“I smelled victory… but tasted defeat.”
Another of mine, from June 6, 2002.
“Jane Austen’s wonderful quip: ‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?’”
Mark Johnson in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #4 (March/April 2024) [It turns out to be the long-suffering father of the Bennett girls in Pride and Prejudice]
“A recent article on the left-wing website Rabble.ca, of all places, accused him [Jack Layton] of being ‘a political doughnut ... All sugar icing on the outside ... and a big hole right in the middle.’”
Adam Radwanski in Ottawa Citizen April 1, 2004
“It would be impolitic to suggest [Chrystia] Freeland has gone bananas, but she has definitely been at the fruit bowl.”
Michael Higgins in National Post June 11, 2024 [re the Canadian Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister suddenly claiming that without their capital gains tax increase the rich will live in fortified enclaves while the poor burn everything else down].
“Many people today spend their lives in the really delightful pursuit of kickable objects.”
G.K. Chesterton in Acton Gazette December 2, 1910, quoted in “Chesterton for Today” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)
“Honesty is never solemn; it is only hypocrisy that can be that. Honesty always laughs, because things are so laughable.”
G.K. Chesterton “A Plea for Hasty Journalism” in The Apostle and the Wild Ducks, quoted in “Can’t You Take A Joke?” in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)
“It helps a lot, with two people as much together as he and I were, if they understand each other. He understood that I was too strong-minded to add another word unless he told me to, and I understood that he was too pigheaded to tell me to.”
Archie Goodwin’s internal monologue himself and Nero Wolfe in Rex Stout The Final Deduction
“The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public.”
British jurist Sir George Jessel, quoted by Katherine Gay in I think the Financial Post from early 1994 (given me by a colleague without precise attribution)