December 12

"I feel very old sometimes... I carry on and would not like to die before having emptied a few more buckets of sh*t on the heads of my fellow men."

Gustave Flaubert
(12/12/1821 – 05/08/1880)
French writer

"The fence around a cemetery is foolish, for those inside can't get out and those outside don't want to get in."

Arthur Brisbane
(12/12/1864 – 12/25/1936)
US editor, writer

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"

Harry M. Warner
(12/12/1881 – 07/25/1958)
Polish film producer (brother of Jack L. Warner)

"There are times when patience proves at fault."

Robert Browning
(05/07/1812 – 12/12/1889)
English writer (was married to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

"I have not collected art. Art collected me. I never found paintings. They found me. I have never even owned a work of art. They owned me."

Edward G. Robinson
(12/12/1893 – 01/26/1973)
Romanian actor

"Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college."

Lillian Smith
(12/12/1897 – 09/28/1966)
US writer

"Nobody could imagine just how terrible McCarthyism would be. So many careers went down the toilet."

Karen Morley
(12/12/1909 – 03/08/2003)
US actor

"I get tired of hearing my ballplayers bellyache all the time. They should sit in the press box sometime and watch themselves play."

Buzzie Bavasi
(12/12/1914 – )
US baseball manager

"Hands off the threads, creep."

Frank Sinatra
(12/12/1915 – 05/15/1998)
US singer (was married to Ava Gardner, Mia Farrow) , to presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, at a Democratic convention

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half."

John Wanamaker
(07/11/1838 – 12/12/1922)
US merchant

"Life is indeed precious, and I believe the death penalty helps to affirm this fact."

Edward Koch
(12/12/1924 – )
US mayor (NYC), People's Court judge

"Asking a working writer what he feels about critics is like asking a lamppost what he feels about dogs."

John Osbourne
(12/12/1929 – 12/24/1994)
Welsh writer (was married to Jill Bennett)

"I didn't know anything about speed or diet pills, but they gave me these little red pills, like Benzadrine, that you can only buy in Mexico now."

Connie Francis
(12/12/1938 – )
US singer

"I'm not trying to sell sex. I just don't like wearing a lot of clothes onstage."

Sheila E
(12/12/1959 – )
US entertainer

"After all the nice things I've said about that hag! When I get hold of her I'll tear out every hair of her moustache!"

Tallulah Bankhead
(01/31/1903 – 12/12/1968)
US actor , on Bette Davis

"You don't want to get rid of your experiences, because they're your experiences—good or bad—and you need them, but it would be great if they weren't on the video shelf!"

Jennifer Connelly
(12/12/1970 – )
US actor

"Let us not paralyze our capacity for good by brooding over man's capacity for evil."

David Sarnoff
(02/27/1891 – 12/12/1971)
Russian-US inventor

"I don't remember ever having finished a book."

Bridget Hall
(12/12/1977 – )
US model

"Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be done."

Vance Packard
(05/22/1914 – 12/12/1996)
US writer

"I have learned the difference between a cactus and a caucus. On a cactus, the pricks are on the outside."

Morris Udall
(06/15/1922 – 12/12/1998)
US Congressman (AZ), presidential contender

"It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic."

Lew Grade
(12/15/1906 – 12/12/1998)
Ukrainian producer (died near his birthday) , on his film "Raise the Titanic"

"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt."

Joseph Heller
(05/01/1923 – 12/12/1999)
US writer (Catch-22)