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What's green, hangs on a wall and whistles? [A Herring]

Leo Rosten

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Leo Rosten
Age: 88 †
Born: 1908
Born: January 1
Died: 1997
Died: January 1
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Political Scientist
Screenwriter
Writer
Lodz
Leo Calvin Rosten
Hangs
Green
Wall
Whistles
Herring

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Dogs are getting bigger, according to a leading dog manufacturer.
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If a picture is worth a thousand words, please paint me the Gettysburg Address.
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Her cooking suggested she had attended the Cordon Noir.
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The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
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The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.
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The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.
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I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
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You understand people better if you look at them-no matter how old or impressive or important they may be-as if they were children. For most men never mature they simply grow taller.
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Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
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The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that, perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
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Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.
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Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.
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The first printed mention of bagels... is to be found in the Community Regulations of Kracow, Poland, for the year 1610 which stated that bagels would be given as a gift to any woman in childbirth.
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Extremists think 'communication' means agreeing with them.
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Hope is ambiguous, but fear is precious.
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O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.
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If at first you don't succeed, before you try again, stop to figure out what you did wrong.
Leo Rosten
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Thinking is harder work than hard work.
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Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers.
Leo Rosten
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Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? … The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.
Leo Rosten