Under no circumstances does he get good natured until noon. If he has — Damon Runyon

"Some day, somewhere … a guy is going to come to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is never broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that the jack of spades will jump out of this deck and squirt cider in your ear. But, son … do not bet him, for as sure as you do you are going to get an ear full of cider. (From the short story The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown, Colliers Weekly, January 28, 1933. Used with slightly different wording in the musical Guys and Dolls -- both the 1950 stage and the 1955 film versions.)"

"Mathewson pitched against Cincinnati yesterday. Another way of putting it is that Cincinnati lost a game of baseball. The first statement means the same as the second."

"Always try to rub against money, for if you rub against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you. (A Very Honorable Guy)"

"I long ago come to the conclusion that all life is six to five against. (A Nice Price)"

"You felt he was laughing at the world, not with it."

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

"yes is a pleasant country... love is a deeper season than reason"

"true lovers in each happening of their hearts live longer than all which and every who"

"What concerns me fundamentaly is a meteoric burlesk melodrama, born of the immemorial adage love will find a way."

"Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flower Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet? God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! God! sing, ye meadow-streams, with gladsome voice! Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow, And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!"

"Unchanged within, to see all changed without, Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others Wanings shouldst thou fret? Then only mightst thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight."