Gelett Burgess
Gelett Burgess
Frank Gelett Burgesswas an artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclastic little magazine, The Lark, he is best known as a writer of nonsense verse, such as "The Purple Cow", and for introducing French modern art to the United States in an essay titled "The Wild Men of Paris". He was the author of the popular Goops books, and he coined the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth30 January 1866
CountryUnited States of America
Repeat not the manner of a flirtation; for lo, all the world shall hear of it, and women will taunt thee.
Ah, yes! I wrote the "Purple Cow" - I'm sorry, now, I wrote it! But I can tell you anyhow, I'll kill you if you quote it!
The temptation to vivify the tale and make it walk abroad on its own legs is hard to deny.
To make fun of a person to his face is a brutal way of amusing one's self; be delicate and cunning, and keep your laugh in your sleeve, lest you frighten away your game.
Count no matron happy until she hath passed thirty, and hath not waxed fat.
Most women have all other women as adversaries; most men have all other men as their allies.
If in the last few years you have not discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.
Imagination is like a lofty building reared to meet the sky; whereas fancy is a balloon that soars at the wind's will.
It is in the blood of genius to love play for its own sake, and whether one uses one's skill on thrones or women, swords or pens, gold or fame, the game's the thing.
There is indeed no such thing in life as absolute darkness; one's eyes revolt and hasten to fill the vacuum by floating in sparks, dream patterns, figures whimsical and figures grotesque, shifting and clad in complementary colors, to appease the indignant cups and rods of the retina.
Verily, men do foolish things thoughtlessly, knowing not why; but no woman doeth aught without a reason.
I never saw a purple cow; I never hope to see one; But I can tell you, anyhow, I'd rather see than be one.
When the waitress puts the dinner on the table, the old men look at the dinner. The young men look at the waitress.
A woman and a mouse, they carry a tale wherever they go.