October 31

"Mulberry Garden, now the only place of refreshment about the town for persons of the best quality to be exceedingly cheated at."

John Evelyn
(10/31/1620 – 02/27/1706)
English writer

"The roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children."

John Keats
(10/31/1795 – 02/23/1821)
English writer

"It is time for dead languages to be quiet."

Natalie Clifford Barney
(10/31/1876 – 02/02/1972)
US writer

"We live in the present, we dream of the future, and we learn eternal truths from the past."

Chiang Kai-Shek
(10/31/1886 – 04/05/1975)
Chinese statesman

"In reality, it is more fruitful to wound than to kill. While the dead man lies still, counting only one man less, the wounded man is a progressive drain upon his side."

B. H. Liddell Hart
(10/31/1895 – 01/29/1970)
English military historian

"Ah! What is man? Wherefore does he why? Whence did he whence? Whither is he withering?"

Dan Leno
(12/20/1860 – 10/31/1904)
English entertainer

"Look, I'm not an intellectual—I just take pictures."

Helmut Newton
(10/31/1920 – 01/23/2004)
German-Australian photographer

"Misfit patter is as bad as misfit clothing, and audiences are as slow to forgive an assault in the hearing, as one on the sight."

Harry Houdini
(03/24/1874 – 10/31/1926)
US magician

"I've been married to one marxist and one fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out."

Lee Grant
(10/31/1927 – )
US actor

"Americans will put up with anything, provided it doesn't block traffic."

Dan Rather
(10/31/1931 – )
US telejournalist

"It would be very discouraging if somewhere down the line you could ask a computer if the Riemann hypothesis is correct and it said, `Yes, it is true, but you won't be able to understand the proof.'"

Ronald Graham
(10/31/1935 – )
US mathematician

"Belfast is like an ugly child—you love it the most."

Steven Rea
(10/31/1943 – )
Irish actor

"Me and George and Billy are two of a kind."

Mickey Rivers
(10/31/1948 – )
US baseball player (Texas Rangers)

"Deafness has left me acutely aware of both the duplicity that language is capable of and the many expressions the body cannot hide."

Terry Galloway
(10/31/1950 – )
US performance artist

"Once the Invisible Hand has taken all the historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity—y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music, movies, microcode, and high-speed pizza delivery."

Neal Stephenson
(10/31/1959 – )
US writer

"What I don't like are pompous, pretentious movies."

Peter Jackson
(10/31/1961 – )
NZ director

"In case it is one of mine."

Augustus Edwin John
(01/04/1878 – 10/31/1961)
Welsh artist , patting the head of a child in Chelsea as he passed by

"The real reason I decided on show business was to avoid a day job."

Rob Schneider
(10/31/1963 – )
US comic, actor (SNL)

"If you live long enough, lots of nice things happen."

George Halas
(02/02/1895 – 10/31/1983)
US football coach

"My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition."

Indira Gandhi
(11/19/1917 – 10/31/1984)
Indian politician (daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru)

"Realism is a bad word. In a sense everything is realistic. I see no line between the imaginary and the real."

Federico Fellini
(01/20/1920 – 10/31/1993)
Italian filmmaker

"I would rather quit while I was ahead. There's no need in overstaying your welcome."

River Phoenix
(08/23/1970 – 10/31/1993)
US actor (brother of Joaquin Phoenix)

"The older you are, the freer you are, as long as you last."

Studs Terkel
(03/16/1912 – 10/31/2008)
US writer