“Curmudgeon” is a term must be saved by a person who knew he knows one. Undoubtedly, not everyone may perhaps identify which of the thousands and thousands in the industry are curmudgeons, they’re rare, seldom admired, never been loved by human race. This term of unknown origin could stand for meanness for idealists and praise for an ill-tempered old man who hates hypocrisy and pretense. A man must be superior in words, best to criticize, courageous in giving stubborn notions and has the temerity to expound the orthodox by pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner.
The century has given us great storytellers, the eyes and hands who share the happenings in all predicaments of the real world. They were known to be writers, who eagerly not only inform but entertain us in all nerves possible. Some shared with us the hope of fantasy, distressed us with fiction, inspired us with romance, and curmudgeons wedged us in the middle claiming that they’re just saving their asses and not influence, or still expect so.
These are interesting curmudgeons of the century we might have missed to realize every time they’ve had tried to make us. Along are their selected bolshie quotations.
Henry Louis Mencken
-He considered himself a spokesman for the civilized minority and attacked he deemed inimical to the freedom of the artist. He hated sports and flowers.
-( Contributed to Morning Herald, Evening Herald, Morning Sun, Evening Sun, Sun, Smart Set, American Mercury and more writings)
-Quotes on America
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
“I simply can’t imagine competence as anything save admirable, for it is very rare in this world, and especially in this great Republic, and those who have it in some measure, in any art or craft from adultery to zoology, are the only human being I can think of who will be worth the oil it will take to fry them in Hell.”
-Quotes on God
“God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters.”
-Quotes on Marriage
“Marriage is a wonderful institution. But who would want to live in an institution?
“That I have escaped marriage…is not my fault, nor it is to my credit; it is due to a mere act of God. I am no more responsible for it than I am for my remarkable talent as a pianist, my linguistic skills, or my ark romantic, or somewhat voluptuous beauty.”
“Getting married, like getting hanged, is a great deal less dreadful than it has been made out.”
-When H.L. Mencken got married in 1930, the headlines blared:
MIGHTY MENCKEN FALLS
MENCKEN, ARCH CYNIC, CAPITULATES TO CUPID
WEDLOCK SCOFFLA TO MARRY
ET TU, H.L.?
-and quoted on marriage
“I formerly was not wise as I am now.”
Quentin Crisp
-Born on Christmas Day and became aware of his homosexuality at an early age. He believes that happy people do not need festivity.
-(Wrote and published: The Naked Civil Servant, How to Become a Virgin, How to Save a Lifestyle, Doing It with Style and Manners from Heaven)
-Quotes
“If at first you don’t succeed, failure may be your style.”
When asked, “Should I tell my mother I’m gay?” I answer, “Never tell your mother anything.”
Karl Kraus
-A dramatist, critic, and satirist. He was acquainted with Sigmund Freud and expressed a fondness for him personally but became obsessed with what he considered the chicanery of psychoanalysis and later attacked Freud and his disciples.
-(He founded his own magazine, Die Fackel)
-Quotes on the life of a miisanthrope
” One’s need for loneliness is not satisfied if one sits at a table alone. There must be empty chairs as well. If the waiter takes away a chair on which no one is sitting, I feel a void and my sociability is aroused. I can’t live without empty chairs.”
“What torture, this life in society! Often someone is obliging enough to offer me a light, and in order to oblige him I have to fish a cigarette out of my pocket.”
-Quotes on literature
“Journalists write because they have nothing to say, and have something to say because they write.”
To write a novel may be pure pleasure. To live a novel presents certain difficulties. As for reading a novel, I do my best to get out of it. I have decided many a stylistic problem first by head, then by heads or tails.”
-Quotes on psychoanalysis
“So-called psychoanalysis is the occupation of lascivious rationalists who reduce everything in the world to sexual causes, with the exception of their occupation.”
“Most people are sick. But only a few know that this is something they can be proud of. These are the psychoanalysts.”
“Psychoanalysts are father confessors who like to listen to the sins of the fathers as well.”
Roy Blount, Jr.
-When he was in high school, he was reading Mencken and quoted his definition of Puritan to his mother; ” A Puritan is a person who lives in the fear that someone, somewhere, may be having a good time.”
-(Contributor and Author of collections of essays and verse, including Not exactly what I had in mind, One Fell Soup, and What Men Don’t Tell Women.)
-Quotes
” I don’t like the woods because there’s no sin there.”
Oscar Wilde
-Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was born in Dublin. A kin observer of human fully and died a patriot put in prison for loving his country loves his country, a poet put in prison for loving boys loves boys.
-(He wrote the poem “Ravenna” and published novels: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Happy Prince, Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance.)
-Quotes on women
“One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age; a woman who would tell one that would tell one anything.”
“Women have a wonderful instinct about things. They can discover everything except the obvious.”
“A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.”
“Women give men the very gold of their lives. But they invariably want it back in small change.”
“Between men and women, there is no friendship possible. There is passion enmity, worship, love, but no friendship.”
“A woman will flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on.”
There is nothing in the world like the devotion of a married woman. it is something no married man knows anything about.”
Dave Barry
-Believed that the old system of having a baby was much better than the new system, the old system being characterized by the fac that the man didn’t have to watch. And he introduced the human life stage of “geezerhood”.
-(His books include Dave Barry Talks Back, Dave Barry Turns 40, Dave Barry’s Money Secrets.)
-Quotes
All the time we brushed seventy-three minutes after every meal and thought our teeth would be in great shape, they never told us about flossing.
“I have long contented that, however many zillion dollars the federal governments costs us, we get it all back and more in the form of quality entertainment.”
Almost Known Curmudgeons
Woody Allen
“Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”
“Is sex dirty? Only if it’s done right.”
Mark Twain
“Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion.”
“It has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain when awake.”
George Bernard Shaw
“Why should we take advice on sex from the Pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t.”
“Instruction in sex is as important in food; yet not only are our adolescents not taught the physiology of sex, but never warned that the strongest sexual attraction may exist between persons so incompatible in tastes and capacities that they could not endure living together for a week, much less a lifetime.”
William Butler Yeats
“I have certainly seen more men destroyed by the desire to have a wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.”
Voltaire
“My God defend me from my friends: I can defend myself from my enemies.”
-More
