Arthur Smith Quotes

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; A single laugh demolished the right arm Of his country.

Read Don Quixote; it is a very good book; I still read it frequently.

Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away.

What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this for half an hour. It will be a change.

Two thousand years ago, the Holy family had a ramble from Nazareth to Bethlehem - in much the same way as I'm having a ramble from Norwich to Swaffham. Although I'm not comparing myself to Jesus - I don't want to get bogged down in that whole controversy again.

I've never stayed at a bed and breakfast. If I did, I figure you would start to get hungry! "Is that all you got around here? Well, maybe you can direct me to a chair lunch dinner."

Oh, look at me! I'm making people happy! I'm the Magical Man from Happy-Land, in a gumdrop house on Lollipop Lane! Oh, by the way, I was being sarcastic.

Cultures that don't laugh at themselves are cults.

An old philosopher said to Monsieur Coignard, a Reverend Father: 'You are a pig!' To which Abad Coignard answered: 'You flatter me, sir. But unfortunately, I'm only a man.'

I knew if I lived long enough I would be poet laureate of something.

The funniest thing about some people is that they have no sense of humor.

A lot of the stuff Kafka said he thought was hilariously funny.

Thee will find out in time that I have a great love of professing vile sentiments, I don't know why, unless it springs from long efforts to avoid priggery.

We're still just the world's premium brand of ape.

By rights, satire is a lonely and introspective occupation, for nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patient self-inspection.

I regard everything with irony, including the face I see in the mirror when I wake up in the morning.

Nothing's true that I say, because I don't really want to say anything. I don't think my life's that cool, and I don't think my opinion's that valid. They're just silly jokes. Usually I just take a topic that isn't funny at all, like Shakespeare, and work backwards. I just try to find an unfunny subject.

What happens, I think, is especially for comic effect you find something about yourself that you don't like. You exaggerate it, and it's funny.

I've been on what I call my UFO Tour, which means, like UFOs, I too have been appearing in small southern towns in front of a handful of hillbillies lately.

Sometimes I'm scared of being Ozzy Osbourne. But it could have been worse. I could have been Sting.

A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.

As far as socially redeeming value, I hope I don't have any.

Jane Austen may not be the best writer, but she certainly writes about the best people. And by that I mean people just like me.

It doesn't bother me when someone calls me a 'dumb blonde.' I'm neither dumb or blonde.

In a genre where most of the artists are one-hit wonders, I've been able to hang around longer than most "serious" acts. I pride myself in being a very talented leech.