[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published July 4, 2022] ©2022
Over the years, I’ve been collecting favorite quotes – way too many to list here. I first published this list in March of 2018 but got such a huge response to it that I wanted to run an updated version of it while I am on vacation this week. As before, some of these quotes seem truly prescient for their time – especially the first four:
"In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take." - Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965)
“The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.” First line of the book “The Go-Between” by L.P. Hartley. (1953)
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
"You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts." -Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927-2003), and others
“In our judicial system, you are assumed guilty until proven rich or lucky.” Pundit John Oliver
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” –William Faulkner
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” - Thomas Edison
“Most editors are failed writers. So are most writers.” –T.S. Eliot
“The older you get, the better you get. Unless you’re a banana.” - Late actress Betty White
“Things always get worse before they get a lot worse” - Lily Tomlin
“The road of life is paved with flat squirrels who couldn’t decide.” (Unknown)
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943
“My body isn’t me. I just live here.” (Magnet on Inga’s refrigerator)
“A drug is any substance that, when injected in a rat, gives rise to a scientific paper.” - Darryl Inaba (1984)
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” – Hanlon’s Razor
“We never wanted to divorce at the same time.” Reply from friends of Inga’s when asked the secret of their 50-year marriage.
“She buffers herself against parental input.” - Neighbors, referring to their teenage daughter.
“Not having to worry about your hair anymore may be the secret upside of death.” - Nora Ephron
"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." -Journalist A.J. Liebling
A scientist friend who was invited to present at a professional meeting in Jakarta observed to the organizer that the schedule, as set, was not being even remotely followed. The reply: "You should think of the schedule more as a first draft of a play that will be given improvisationally.”
“The only way to be reliably sure the hero gets the girl at the end of the story is to be both the hero and the girl.” - Becoming Duchess Goldblatt, A Memoir
“A closed mouth gathers no feet.” - Inga’s personal motto, poorly followed.
“What you accept, you teach.” - Inga’s parents’ motto, well followed.
“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” – George Bernard Shaw
“May you step on Legos in the middle of the night.” - Curse
"I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
“A lot of people ask me if I were shipwrecked and could only have one book, what would it be? I always say, ‘How to Build a Boat.’” – Actor Stephen Wright
"I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction." - Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)
“After a failure, there’s always someone who wished there was an opportunity they’d missed.” - Lily Tomlin
“All swash and no buckle.” - variation on “all hat and no cattle”
"I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"We didn't lose the game; we just ran out of time." - Vince Lombardi
"There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher." - Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)
“My brain seems to be working for a different organization now.” (Friend Julia referring to menopause)
“The wages of sin are death, but after taxes are taken out, it’s just kind of a tired feeling.” – Paula Poundstone.
"Nothing is wrong with California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure." - Mystery writer Ross MacDonald (1915-1983)
“The chief cause of problems is solutions.” – Journalist Eric Sevareid (1912-1992)
“Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” - Oscar Wilde
"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." - Mario Andretti
"Happiness is good health and a bad memory." - Ingrid Bergman (1917-1982)
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