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There are nineteen words in Yiddish that convey gradations of disparagement, from a mild, fluttery helplessness to a state of downright, irreconcilable brutishness. All of them can be usefully employed to pinpoint the kind of individuals I write about.

S. J. Perelman

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S. J. Perelman
Age: 75 †
Born: 1904
Born: February 1
Died: 1979
Died: October 17
Humorist
Screenwriter
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Sidney Joseph Perelman
S.J. Perelman
Kind
Employed
Pinpoint
Individuals
Irreconcilable
State
Yiddish
Words
Downright
Individual
Mild
Write
Nineteen
Disparagement
States
Helplessness
Usefully
Writing
Convey
Gradations

More quotes by S. J. Perelman

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The fact is that all of us have only one personality, and we wring it out like a dishtowel. You are what you are.
S. J. Perelman
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Where would the Rockefellers be today if old John D. had gone on selling short-weight kerosene ... to widows and orphans instead of wisely deciding to mulct the whole country.
S. J. Perelman
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I cannot recall a more engaging passage in fiction, and I've been trying for almost eighteen seconds.
S. J. Perelman
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He bit his lip in a manner which immediately awakened my maternal sympathy, and I helped him bite it.
S. J. Perelman
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Do you know anything at all that nobody else knows or, for that matter, gives a damn about? If you do, then sit tight, because one of these days you're going to Hollywood as a technical supervisor on a million dollar movie.
S. J. Perelman
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Santa Barbara people are conservative-not like in L.A., where everybody wears rhinestones on their glasses to show that they own an airplane factory.
S. J. Perelman
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I don't know where we're going or how we'll get there, but when we get there we'll be there - and that's something, even if it's nothing.
S. J. Perelman
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We old roosters must be cautious. Don't try to outwit your arteries.
S. J. Perelman
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In my more pompous moments I like to think of myself as a writer rather than a humorist, but I suppose that's merely the vanity of advancing age.
S. J. Perelman
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I tried to resist his overtures, but he plied me with symphonies, quartets, chamber music, and cantatas.
S. J. Perelman
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Only the scenario writers are exempt. These are tied between the tails of two spirited Caucasian ponies, which are then driven off in opposite directions. This custom is called a conference.
S. J. Perelman
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I have no truck with lettuce, cabbage, and similar chlorophyll. Any dietitian will tell you that a running foot of apple strudel contains four times the vitamins of a bushel of beans.
S. J. Perelman
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As for consulting a dentist regularly, my punctuality practically amounted to a fetish. Every twelve years I would drop whatever I was doing and allow wild Caucasian ponies to drag me to a reputable orthodontist.
S. J. Perelman
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If travel has taught me nothing more, and it certainly has, it's this: you never know when some trifling incident, utterly without significance, may pitchfork you into adventure or, by the same token, may not.
S. J. Perelman
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Nature, it appears, has been rather more bountiful to Paul's body and purse than to his intellect above the ears, speaking bluntly, the boy is strictly tapioca.
S. J. Perelman
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The worst disgrace that can befall a producer is an unkind notice from a New York reviewer. When this happens, the producer becomes a pariah in Hollywood. He is shunned by his friends, thrown into bankruptcy, and like a Japanese electing hara-kiri, he commits suttee.
S. J. Perelman
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I'll dispose of my teeth as I see fit, and after they've gone, I'll get along. I started off living on gruel, and by God, I can always go back to it again.
S. J. Perelman
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Fate was dealing from the bottom of the deck.
S. J. Perelman
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There is such a thing as too much couth.
S. J. Perelman
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Tomatoes and squash never fail to reach maturity. You can spray them with acid, beat them with sticks and burn them they love it.
S. J. Perelman