First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people. - Leo Rosten

I am informed by veterans of the Lower East Side that decalcomania pictures were called “cockamamies” because no one knew how to spell “decalcomania.

A Yiddish expression, “Er ligt in der erd un bakt bagel,” is readily translated as “He lies in the ground and bakes bagels.” But what does that mean? “He’s not doing so well, poor chap.

A young khokhem told his grandmother that he was going to become a doctor of philosophy. The bubbe smiled proudly: “Wonderful. But what kind of disease is ‘philosophy’?