October 23

"Je ne suis pas la rose, mais j'ai vecu pres d'elle.
(I am not the rose, but I have lived near the rose.)"

Benjamin Constant
(10/23/1767 – 12/08/1830)
French writer

"Masefield's sonnets? Ah yes. Very nice. Pure Shakespeare.
Masefield's 'Reynard the Fox'? Very nice, too. Pure Chaucer.
Masefield's 'Everlasting Mercy'? H'm. Yes. Pure Masefield."

Robert Bridges
(10/23/1844 – 04/21/1930)
English writer

"It is the unbroken testimony of all history that alcoholic liquors have been used by the strongest, wisest, handsomest, and in every way best races of all times."

George Saintsbury
(10/23/1845 – 01/28/1933)
English historian

"Gentlemen, it is better to have died as a small boy than to fumble this football."

John Heisman
(10/23/1869 – 10/03/1936)
US football coach

"They’ve come to see me bat, not you umpire. Play on!"

Dr. W. G. Grace
(07/18/1848 – 10/23/1915)
English cricket legend , refusing to leave the field when ousted by an umpire

"A conservative is a liberal who got mugged the night before."

Frank Rizzo
(10/23/1920 – 07/16/1991)
US mayor (Philadelphia)

"Humor is the ability to see three sides to one coin."

Ned Rorem
(10/23/1923 – )
US composer

"Ronald Reagan couldn't be here tonight; he's posing for the cover of 'Guns and Ammo.'"

Johnny Carson
(10/23/1925 – 01/23/2005)
US TV host, Tonight Show (also see Steve Allen, Jack Paar, and Jay Leno)

"I said to this priest: 'Am I expected to believe that if I went out and had an affair that God was really going to be upset? Okay, thou shalt not kill... steal... but thou shalt not commit adultery? If no one is any the wiser, what the hell difference does it make?' He was lovely. He told me the Commandments were laid down for a lot of guys living in the desert."

Diana Dors
(10/23/1931 – 05/04/1984)
English actor

"I never exaggerate; I just remember big."

Chi Chi Rodriguez
(10/23/1936 – )
Puerto Rican golfer

"I'm interested in stories about people as we knew them in the near-recent future."

Philip Kaufman
(10/23/1936 – )
US film director

"Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string."

Pelé
(10/23/1940 – )
Brazilian footballer

"If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito."

Anita Roddick
(10/23/1942 – 09/10/2007)
English businesswoman (The Body Shop)

"I can't see what Jack Warner can do with an Oscar—it can't say yes."

Al Jolson
(05/26/1886 – 10/23/1950)
US actor

"Making a martial arts film in English to me is the same as John Wayne speaking Chinese in a western."

Ang Lee
(10/23/1954 – )
Chinese director

"On that note, that being said, it was damn hard kissing her. You've never experienced anything until you've had a mature, darting tongue in your mouth."

Ryan Reynolds
(10/23/1976 – )
US actor (was engaged to Alanis Morissette June 2004; engaged to Scarlett Johansson January 2008) , on kissing an older woman in "Van Wilder"

"I was in Dallas with my backup band and a beautician, and a white woman done fainted! She looked at me and said 'Lawdy', and down she went. I asked 'How come she fainted? I don't look that bad, do I?' and they said 'Esquirita, it's the first time they've seen anything like you.'"

Esquirita
(11/20/1935 – 10/23/1986)
US singer

"I wanted to be that cranky old guy that stands on his porch and yells at the neighborhood kids."

Robert Lansing
(06/05/1928 – 10/23/1994)
US actor