December 02

Donatien-Alphonse-Francois, Comte de Sade

"Miserable creatures, thrown for a moment on the surface of this little pile of mud, is it decreed that one half of the flock should be the persecutor of the other? Is it for you, mankind, to pronounce on what is good and what is evil?"

Marquis de Sade
(06/02/1740 – 12/02/1814)
French writer

"Painting is the art of hollowing a surface."

Georges Seurat
(12/02/1859 – 03/29/1891)
French artist

"He said I was the most sensitive person he had ever seen—that I belonged to the hyper-hyper type and we rarely survive! . . . They found that the eclair contains everything my system lacks. So I take three a day and I feel like a new woman."

Ruth Draper
(12/02/1884 – 12/30/1956)
English monologuist

"Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels."

Nikos Kazantzakis
(12/02/1885 – 10/26/1957)
Greek writer

"I never should have done "My Favorite Martian" (1963). I didn't work in TV or film for three years after. Everyone thought of me as a Martian. Do you know what it's like to go to Madrid, Spain, on vacation and have a guy yell out, 'Hey, Martin!' and put antennas behind his head? When that happens, you know your career is dead."

Ray Walston
(12/02/1914 – 01/01/2001)
US actor

"It's not a lie, it's a terminological inexactitude."

Alexander Haig
(12/02/1924 – )
US secretary of state

"One thing I am determined on is that by the time I die my brain shall weigh as much as a man's if study and learning can make it so."

Martha Carey Thomas
(01/02/1857 – 12/02/1935)
US educator

"Producing is like pushing jello up a hill on a hot day."

Lucy Liu
(12/02/1968 – )
US actor

"If your friend says of some picture, 'Yes, but what does it mean?' ask him what his carpet means or the circular patterns on his shoes."

Stephen Potter
(02/01/1900 – 12/02/1969)
English writer

"This is not the first time that Europe has been passive while a Jew-hating tyrant with a weird looking mustache killed the people by giving them gas. ... Obviously I'm talking about Chef Boyardee."

Sarah Silverman
(12/02/1970 – )
US comic, actor , on Saddam Hussein

"I get to go to a lot of overseas places, like Canada."

Britney Spears
(12/02/1981 – )
US singer , on the perks of fame

"Far too many [of the books entered for the 1977 Booker Prize] relied on the classic formula of a beginning, a muddle, and an end."

Philip Larkin
(08/09/1922 – 12/02/1985)
English writer

"So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give it expressive meaning."

Aaron Copland
(11/14/1900 – 12/02/1990)
US composer

"The people who fear humor—and there are many—are suspicious of its power to present things in unexpected lights to question received opinions and to suggest unforeseen possibilities."

Robertson Davies
(08/28/1913 – 12/02/1995)
Canadian writer

"The difference between playing the stock market and the horses is that one of the horses must win."

Joey Adams
(01/06/1911 – 12/02/1999)
US comic, actor