Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Quotes
American - Writer August 31, 1844 - January 28, 1911

Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

It is not the straining for great things that is most effective; it is the doing the little things, the common duties, a little better and better.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

A great idea is usually original to more than one discoverer. Great ideas come when the world needs them. Great ideas surround the world's ignorance and press for admission.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

What an immense power over the life is the power of possessing distinct aims. The voice, the dress, the look, the very motion of a person, define and alter when he or she begins to live for a reason.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

It is impossible to forget the sense of dignity which marks the hour when one becomes a wage-earner... I felt that I had suddenly acquired value to myself, to my family, and to the world.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Out of my discomforts, which were small enough, grew one thing for which I have all my life been grateful, the formation of fixed habits of work.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Surely it is one of the simplest laws of taste in dress, that it shall not attract undue attention from the wearer to the worn.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps


Arthur Godfrey Quotes
American - Entertainer August 31, 1903 - March 16, 1983

I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money.
Arthur Godfrey

If I go to a seminar and someone like you or someone like him is talking, I'm never part of the group that rushes him directly afterward. I always wait in the back corner with my head down until everyone is gone, and then I go up and do my thing.
Arthur Godfrey

As corny as it may sound, my true goal was to crack the Americana market.
Arthur Godfrey

He asked if I was a songwriter, and I said yeah, that I was in town because I'd won this contest. He said, okay, then he was gonna play me his hit, and started singing 'When it's time to relax, one beer stands clear... '
Arthur Godfrey

I explained to the lady my love for John and his work, and she made it possible for me to purchase one of the 24 proofs, the one for 'I'm So Tired,' which I have on my piano at home.
Arthur Godfrey

I know how I like to be treated, so I always start by saying, 'Could you give me a moment of your time, I know you're very busy,' and usually, they will.
Arthur Godfrey

I liked the way they treated the first, second, and third place finishers equally. It was an amazing year. I only entered two song contests this year; I won one and placed second in the other. And I entered each of them a day or two before the deadline.
Arthur Godfrey

I really believe in myself. I'm the hardest worker I know, and one of the best songwriters. There's a craft to it, and it takes a long time to hone it, and I work really hard at it.
Arthur Godfrey

I'd just hit the Billboard thing, and I had a good feeling. About a month ago, I received a call that said I was in the running, that I'd made the final 25. So I just wanted to place.
Arthur Godfrey

I've been playing music all my life, from being a choir soloist at Symphony Hall as a youngster to playing in bands through high school and college at Kent State. Went in the service at 17, out before I was 21.
Arthur Godfrey

It's not an act, it's just my way.
Arthur Godfrey

Married and divorced, three beautiful daughters, two in college. The other one is 16, lives with her mom. I'm 46, I've worked for the Post Office for 18 years, seven facilities in three states.
Arthur Godfrey

Now I'm fortunate to have a good band in CA, and play many solo gigs as well. My point is that I stopped playing in bands and played solo for four years, to get back into the groove and pulse of writing and singing and who I am on stage.
Arthur Godfrey

The biggest deal for me was that all 24 winners are placed on the Billboard CD of the Year, which went out to 500 of the biggest Music Reps in the business, from radio and press to management and booking.
Arthur Godfrey

You get a letter from her agency embracing you into the family that says, 'It is our goal now to help you achieve your dream of being a songwriter, in John's memory.'
Arthur Godfrey

You know, if you don't do nothin, you don't do nothin.
Arthur Godfrey

You know, it sounds corny, but I believe in myself. And I work hard.
Arthur Godfrey


Alan Jay Lerner Quotes
American - Dramatist August 31, 1918 - June 14, 1986

An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him.
Alan Jay Lerner

A schedule so tight that it would only work if I didn't sleep on Monday nights.
Alan Jay Lerner

Men die but an idea does not.
Alan Jay Lerner

You write a hit the same way you write a flop.
Alan Jay Lerner

Coughing in the theater is not a respiratory ailment. It is a criticism.
Alan Jay Lerner

Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Alan Jay Lerner

With a little bit of luck, you'll never work!
Alan Jay Lerner

Back home everyone said I didn't have any talent. They might be saying the same thing here but it sounds better in French.
Alan Jay Lerner

It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
Alan Jay Lerner


Buddy Hackett Quotes
American - Comedian August 31, 1924 - June 30, 2003


As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.
Buddy Hackett

You want to know what makes me tick, I'll tell you what makes me tick. I was a boy growing up in Brooklyn; I read a two-penny magazine called 'The Hawk's Nest.' Nobody entered that nest that didn't leave a little richer and a little wiser. And that 11-year-old boy said, 'Isn't that a wonderful thing.' And that's all there is to it.
Buddy Hackett

I've had a few arguments with people, but I never carry a grudge. You know why? While you're carrying a grudge, they're out dancing.
Buddy Hackett

Ninety-nine percent is in the delivery. If you have the right voice and the right delivery, you're cocky enough, and you pound down on the punch line, you can say anything and make people laugh maybe three times before they realize you're not telling jokes.
Buddy Hackett

A comic, you have to be looking down at him. My favorite rooms, the audience is above the stage, stadium-style.
Buddy Hackett

I used to like to dig myself a hole just to see how long it took to get out of it.
Buddy Hackett

I've had a good day when I don't fall out of the cart.
Buddy Hackett

Golf is more fun than walking naked in a strange place, but not much.
Buddy Hackett

There have always been mixed emotions about Howard Cosell: Some people hate him like poison, and other people just hate him regular.
Buddy Hackett

I have the gift of laughter. I can make people laugh at will. In good times and in bad. And that I don't question. It was a gift from God.
Buddy Hackett

At the Sahara, the seats are banked and most of the audience is looking down at the stage. Everybody in the business knows: Up for singers, down for comics. The people want to idealize a singer. They want to feel superior to a comic. You're trying to make them laugh. They can't laugh at someone they're looking up to.
Buddy Hackett

What makes a comedian has nothing to do with religion. Think of Red Skelton, Jimmy Durante, Jackie Gleason, who were all Catholics.
Buddy Hackett

When I do an hour-and-a-half show, if I don't improvise 20 minutes worth of new material each night, I feel I've let myself down.
Buddy Hackett

A comedian sees the world bent. I'm tangent to the circle.
Buddy Hackett

I found out that if you made people laugh, they like you. Most people got to like me because I made them laugh. When they didn't, I hit them.
Buddy Hackett

I'm an actor. I want to do drama.
Buddy Hackett

You look up at drama, down at comedy. A singer, looking up is okay. A comic, it's death.
Buddy Hackett

I was born to be funny.
Buddy Hackett