Billy Crystal · 288 pages
Rating: (11K votes)
“Two thousand years ago Jesus is crucified, three days later he walks out of a cave and they celebrate with chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps and beautifully decorated eggs. I guess these were things Jesus loved as a child.”
“Westboro Baptist Church: STOP. Stop protesting the funerals of our soldiers who died in action because you are anti-gay. When one of you dies, I’m going to show up with a couple of gay veterans and we’re going to do a musical at your funeral.”
“Do something special on your birthday. Whatever you do, celebrate the fact that you’re here, and that people love you and you love them. We only do this once.”
“We tiptoe around like we’re the Frank family and the Gestapo is downstairs. The baby monitor is in our room, and the unspoken rule is that when the kids go down, so do we. So at seven P.M., I’m in bed waiting for the sandman to come. I can’t watch TV, because the noise may wake up the kids; I can’t listen to music with my iPod earbuds, because then I can’t hear the monitor; and I can’t have sex, because that could wake up Janice.”
“You bought a one-way ticket to New York with no return flight booked,” he says. “I’m flying to New York and I’m not coming back for a month or two,” I explain. “I’m not booking a round-trip flight at this point.” “I understand. No problem. We’ll be finished right after a quick thorough search.” I think he’s kidding. He’s not. I keep trying to joke with him as he frisks me a little too eagerly. “I thought you’d buy me a drink first,” I say. “I guess the only people drinking fifteen minutes before a flight are the pilots.”
“Think of renovating a house like operating the federal government. You start with a budget and the revenue to finance it. Then the special interests keep adding items to the list; you have to end the war between the interior decorator and the electrician, so you pump in more money to buy peace; and by the time you’re done, you’re $16 trillion in debt and having to borrow money from the Chinese.”
“And if we really want to stay current and relevant, we have to use social media. And by that I mean Facebook. There are one billion people on Facebook. Maybe older people should have our own social media. We can call it What Did That Doctor Do to Your Face Book? In fact, we can have our own text and Facebook abbreviations. We can have our own WTF, LOL, and LMAO. GNIB: Good news, it’s benign. OMG: Oh, my gout. DMMLIMNWD: Don’t make me laugh, I’m not wearing Depends. WAI: Where am I? ITIHSBCR: I think I had sex but can’t remember. ILI: I like Ike. TKDC: The kids didn’t call. DTLSTY: Does this look swollen to you? CTDMELOFM: Call the doctor—my erection lasted over four minutes. PAMUHNASIHSB: Put a mirror under his nose and see if he’s still breathing. Bottom line: we can’t be dial-up in a Wi-Fi world.”
“Insomnia, from the Greek word meaning "I can't fucking sleep!”
“...but I had learned over the years that if you're not happy doing what you're doing, then you shouldn't be doing it.”
“We all have a different image of what old is, and if you were exposed to senior citizens at a young age, as I was, it can color your soul with terror.”
“I found a sense of peace on Beechnut. I could just walk with him and not have to say a word. In between takes, I would sit with the cast and Beechnut would stand behind me, sometimes with his head on my shoulder. I didn't have to tie him, up; he would just stand there. I loved being a cowboy... again. The only other times
I'd felt this sense of peace had been while fielding ground balls or playing catch on a baseball field or doing stand-up when everything was working. When filming was over, my agent, Andrea Eastman, gave me Beechnut as a surprise gift. at first, I didn't want him. Owning a horse is an enormous responsibility, and
I was concerned hat my relationship with him was just a location romance. But I accepted, and I rode him until 2009, when he passed away at the age of twenty-eight.”
“We first knew something was up when the construction chief pulled out a stethoscope and started listening to the wall.”
“No, this length suits you. Lends you an air of a creature that has not yet been tamed.”
“the difference between winners and losers is not that winners never lose. The difference is that winners lose well, and losers lose poorly.”
“Identify your strengths, and then—this is important—major in them. Take a few irons out of the fire so this one can get hot. Failing to focus on our strengths may prevent us from accomplishing the unique tasks God has called us to do. A lighthouse keeper who worked on a rocky stretch of coastline received oil once a month to keep his light burning. Not being far from a village, he had frequent guests. One night a woman needed oil to keep her family warm. Another night a father needed oil for his lamp. Then another needed oil to lubricate a wheel. All the requests seemed legitimate, so the lighthouse keeper tried to meet them all. Toward the end of the month, however, he ran out of oil, and his lighthouse went dark, causing several ships to crash on the coastline. The man was reproved by his superiors, “You were given the oil for one reason,” they said, “to keep the light burning.”1 We cannot meet every need in the world. We cannot please every person in the world. We cannot satisfy every request in the world. But some of us try. And in the end, we run out of fuel. Have a sane estimate of your abilities and stick to them.”
“Traces of a crime need to be coaxed out, not rushed.”
“Teaching is the noblest profession—if it can be called a profession at all. It is an art that requires, not just intellectual attainments, but infinite patience and love.”
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