Russell Lynes Quotes

Ragtime was a fanfare for the 20th century.

Camouflage is a game we all like to play, but our secrets are as surely revealed by what we want to seem to be as by what we want to conceal.

Camouflage is a game we all like to play

No author dislikes to be edited as much as he dislikes not to be published.

It is always well to accept your own shortcomings with candor but to regard those of your friends with polite incredulity.

The true snob never rests; there is always a higher goal to attain, and there are, by the same token, always more and more people to look down upon.

Are you always this stupid or are you making a special effort today?

Tennis is an addiction that once it has truly hooked a man will not let him go.

Brains aren't everything. In fact in your case they're nothing.

Anybody who told you to be yourself simply couldn't have given you worse advice.

If you can't ignore an insult, top it; if you can't top it, laugh it off; and if you can't laugh it off, it's probably deserved.

Calling you an idiot would be an insult to all the stupid people.

Don't let you mind wander - it's far too small to be let out on its own.

The bungalow had more to do with how Americans live today than any other building that has gone remotely by the name of architecture in our history.

A lady is a woman who makes a man behave like a gentleman.

Friends never make assumptions about you. They never expect a reason to go out with you. In fact friends only expect you to be you.

What we are headed for is a sort of social structure in which the highbrows are the elite, the middlebrows are the bourgeoisie and the lowbrows are hoi polloi.

A lady is nothing very specific. One man's lady is another man's woman; sometimes, one man's lady is another man's wife. Definitions overlap but they almost never coincide.

The shaping of taste is essentially the science of merchandising, whether of detergents or cars or books or objects of fine and decorative art.

Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it.

I'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong.

I don't know what makes you so dumb but it really works.

Shouldn't you have a license for being that ugly?

Hi there, I'm a human being! What are you?

The most effective comeback to an insult is silence.

In my estimation, the only thing that is more to be guarded against than bad taste is good taste.

A truly appreciative child will break, lose, spoil, or fondle to death any really successful gift within a matter of minutes.

Sure, I've seen people like you before - but I had to pay an admission.

I'd love to ask how old you are, but unfortunately I know you can't count that high.

Your village just called. They're missing an idiot.

Sure, I'd love to help you out...now, which way did you come in?

If you took an IQ test, the results would be negative.

And I thought I had problems? Look at your face!

For all its flexibility, television is more a mirror of taste than a shaper of it.

The Art Snob will stand back from a picture at some distance, his head cocked slightly to one side

Wasting time is negative, but there is something positive about idleness.

Clutter is what happens to things when they become useless but friendly.

There are times when you just get down, you feel like nobody likes you. We're in high school forever. It's just what we do with it.

I'm sorry, I'm a little busy. Can i ignore you later?

The true snob never rests there is always a higher goal to attain and there are by the same token always more and more people to look down upon.

Cynicism - the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence.