August 20, 2005

• THOUGHTS
  On the Business of Life

  Do you read Forbes Magazine?  Ordinarily, I don’t.  If I had
  a long boring wait somewhere and it was all there was to help me pass
  the time, I might pick it up.  Generally, business and finance are
  not my thing.  Greyfox told me when he mentioned finding several
  issues of Forbes in the Felony Flats dumpster that he doesn’t usually
  read it, either.  But the novelty amused him and he told me in one
  of his nightly phone calls that he had found some interesting things in
  them.

  Every trip I make to town and each time Greyfox comes up the valley, he
  gives me a “media bag”, or two if the pickings have been especially
  lush.  These bags contain books he thinks I might like, videos he
  has viewed and thinks Doug and/or I might find worthwhile, the Sunday
  comics sections, Earthweek features and other interesting articles he
  culls from the Anchorage Daily News for us, and whatever other
  communications or entertainment media he enjoyed and no longer wants.

  The media bag he handed me yesterday included three torn-out magazine
  pages, one from each of three issues of Forbes  published in
  2003.  Each one is the Thoughts On the Business of Life, each a
  collection of quotes on a theme.  One was on travel, and I found
  little there of interest to me even though I love to travel. 
  Perhaps this quotation from Vita Sackville West explains that: 
  “Travel is the most private of pleasures.  There is no greater
  bore than the travel bore.  We do not in the least want to hear
  what he saw in Hong Kong.”

  The other two pages are on marriage and dating, respectively.  Here are some of the choice quotes from them:

  “When you see what some girls marry, you realize how they must hate to work for a living.”

  Helen Rowland

  “Have you ever dated someone because you were too lazy to commit suicide?”

  Judy Tenuta

  “Blondes have more fun because they’re easier to find in the dark.”

  Anonymous

  It is possible that blondes also prefer gentlemen.”

  Mamie van Doren

  “No man worth his salt, no man of spirit
  and spine, no man for whom I could have any respect, could rejoice in
  the identification of  Tallulah’s husband.  It’s tough enough
  to be bogged down in a legend.  It would be even tougher to marry
  one.”

  Tallulah Bankhead

  “My boyfriend and I broke up.  He wanted to get married and I didn’t want him to.”

  Rita Rudner

  “There is one thing I would break up over, and that is if she caught me with another woman.  I won’t stand for that.”

  Steve Martin

  “Dating is a social engagement with the threat of sex at its conclusion.”

  P. J. O’Rourke

  “I’m dating a woman now who, evidently, is unaware of it.”

  Garry Shandling

  “A good husband is healthy and absent.”

  Japanese Proverb

  “It is ridiculous to think you can spend
  your entire life with just one person.  Three is about the right
  number.  Yes, I imagine three husbands would do it.”

  Clare Booth Luce

  “I think every woman’s entitled to a middle husband she can forget.”

  Adela Rogers St.Johns

  “It’s relaxing to go out with my ex-wife, because she already knows I’m an idiot.”

  Warren Thomas

  “The poor wish to be rich, the rich wish to be happy, the single wish to be married, and the married wish to be dead.”

  Ann Landers

  

  • 2:27 am
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