Peg Bracken - I Didn't Come Here to Argue (1969)

12 Sourced Quotes

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When people say it's a funny thing about them, you will probably be able to control your hysterics. They are only getting ready to announce the shattering fact that they don't like something. And it's not going to be something that's really quite awful, like suttee or apartheid; it's going to be something small.

Peg Bracken
If the author is so interested in Science, why doesn't she take a course in it?

Peg Bracken
Even small quotations can be valuable, like raisins in the rice pudding, for adding iron as well as eye appeal.

Peg Bracken
Some people collect paperweights, or pre-Columbian figures, or old masters, or young mistresses, or tombstone rubbings, or five-minute recipes, or any of a thousand other things including bruises, most of them satisfying, depending on the genes and the bank account and where the heart lies.
My own collection is sunrises; and I find that they have their advantages. Sunrises are usually handsome, they can't possibly be dusted, and they take only a little room, so long as it has a window to see them from. Moreover, I can't give way to the urge to show off my collection to my friends. I can only talk about it, and they needn't listen.

Peg Bracken
Many people choose, early on, their own truths from the large smorgasbord available. And once they've chosen them, for good reason or no reason, they then proceed rather selectively, wisely gathering whatever will bolster them or at least carry out the color scheme.

Peg Bracken
Many a restaurant seems to employ more copy writers than cooks.

Peg Bracken
When I finally gathered, invented, stole, simplified, borrowed, and found a publisher for a clutch of reasonably foolproof recipes, I learned I had friends I hadn't known about—more proof that a mutual dislike can be quite as sound a basis for friendship as a mutual devotion.

Peg Bracken
She was constitutionally unable to believe that all other writers didn't have it easy. For it was obvious that their words were hummingbirds, a bright whir of them over the typewriter, seeking only a landing strip. She alone stared at the white paper.

Peg Bracken
Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred dollars and a substantial tax cut save you thirty cents?

Peg Bracken
It is a rare expert who clearly realizes how inexpert someone else can be.

Peg Bracken
I believe that one's basic financial attitudes are — like a tendency toward fat knees — probably formed in utero, or, at the very latest, in cribbo.

Peg Bracken
It isn't surprising that many children consider their parents to be a little dim, and that they sometimes try to update them. The fact that they don't usually try too hard is just as well; a thoroughly updated parent is an unappetizing sight.

Peg Bracken