December 17

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there."

Jalal ud-Din Rumi
(09/30/1207 – 12/17/1273)
Ghurid (now Afghanistan) region mystic and poet

"The finest collection of frames I ever saw."

Sir Humphrey Davy
(12/17/1778 – 05/29/1829)
English chemist (discovered laughing gas, bless him) , on the museums of France

"Nicknames stick to people, and the most ridiculous are the most adhesive."

Thomas C. Haliburton
(12/17/1796 – 08/27/1865)
Canadian writer

"He never seemed to be doing anything, and yet he did not like to be disturbed at it."

John Greenleaf Whittier
(12/17/1807 – 09/07/1892)
US writer , on Nathaniel Hawthorne

"What I love best about music is the women who listen to it."

Jules-Alfred Hout de Goncourt
(12/17/1830 – 06/20/1870)
French writer , brother of Edmond Hout de Goncourt

"Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles."

Henry Drummond
(12/17/1851 – 03/11/1897)
Scottish evangelist, writer

"Ladies, just a little more virginity, if you don't mind."

Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree
(12/17/1853 – 07/02/1917)
English actor, writer , to actresses brought to play ladies-in-waiting

"I may really say that for a quarter of a century I have kept before me one unflinching aim—to register my own times in terms of my own time, and still more to urge those who are better poets and better prose-writers than myself to have the same aim."

Ford Madox Ford
(12/17/1873 – 06/26/1939)
English writer

"In science there is only physics; all the rest is stamp collecting."

Lord Kelvin
(06/26/1824 – 12/17/1907)
Irish scientist

"My mother speaks of my step being a source of life-long pain to her, that it is a living death, etc. By the same post I had several letters from anxious relatives, telling me that it was my duty to come home and thus ease my mother's anxiety."

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
(06/09/1836 – 12/17/1917)
English physician, mayor , on becoming a physician

"It is after you have lost your teeth that you can afford to buy steaks."

Pierre Auguste Renoir
(02/25/1841 – 12/17/1919)
French artist (father of Jean Renoir) (image is courtesy of the Bridgeman Art Library)

"It's not hard to tell we was poor—when you saw the toilet paper dryin' on the clothesline."

George Lindsey
(12/17/1928 – )
US comic, actor

"Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy? I don't know and I don't care."

William Safire
(12/17/1929 – )
US writer, grammarian

"If I were asked for a one-line answer to the question 'What makes a woman good in bed?' I would say, 'A man who is good in bed.'"

Bob Guccione
(12/17/1930 – )
US magazine editor

"Oh, great. This is going to be like shooting baskets with Magic Johnson watching."

Bill Pullman
(12/17/1953 – )
US actor , on the prospect of watching "Independence Day" (in which he plays the US President) with US President Bill Clinton

"As I grow older and older
and totter towards the tomb
I find that I care less and less
who goes to bed with whom."

Dorothy L. Sayers
(06/13/1893 – 12/17/1957)
English writer

"If it's a man's world, then I'm glad I'm a girl."

Penelope Houston
(12/17/1958 – )
US singer, songwriter

Jay Leno: "How did you like the birds?"
Milla Jovovich: "Very nice, I felt like wringing their necks."
(12/17/1975 – )
Russian model, actor

"Leaving behind books is even more beautiful—there are far too many children."

Marguerite Yourcenar
(06/08/1903 – 12/17/1987)
Belgian-US writer

"My mother told me never explain, never complain. Even as a young actress, I determined I would never give personal interviews, since they made me so uncomfortable."

Jennifer Jones
(03/02/1919 – 12/17/2009)
US actor (was married to Robert Walker, David O. Selznick, and Norton Simon)