickson
(11/13/1908 – 03/29/2003)
US conductor

"The Romans' contribution to science was mostly limited to butchering antiquity's greatest mathematician, burning the Library of Alexandria, and slowly stifling the sciences that flourished in the colonies of their Empire."

Petr Beckmann
(11/13/1924 – 08/03/1993)
Czech scholar ("A History of Π")

"Learn to work with people you wouldn't go to lunch with."

Garry Marshall
(11/13/1934 – 07/19/2016)
US director, writer ("Happy Days")
(brother of Penny Marshall)

"I never knew until I came here that somebody could be really nice to you for years and really hate your guts. Happens all the time here."

Jean Seberg
(11/13/1938 – 08/30/1979)
US actor ("À Bout de Souffle (Breathless)") , on Hollywood

"She had rouged her cheeks to a color otherwise seen only on specially ordered Pontiac Firebirds, and in her ears she wore two feathered appliances resembling surfcasting jigs especially appetizing to striped bass."

George V. Higgins
(11/13/1939 – 11/06/1999)
US writer
(died near his birthday)

"The best reason for putting anything down on paper is that one may then change it."

Bernard DeVoto
(01/11/1897 – 11/13/1955)
US historian ("Across the Wide Missouri")

"I want Carl Sagan to explain the sky to me."

Whoopi Goldberg
(11/13/1955 – )
US comic, actor
(relationship with Ted Danson)

"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where a backbone ought to be."

Clementine Paddleford
(09/27/1898 – 11/13/1967)
US writer ("How America Eats")

"My sister gave me a big bucket of Cool Whip. Isn't that awesome? For two weeks I basically watched Emergency! and ate cool whip with a spoon."

Steve Zahn
(11/13/1967 – )
US actor

"A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness."

Elsa Schiaparelli
(09/10/1890 – 11/13/1973)
Italian-French designer

"When a man retires and time is no longer a matter of urgent importance, his colleagues generally present him with a clock."

R. C. Sherriff
(06/06/1896 – 11/13/1975)
English writer ("Journey's End")

"Apparently I was a Billboard top touring act of 1973, but nobody told me."

Leon Russell
(04/02/1942 – 11/13/2016)
US singer, songwriter, pianist ("A Song for You")