Edward Gorey Quotes

I should like a parsley sandwich.
To the best of my knowledge they are not in season. ~ Edward Gorey

The Suicide, as she is falling,
Illuminated by the moon,
Regrets her act, and finds appalling
The thought she will be dead so soon. ~ Edward Gorey

There was a young woman named Fleager
Who was terribly, terribly eager
To be all the rage
On the tragedy stage,
Though her talents were pitifully meagre. ~ Edward Gorey

I tend to be rather inconsequential and trail off. ~ Edward Gorey

Books. Cats. Life is Good. ~ Edward Gorey

Vice is nice, but a little virtue won't hurt you. ~ Edward Gorey

It's well we cannot hear the screams we make in other people's dreams. ~ Edward Gorey

My least favorite actress of all time, Helena Bonham Carter. I find her lack of a neck very off-putting and especially her acting. ~ Edward Gorey

The sky has grown completely black,
It's time to think of turning back.

Fall down, or scream, or rush about-
There is no way of getting out. ~ Edward Gorey

I just kind of conjured them up out of my subconscious and put them in order of ascending peculiarity. ~ Edward Gorey

I realize that homosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is - but then, of course, heterosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is, too. And being a man is a serious problem and being a woman is, too. Lots of things are problems. ~ Edward Gorey

Some tiny creature, mad with wrath, is coming nearer on the path. ~ Edward Gorey

. . . I just don't think humanity is the ultimate end. We're so smug about ourselves, secure about how much we know. Well, I've lived with cats most of my life, so I'm very aware that there's another world going on. . . . it sees everything differently, hears everything differently, and probably thinks differently. ~ Edward Gorey

There was a young lady named Mae
Who smoked without stopping all day;
As pack followed pack,
Her lungs first turned black,
And eventually rotted away. ~ Edward Gorey

The helpful thought for which you look
Is written somewhere in a book. ~ Edward Gorey

Go out and find a copy of 'The Shrinking Of Treehorn' and its sequel, 'Treehorn's Treasure.' Written by Florence Parry Heide and illustrated by the great Edward Gorey, master of the gothic and the macabre, these books are small masterpieces. ~ Chris Riddell

Not everything in life can be interpreted metaphorically; that's because things fall out on the way. ~ Edward Gorey

What is, is, and what might have been could never have existed. ~ Edward Gorey

When they answered the bell on that wild winter night. There was no one expected - and no one in sight. ~ Edward Gorey

A lady both callous and brash
Met a man with a vast black moustache;
She cried, 'Shave it, O do!
And I'll put it with glue
On my hat as a sort of panache. ~ Edward Gorey

Apropos of nothing at all except that it has been on my mind and I think I had better say it because it accounts for a good deal of my behaviour. There is a strong streak in me that wishes not to exist and really does not believe that I do, so that I tend to become unnerved when these curious ideas are proved to be not really true because someone (in this case you) has responded to something I have said or done just as if I were an actual person the same as you (especially) or anyone else. Some of it is, I guess, just the worst sorts of arrogance and irresponsibility , but not all of it, as I really don't think I exist a lot of the time, so I'm asking you to bear with it, me, whatever, for the sake of what? - friendship I suppose, which I want to be capable of, which is obviously not enough. More brains might help, but enough unseemly remarks for eight o'clock in the morning and the shivering in pyjama bottoms syndrome. ~ Edward Gorey

There was an author who titled his books by days of the weeks and another one that used colors. Then there was Edward Gorey who wrote the book The Gashlycrumb Tinies, about the untimely death of 26 Victorian children, each representing a letter of the alphabet. I thought what a great way to link the titles. ~ Sue Grafton

All the things you can talk about in anyone's work are the things that are least important. ~ Edward Gorey

I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am. Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring. ~ Edward Gorey

The world may think it idiotic,
Nor care at all we're symbiotic,
But I will say at once and twice:
I find it nice. I find it nice. ~ Edward Gorey

I don't know what it is I'm doing. But it's not that. Despite all evidence to the contrary. ~ Edward Gorey

When people are finding meaning in things
beware. ~ Edward Gorey

A small and sinister snow seems to be coming down relentlessly at present. The radio says it is eventually going to be sleet and rain, but I don't think so; I think it is just going to go on and on, coming down, until the whole world ... etc. It has that look. ~ Edward Gorey

Neither mine nor other people's prospects seem particularly pleasing just at the moment, and I have fantasies of going to Iceland, never to return. As it is, I tell myself not to remember the past, not to hope or fear for the future, and not to think in the present, a comprehensive program that will undoubtedly have very little success. ~ Edward Gorey

I have given up considering happiness as relevant. ~ Edward Gorey

Such excess of passion
is quite out of fashion ~ Edward Gorey

Mr Earbrass stands on the terrace at twilight. It is bleak; it is cold; and the virtue has gone out of everything. Words drift through his mind: anguish turnips conjunctions illness defeat string parties no parties urns desuetude disaffection claws loss Trebizond napkins shame stones distance fever Antipodes mush glaciers incoherence labels miasma amputation tides deceit mourning elsewards ... ~ Edward Gorey

He presented it with a length of string
and passed on to the statue of Corrupted Endeavor
to await the arrival of Autumn. ~ Edward Gorey

I suppose it was obvious that The Loathsome Couple was based on the Moors Murders, which disturbed me very greatly for some reason. ~ Edward Gorey

Where was I? in remarking that me is the envelopes and not nearly so much so, the often foolish letters inside. ~ Edward Gorey

If you're doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there'd be no point. I'm trying to think if there's sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children - oh, how boring, boring, boring. As Schubert said, there is no happy music. And that's true, there really isn't. And there's probably no happy nonsense, either. ~ Edward Gorey

Mr Earbrass was virtually asleep when several lines of verse passed through his mind and left it hopelessly awake. Here was the perfect epigraph for TUH:
A horrid ?monster has been [something] delay'd
By your/their indiff'rence in the dank brown shade
Below the garden ...
His mind's eye sees them quoted on the bottom third of a right-hand page in a (possibly) olive-bound book he read at least five years ago. When he does find them, it will be a great nuisance if no clue is given to their authorship. ~ Edward Gorey

. . . when I talk to people I really like to talk to them, and not just exchange pleasantries and wonder which of us is going to try to get away first. Most social occasions leave me less than enthralled. ~ Edward Gorey

If something doesn't creep into a drawing that you're not prepared for, you might as well not have drawn it. ~ Edward Gorey

I don't think anything might have been. What is, is. ~ Edward Gorey

Sir U__ fell down from a speeding train,
Which did some damage to his brain,
And after that he did not know
How to pronounce the letter O. ~ Edward Gorey

Having got into bed and turned out the light, I quietly burst into tears because I am not a good person. As they came and went for some minutes, I was concerned with the words following 'because' in the previous sentence, rewriting them over and over in my head until they seemed to be as close to the truth as it was possible for me to make them. ~ Edward Gorey

I just got a rather nasty shock. In looking for something or other I came across the fact that one of my cats is about to be nine years old, and that another of them will shortly thereafter be eight; I have been labouring under the delusion they were about five and six. And yesterday I happened to notice in the mirror that while I have long since grown used to my beard being very grey indeed, I was not prepared to discover that my eyebrows are becoming noticeably shaggy. I feel the tomb is just around the corner. And there are all these books I haven't read yet, even if I am simultaneously reading at least twenty ... ~ Edward Gorey

Mr. Earbrass has rashly been skimming through the early chapters, which he had not looked at for months, and now sees TUH for what it is. Dreadful, dreadful, DREADFUL. He must be mad to go on enduring the unexquisite agony of writing when it all turns out drivel. Mad. Why did n't he become a spy? How does one become one? He will burn the MS. Why is there no fire? Why are n't there the makings of one? How did he get in the unused room on the third floor? ~ Edward Gorey

Interviewer: What is your greatest regret?
Gorey: That I don't have one ~ Edward Gorey

There are so many things we've been brought up to believe that it takes you an awfully long time to realize that they aren't you. ~ Edward Gorey

This is the theory ... that anything that is art ... is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it's no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it's irritating. ~ Edward Gorey

let's take the time that has been given to us and find that clock. ~ Edward Gorey

The Baron told her that only art meant anything. ~ Edward Gorey

More is happening out there than we are aware of.
It is possibly due to some unknown direful circumstance. ~ Edward Gorey

Only art means anything. ~ Edward Gorey

Explaining something makes it go away, so to speak; what's important is left after you have explained everything else. ~ Edward Gorey

When banks place credits into your account, they are merely pretending to lend you money. In reality, they have nothing to lend. Even the money that non-indebted depositors have placed with them was originally created out of nothing in response to someone else's loan. So what entitles the banks to collect rent on nothing? It is immaterial that men everywhere are forced by law to accept these nothing certificates in exchange for real goods and services. We are talking here not about what is legal, but what is moral. ~ G. Edward Griffin

It has always seemed to me the real art in this business is not so much moving information or guidance or policy five or 10,000 miles. That is an electronic problem. The real art is to move it the last three feet in face to face conversation. ~ Edward R. Murrow

Europe is secure from any future irruptions of Barbarians; since, before they can conquer, they must cease to be barbarous. ~ Edward Gibbon

A vile beastly rottenheaded foolbegotten brazenthroated pernicous piggish screaming, tearing, roaring, perplexing, splitmecrackle crashmecriggle insane ass of a woman is practising howling below-stairs with a brute of a singingmaster so horribly, that my head is nearly off. ~ Edward Lear

The growth of art seems to be in cycles, and often its vigorous lifetime is restricted to a century or two. The periods of distinctive drama, Greek, English, Spanish, fall within such a limit; the schools of painting and sculpture likewise; and, in poetry, the Victorian age or the school of Pope will serve as examples. ~ George Edward Woodberry

The written revelation of God is in the world, but men heed it not. Instead, they look for knowledge where it is not to be found. ~ Edward J. Young

In the land of bleating sheep and braying jackasses, one brave and honest man is bound to create a scandal. ~ Edward Abbey

The city, which should be the symbol and center of civilization, can also be made to function as a concentration camp. This is one of the significant discoveries of contemporary political science. ~ Edward Abbey

Children make that big a difference to you? He asked. I nodded. Yeah, they do. I never figured you as the maternal type. I'm not, but kids are people, Edward, little people trapped by the choices the adults around them make. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

The simple process of focusing on things that are normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity. ~ Edward De Bono

It is not necessary to remind you of the fact that your voice, amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other, does not confer upon you greater wisdom than when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other. All of these things you know. ~ Edward R. Murrow

Rational confidence [is] the just result of knowledge and experience. ~ Edward Gibbon

I have already been loved," said Edward. "I have been loved by a girl named Abilene. I have been loved by a fisherman and his wife and a hobo and his dog. I have been loved by a boy who played the harmonica and by a girl who died. Don't talk to me about love," he said. "I have known love. ~ Kate DiCamillo

Roosters: The cry of the male chicken is the most barbaric yawp in all of nature. ~ Edward Abbey

The role and weight to be accorded medical testimony in Administrative hearings before the Post Office Department was established ... These decisions enunciate a rule that informed medical consensus and the 'universality of scientific belief' may be established through the testimony of a (one, single - Ed.) medical doctor. ~ J. Edward Day

But look at Avatar [2009], one of the most globally viewed pieces of entertainment to have ever been made - the central emotional event of the whole movie was a tree being cut down. And the entire movie, essentially, is saying, "If we let the military industrial complex trash the place that we're living in, we will have committed an epic crime." ~ Edward Norton

You shouldn't be too hard with little boys. You should treat them as precious, because that's what they are.

- James Harker ~ Edward Bloor

A people who still remembered that their ancestors had been the masters of the world would have applauded, with conscious pride, the representation of ancient freedom, if they had not long since been accustomed to prefer the solid assurance of bread to the unsubstantial visions of liberty and greatness. ~ Edward Gibbon

The last thing I would accuse a cat of is innocence. ~ Edward Graham Paley

I must confess that I know nothing whatsoever about true underlying reality, never having met any. ~ Edward Abbey

She--the unnamed lady--simply drew his hands to the Paleolithic places men always have grown tumid from feeling, like the outward cradle of the hips within which a fetus will reside and her breasts that will nourish it, once born. ~ Edward Hoagland

Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society ~ Edward Burnett Tylor

Digital photography and Photoshop have made it very easy for people to take pictures. It's a medium that allows a lot of mediocre stuff to get through. ~ Edward Burtynsky

The extinction of the human race will come from its inability to EMOTIONALLY comprehend the exponential function. ~ Edward Teller

Born originals, how comes it to pass that we die copies? That meddling ape imitation, as soon as we come to years of indiscretion, (so let me speak,) snatches the pen, and blots out nature's mark of separation, cancels her kind intention, destroys all mental individuality. The lettered world no longer consists of singulars: it is a medley, a mass; and a hundred books, at bottom, are but one. ~ Edward Young

Indeed, if "biology is chemistry with history," as somebody has said, then nature writing is biology with love. ~ Edward Hoagland

The great question of life is not the question of death but the question of life. Fear of death shames us all. ~ Edward Abbey

Creativity gives the possibility of some sort of achievement to everyone. ~ Edward De Bono

James Joyce buried himself in his great work. _Finnegan's Wake_ is his monument and his tombstone. A dead end. ~ Edward Abbey

I know I'm not much on face value, but when it comes to stage value, I'll deliver for you. ~ Edward G. Robinson

Believe in God and you will have eternal life :) ~ Edward Ang

Edward: I'll take what I can get [to spend time with you]. Another day. Another minute. Every second. ~ Cecilia Gray

The other thing that happened in 1883 was my reading of Thoreau's Walden. ~ Edward Carpenter

It is the purpose of this book to explain the structure of the mechanism which controls the public mind, and to tell how it is manipulated by the special pleader who seeks to create public acceptance for a particular idea or commodity. It will attempt at the same time to find the due place in the modern democratic scheme for this new propaganda and to suggest its gradually evolving code of ethics and practice. ~ Edward L. Bernays

What faith in man must in our new world beat, Thinking how once he saw before his face The west and all the host of stars retreat Into the silent infinite of space! ~ George Edward Woodberry