Quote

There's always a source for humor [in politics]. If it's inappropriate to write about, if there's nothing funny about it, then it's not funny. So it sort of selects itself. It has to. And plus, often something that wouldn't be funny at the time is okay to make jokes about later.

Calvin Trillin

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Calvin Trillin
Age: 89
Born: 1935
Born: December 5
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Kansas City
Missouri
Calvin Marshall Trillin
Nothing
Wouldn
Writing
Source
Something
Humor
Selects
Make
Sort
Inappropriate
Always
Politics
Plus
Time
Funny
Jokes
Often
Later
Write
Okay

More quotes by Calvin Trillin

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Money not spent on a luxury one considered even briefly is the equivalent of windfall income and should be spent accordingly.
Calvin Trillin
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A new regulation for the publishing industry: The advance for a book must be larger than the check for the lunch at which it was discussed.
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The question about those aromatic advertisements that perfume companies are having stitched into magazines these days is this: under the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, is smelling up the place a constitutionally protected form of expression?
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I actually think of being funny as an odd turn of mind, like a mild disability, some weird way of looking at the world that you can't get rid of.
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One advantage of a monarchy is that a monarchy does not suffer the effects of having great clots of white Christians moping around simply because they aren't the king or queen.
Calvin Trillin
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I've decided to skip 'holistic'. I don't know what it means, and I don't want to know. That may seem extreme, but I followed the same strategy toward 'Gestalt' and the 'Twist', and lived to tell the tale.
Calvin Trillin
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If it's inappropriate to write about, if there's nothing funny about it, then it's not funny.
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The ceiling on taxation of capital gains reflects the national belief that speculation is a more worthwhile way to make a living than work.
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Did you know that five out of three people have trouble with fractions.
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I'm in favor of liberalizing immigration because of the effect it would have on restaurants. I'd let just about everybody in except the English.
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When it comes to Chinese food I have always operated under the policy that the less known about the preparation the better. A wise diner who is invited to visit the kitchen replies by saying, as politely as possible, that he has a pressing engagement elsewhere.
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When helicopters were snatching people from the grounds of the American embassy compound during the panic of the final Vietcong push into Saigon, I was sitting in front of the television set shouting, Get the chefs! Get the chefs!
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If bumblebee leavings and stump paste are so good for you, why can't any of those guys (in the health stores) grow full beards?
Calvin Trillin
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At American weddings, the quality of the food is in inverse proportion to the social position of the bride and groom.
Calvin Trillin
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Anybody who doesn't think that the best hamburger place in teh world is in his home town is a sissy.
Calvin Trillin
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I like chili, but not enough to discuss it with someone from Texas.
Calvin Trillin
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There's always a source for humor.
Calvin Trillin
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We all know funny people who can't get it down on the page - even funny writers who can't get it down on the page.
Calvin Trillin
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Law professors were never like economics professors, a Harvard Law professor told me. If you disagreed with someone, you didn't call him a fool.
Calvin Trillin
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When you're writing, you are robbed of your delivery.
Calvin Trillin