The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

I suppose that the high-water mark of my youth in Columbus, Ohio, was the night the bed fell
on my father.
‘My Life and Hard Times’ (1933) ch. 1
Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was
dripping invisibly all over the house.
‘My Life and Hard Times’ (1933) ch. 2
You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
‘The Bear Who Let It Alone’ in ‘New Yorker’ 29 April 1939
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
‘The Fairly Intelligent Fly’ in ‘New Yorker’ 4 February 1939
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
‘The Owl who was God’ in ‘New Yorker’ 29 April 1939
Then, with that faint fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and
motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty, the undefeated, inscrutable to the last.
‘The Secret Life of Walter Mitty’ in ‘New Yorker’ 18 March 1939
Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.
‘The Shrike and the Chipmunks’ in ‘New Yorker’ 18 February 1939
All right, have it your own way—you heard a seal bark!
Cartoon caption in ‘New Yorker’ 30 January 1932
That’s my first wife up there and this is the present Mrs Harris.
Cartoon caption in ‘New Yorker’ 16 March 1933
The war between men and women.
Cartoon series title in ‘New Yorker’ 20 January-28 April 1934
It’s a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you’ll be amused by its
presumption.
Cartoon caption in ‘New Yorker’ 27 March 1937
Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
Cartoon caption in ‘New Yorker’ 5 June 1937
It’s our own story exactly! He bold as a hawk, she soft as the dawn.
Cartoon caption in ‘New Yorker’ 25 February 1939
Humour is emotional chaos remembered in tranquillity.
In ‘New York Post’ 29 February 1960.
8.44 Edward, First Baron Thurlow 1731-1806
Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do
as they like.
In Poynder ‘Literary Extracts’ (1844) vol. 1 (usually quoted as ‘Did you ever expect a corporation to have a
conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?’)
8.45 Edward, Second Baron Thurlow 1781-1829