Quote

It was a given in our family that my father was a grocer so that I wouldn't have to be.

Calvin Trillin

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Calvin Trillin
Age: 88
Born: 1935
Born: December 5
Journalist
Novelist
Poet
Kansas City
Missouri
Calvin Marshall Trillin
Family
Father
Given
Grocer
Grocers
Wouldn

More quotes by Calvin Trillin

Image
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
Image
As part of my research for An Anthology of Authors' Atrocity Stories About Publishers, I conducted a study (employing my usual controls) that showed the average shelf life of a trade book to be somewhere between milk and yoghurt.
Calvin Trillin
Image
People, not just reporters, are more interested in politics than in government, so the actual issues wouldn't be something that interested them.
Calvin Trillin
Image
I suppose that there are endeavors in which self-confidence is even more important than it is in writing -- tightrope walking comes immediately to mind -- but it's difficult for me to think of anybody producing much writing if his confidence is completely shot.
Calvin Trillin
Image
There is a theory that sooner or later anything in America that is any fun at all will be ruined by people from California.
Calvin Trillin
Image
Canadians are very well behaved, they don't throw their food.
Calvin Trillin
Image
If law school is so hard to get through... how come there are so many lawyers?
Calvin Trillin
Image
If it's inappropriate to write about, if there's nothing funny about it, then it's not funny.
Calvin Trillin
Image
It happens to be a matter of record that I was first in print with the discovery that the tastelessness of the food offered in American clubs varies in direct proportion to the exclusiveness of the club.
Calvin Trillin
Image
The Banh Mi sandwich is really the only good argument for colonialism.
Calvin Trillin
Image
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.
Calvin Trillin
Image
If General Haig is so smart, why did he finish 214th (out of 310) in his graduating class at West Point? Does that mean there are 213 generals his age who are smarter than he is?
Calvin Trillin
Image
What interests me is what you might call vernacular writing, writing that connects you to a place.
Calvin Trillin
Image
Avoid restaurants with names that are improbable descriptions, such as the Purple Goose, the Blue Kangaroo or the Quilted Orangutan.
Calvin Trillin
Image
What campaigns are for is weeding out the people who, for one way or another, weren't making it for the long haul.
Calvin Trillin
Image
How did Italy manage to end up with no Caribbean islands at all? Christopher Columbus took the trouble to discover the Caribbean personally before the end of the fifteenth century. Try to get a decent plate of spaghetti there now.
Calvin Trillin
Image
Following the Rumanian tradition, garlic is used in excess to keep the vampires away... Following the Jewish tradition, a dispenser of schmaltz (liquid chicken fat) is kept on the table to give the vampires heartburn if they get through the garlic defense.
Calvin Trillin
Image
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
Image
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.
Calvin Trillin
Image
I never did very well in math - I could never seem to persuade the teacher that I hadn't meant my answers literally.
Calvin Trillin