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Carolyn Wells
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“Secure from observation/ A Bookworm made his home / And pursued his occupation / In a dry and dusty tome, / Made by some wise old sages / That lesser minds might learn. / The Bookworm turned the pages / (For even a worm will turn). / He said, 'What prosy leaders! And, judging by its look, / This book has bored its readers, / Now I will bore the book.'”
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“A yardstick thus to himself did muse / As he walked along the street; / 'I must buy a pair and a half of shoes / Because I have three feet.'”
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“A guilty conscience is the mother of invention.”
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“He who loves and runs away, may live to love another day.”
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“Reward is its own virtue.”
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“The wages of sin is alimony.”
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“A living gale is better than a dead calm.”
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“Nonsense makes the heart grow fonder.”
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“Society's the mother of convention.”
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“Circumstances alter faces.”
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“Actions lie louder than words.”
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“Invitation is the sincerest flattery.”
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“One man's fish is another man's poisson.”
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“A critic is a necessary evil, and criticism is an evil necessity.”
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“A cynic is a man who looks at the world with a monocle in his mind's eye.”
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“Where there's a will there's a detective story.”
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“When strolling forth, a beast you view / Whose hide with spots is peppered; / As soon as it has leapt on you, / You'll know it is the Leopard.”
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“'Tis blessed to bestow, and yet, / Could we bestow the gifts we get, / And keep the ones we give away, / How happy were our Christmas Day!”
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“Happiness is the ability to recognize it.”
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“At times there is nothing so unnatural as nature.”
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“Flirtation envies Love, and Love envies Flirtation.”
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“The way to do some things is to do them.”
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“Contentment is the result of a limited imagination.”
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“We should live and learn; but by the time we've learned, it's too late to live.”
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“Every dogma must have its day.”
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“A profit is not without honor save in Boston.”
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“The Bananaconda is thin, / With a reddish or yellow skin. / He's not quite a brute, / Nor exactly a fruit, / Though to each of them he is akin.”
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“'Tis said, woman loves not her lover / So much as she loves his love of her; / Then loves she her lover / For love of her lover, / Or love of her love of her lover?”
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“A Tutor who tooted the flute, / Tried to teach two young tooters to toot; / Said the two to the tutor, / 'Is it harder to toot or / To tutor two tooters to toot?'”
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“A canner exceedingly canny / One morning remarked to his granny, / 'A canner can can / Anything that he can, / But a canner can't can a can, can he?'”
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“'Tis but a Toy on which one spends a Pile. / And Brags about it for a Little While; / Ambition rises — and the Foolish Man / Sighs, and prepares to buy Another Style.”
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“What! Out of Oil, Nothing to invoke / A Powerful Something, born of Fire and Smoke! / An Unremitting Pleasure, if it goes; / An Everlasting Worriment, if broke.”
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“I sometimes think that every Shining Star / Is but the Tail Lamp of a Motor Car; / Which leap'd from Earth in its mad Ecstasy, / And into Space went Speeding Fast and Far.”
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“... musicians rarely have a sense of humour, at least, about themselves.”
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“Patriotism covers a multitude of sins.”
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“A hen who resided in Reading / Attended a gentleman's weading. / As she walked up the aisle, / The guests had to smaisle, / In spite of the tears they were sheading.”
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“What is a magazine? A small body of Literature entirely surrounded by advertisements. ”
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“In December people give no thought to the Past or the Future. They think only of the Present.”
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“When Venus said 'Spell no for me,' / 'N-O' Dan Cupid wrote with glee, / And smiled at his success: / 'Ah, child,' said Venus, laughing low, / 'We women do not spell it so, / We spell it Y-E-S.'”
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“The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull and dry; / The books that we should like to read we are ashamed to buy; / The books that people talk about we never can recall; / And the books that people give us, oh, they're the worst of all.”
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“A fool and his money are soon married.”
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“Wall Street. — The abode of the Brokers and the Broke.”
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“Forgive us our Christmases as we / Forgive those who Christmas against us!”
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“For beauty I am not a star, / There are others more handsome by far; / But my face I don't mind it, / For I am behind it, / It's the people in front that I jar.”
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“There is one thing I can't get in my head — / Why do people marry the people they wed?”
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“They borrow books they will not buy, / They have no ethics or religions; / I wish some kind Burbankian guy / Would cross my books with homing pigeons.”
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“Advice ... is a habit-forming drug. You give a dear friend a bit of advice today, and next week you find yourself advising two or three friends, and the week after, a dozen, and the week following, crowds!”
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“... advice is one of those things it is far more blessed to give than to receive. ”
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“... how could advice be successful? If it turns out right, the adviser is ignored and the advisee takes all the credit. If it proves mistaken, the adviser receives all the blame.”
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“Insistent advice may develop into interference, and interference, someone has said, is the hind hoof of the devil.”
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“One of the first principles of perseverance is to know when to stop persevering.”
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“I'm just the same age I've always been.”
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“When I feel that I'm going to write a detective story, I buy a five pound box of chocolates and a ream of paper. When the candy is all gone and the paper all used up, I know that the book is long enough.”
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“To make a library / It takes two volumes / And a fire. / Two volumes and a fire, / And interest. / The interest alone will do / If logs are few.”
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“I have always hated biography, and more especially, autobiography. If biography, the writer invariably finds it necessary to plaster the subject with praises, flattery and adulation and to invest him with all the Christian graces. If autobiography, the same plan is followed, but the writer apologizes for it.”
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“It is the interest one takes in books that makes a library.”
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“Treat 'em like dogs, and you'll have dogs' works and dogs' actions. Treat 'em like men, and you'll have men's works.”
Carolyn Wells, U.S. writer, humorist, poet, playwright, anthologist
(1869 - 1942)
Carolyn Wells Houghton also wrote occasionally under the name Rowland Wright.