December 21

"Kissed mouth don’t lose its fortune, on the contrary it renews itself just as the moon does."

Giovanni Boccaccio
(06/16/1313 – 12/21/1375)
Italian writer ("De Mulieribus Claris (Concerning Famous Women)")

"Everyone likes flattery, and when it comes to royalty, you should lay it on with a trowel."

Benjamin Disraeli
(12/21/1804 – 04/19/1881)
British PM (29) ("Vivian Grey")

"There is only one absinthe drinker, and that's the man who painted this idiotic picture."

Thomas Couture
(12/21/1815 – 03/30/1879)
French artist ("Anselm Feuerbach") , on Manet's "Absinthe Drinker"

"The birds are moulting. If only man could moult also—his mind once a year its errors, his heart once a year its useless passions."

James Lane Allen
(12/21/1849 – 02/18/1925)
US writer ("The Choir Invisible")

"The English may batter us to pieces, but they will never succeed in breaking our spirit."

Maud Gonne
(12/21/1866 – 04/27/1953)
Irish actor, patriot, feminist ("A Servant of the Queen")
(muse of William Butler Yeats)

"It was in dealing with the early feminist that the Government acquired the tact and skillfulness with which it is now handling Ireland."

Dame Rebecca West
(12/21/1892 – 03/15/1983)
English writer ("Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia")

"I never wanted to be a millionaire, I just wanted to live like one."

Walter Hagen
(12/21/1892 – 10/06/1969)
US golfer

"Dinner at the Huntercombes' possessed only two dramatic features—the wine was a farce, and the food a tragedy."

Anthony Powell
(12/21/1905 – 03/28/2000)
English writer ("A Dance to the Music of Time")

"Nostalgia is a seductive liar."

George Wildman Ball
(12/21/1909 – 05/26/1994)
US United Nations rep

"I walked out in the night a while ago. The stars are bright, the night is silent, the country quiet—as quiet as peace itself. Millions of men are in camp and on warships. Will they all have to fight and many of them die, to untangle this network of treaties and alliances and to blow off huge debts with gunpowder so that the world may start again?"

Walter H. Page
(08/15/1855 – 12/21/1918)
US journalist ("A Publisher's Confession") , on WWI

"Publicity is like poison; it doesn't hurt unless you swallow it."

Joe Paterno
(12/21/1926 – 01/22/2012)
US football coach

"Working in Hollywood does give one a certain expertise in the field of prostitution."

Jane Fonda
(12/21/1937 – )
US actor ("They Shoot Horses, Don't They?")
(daughter of Henry, sister of Peter, aunt of Bridget; was married to Roger Vadim, Tom Hayden, Ted Turner)

"I think pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything else that ever happened, and vice versa."

Frank Zappa
(12/21/1940 – 12/04/1993)
US musician, composer ("Montana")
(was married to Gail)

"Always willing to lend a helping hand to the one above him."

F. Scott Fitzgerald
(09/24/1896 – 12/21/1940)
US writer ("Tender Is the Night") , on Ernest Hemingway
(was married to Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald; LTR with Sheilah Graham)

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."

General George S. Patton
(11/11/1885 – 12/21/1945)
US military

"People mistake me for Laurence Fishburne all the time. And he always gets mistaken for me. (And why not? We've both starred in Spike Lee movies, haven't we?) Even when we're standing together, people have called him by my name and me by his. A woman recently ran up to him and said, 'My daughter loved you in Pulp Fiction! Could she have your autograph?' So he signed it, 'Respectfully yours, Samuel Jackson."

Samuel L. Jackson
(12/21/1948 – )
US actor ("Pulp Fiction")

"There is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is 'you never know.'"

Joaquin Andujar
(12/21/1952 – 09/08/2015)
Dominican baseball player

"It's high time the press finally got one thing right about me."

Chris Evert
(12/21/1954 – )
US tennis player , on the Daily Mirror proclaiming she "has the best boobs in the business"
(was engaged to Jimmy Connors)

"Student teaching is the hardest job there is. Secondary school kids didn't want to be there. I skipped out one afternoon and went to the mall, and there were some of my students there. But they couldn't report me, could they?"

Jane Kaczmarek
(12/21/1955 – )
US actor ("Malcolm in the Middle")

"It's a strange way to make a living, and my dentist has made me cut down on eating light bulbs, but I'm never bored."

Jim Rose
(12/21/1956 – )
US performance artist

"I feel like this is a dream—and I apologize for how I dressed some of you."

Ray Romano
(12/21/1957 – )
US actor ("Everybody Loves Raymond") , accepting a Golden Globe award

"A muscle is like a car. If you want it to run well early in the morning, you have to warm it up."

Florence Griffith-Joyner
(12/21/1959 – 09/21/1998)
US runner

"I have an Alka Seltzer bat. You know, plop plop fizz fizz. When the pitcher sees me walking up there they say, 'Oh what a relief it is.'"

Andy Van Slyke
(12/21/1960 – )
US baseball player

"Euclid taught me that without assumptions there is no proof. Therefore, in any argument, examine the assumptions."

Eric Temple Bell
(02/07/1883 – 12/21/1960)
Scottish-US mathematician, writer ("The Time Stream" as John Taine)

"You can't judge a band by their covers."

Teresa A. Schweitzer
(12/21/1963 – )
US artist, writer, citizen scientist, permaculturist, web producer, Peace Corps volunteer, bird nerd extraordinaire
(friend of the quotekeeper)

"I don't like my body, it's oddly-proportioned. I'd like to be, like, dumpy."

Andy Dick
(12/21/1965 – )
US actor

Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland

"Now I know how Charlie (Sheen) feels; I've lost all feeling in my lower half."

Kiefer Sutherland
(12/21/1966 – )
Canadian actor ("Flatliners") , on winning a Golden Globe award
(son of Donald; was engaged to Julia Roberts)

"There are very few jobs which require a penis or a vagina."

Florynce Kennedy
(02/11/1916 – 12/21/2000)
US lawyer, activist

"I have extended myself as much as I want to extend."

Elrod Hendricks
(12/22/1940 – 12/21/2005)
US baseball player, coach
(died near his birthday)

"He just can't believe what isn't happening to him."

David Coleman
(04/26/1926 – 12/21/2013)
English TV presenter