J. Perelman
J. Perelman
brother scotch sides
I'm half Scotch-Irish on both sides, and when I lose my temper-brother, I go.
book awards together
This medal (the National Book Award) together with my American Express card, will identify me worldwide ... except at Bloomingdale's.
inspirational sunday pearls
I found the pearl of the Orient slightly less exciting than a rainy Sunday evening in Rochester.
summer discovery august
One stifling summer afternoon last August, in the attic of a tiny stone house in Pennsylvania, I made a most interesting discovery: the shortest, cheapest method of inducing a nervous breakdown ever perfected. In this technique..., the subject is placed in a sharply sloping attic heated to 340 F and given a mothproof closet known as the Jiffy-Cloz to assemble.
forgiveness forgiving humans
To err is human, to forgive supine.
doors secret may
You'll have to leave my meals on a tray outside the door because I'll be working pretty late on the secret of making myself invisible, which may take me almost until eleven o'clock.
evening feels ifs
If, at the close of business each evening, I myself can understand what I've written, I feel the day hasn't been totally wasted.
airplane glasses santa-barbara
Santa Barbara people are conservative-not like in L.A., where everybody wears rhinestones on their glasses to show that they own an airplane factory.
pale-yellow oil house
A basic ingredient in the manufacture of perfume, the attar-a heavy, pale-yellow oil stored in small metal drums-had been put up as collateral by Bulgaria, in lieu of gold, at the Moscow Narodny Bank, a Communist finance house for East-West trade.
knows ifs
I don't know where we're going or how we'll get there, but when we get there we'll be there - and that's something, even if it's nothing.
travel adventure may
If travel has taught me nothing more, and it certainly has, it's this: you never know when some trifling incident, utterly without significance, may pitchfork you into adventure or, by the same token, may not.
trying criticism fiction
I cannot recall a more engaging passage in fiction, and I've been trying for almost eighteen seconds.
age trying roosters
We old roosters must be cautious. Don't try to outwit your arteries.
fate deck bottom
Fate was dealing from the bottom of the deck.