Christopher Morley Quotes

The beauty of being a bookseller is that you don't have to be a literary critic: all you have to do to books is enjoy them.

Oh, silly woman! Leave your stove, your pots and pans and chores, even if only for one day! Come out and see the sun in the sky and the river in the distance!

Overhead the night was a superb arch of clear frost, sifted with stars.

A good book ought to have something simple about it. And, like Eve, it ought to come from somewhere near the third rib: there ought to be a heart beating in it. A story that's all forehead doesn't amount to much.

Books are the immortality of the race, the father and mother of most that is worth while cherishing in our hearts. To spread good books about, to sow them on fertile minds, to propagate understanding and a carefulness of life and beauty, isn't that high enough mission for a man?

New York is Babylon : Brooklyn is the truly Holy City.
New York is the city of envy, office work, and hustle;
Brooklyn is the region of homes and happiness….
There is no hope for New Yorkers, for their glory in
Their skyscraping sins; but in Brooklyn there is the wisdom of the lowly.

The misfortunes hardest to bear are these which never came.

"Man is unconquerable because he can make even his helplessness so entertaining. His motto seems to be "Even though He slay me, yet will I make fun of Him!

That's when a woman finds herself — when she's in love. I don't care if she is old or fat or homely or prosy. She feels that little flutter under her ribs and she drops from the tree like a ripe plum.

Mr. Gilbert had the earnest mania for self-improvement which has blighted the lives of so many young men.

New York, the nation's thyroid gland.

Big shots are just little shots that keep shooting.

...but if you're smart you don't hold up your hand in class and ask to be called on.

It's one of the uncanniest things I know to watch a real book on its career — it follows you and follows you and drives you into a corner and makes you read it.

Life's a lot different from what people pretend. That's why pretending is fun. I used to think it was some special wickedness of my own that made such queer things happen. Now I'm beginning to guess that everybody's like that.