I look at life as being cruise director on the Titanic. I may not get there, but I'm going first class.

Art Buchwald

Categorized in : Looks Directors Class

New York was the glamorous town that you only see now in old movies and on Broadway stages. The sky was lit up with dancing neon signs. It was safe to walk out in the streets.

dancing new-york sky

People ask what I am really trying to do with humor. The answer i... by Art Buchwald

People ask what I am really trying to do with humor. The answer is, "I'm getting even

humor trying people

Writing humor in my column isn't as dangerous as performing it. If I fail in front of a live audience, the humiliation is as great as anything a human being can suffer.

failing suffering writing

While my friends were discussing Pearl Harbor as the country's problem, I took it personally. It dawned on me that the Japanese attack could be my ticket out of high school.

education country school

As my good friend Al Capp told me a few years ago, the best thing to do with a confirmed [hotel] reservation slip when you have no room is to spread it out on the sidewalk in front of the hotel and go to sleep on it. You'll either embarrass the hotel into giving you a room or you'll be hauled off to the local jug, where at least you'll have a roof over your head.

good-friend sleep travel

The reason I don't play golf is because I was a caddie when I was 13. Women never gave up a golf ball that was lost somewhere in the trees and thicket and down through the poison ivy. It was during one of these searches that I vowed to the Lord above that if I ever earned enough money I would never set foot on a course again.

ivy play golf

I earned my stripes as a Marine, and the Corps gets full credit for straightening me out. At 17, I was young, I was unhappy and most of all, I was undisciplined. The Marine Corps was the right service in the right place at the right time.

stripes marine unhappy

... I could have said something profound, but you would have forgotten it in 15 minutes - which is the afterlife of a graduation speech.

funny-graduation afterlife profound

A bad liver is to a Frenchman what a nervous breakdown is to an American. Everyone has had one and everyone wants to talk about it.

breakdown nervous want

His column explaining Thanksgiving to the French when he wrote for the Paris edition of the Herald Tribune there. --bb

I worship the quicksand he walks in. by Art Buchwald

I worship the quicksand he walks in.

Men and women cannot live by bread alone. They must also tinkle. Show me someone who has no trouble tinkling, and I will show you a happy and rich person.

alone me women men

I've known Don since he came to Washington. When he first came to work for George W. Bush, he was a different Don Rumsfeld. He was jolly, full of life, and ready to go to war, but only if we could win.

win work war life

So far things are going my way. I am known in the hospice as The Man Who Wouldn't Die. I don't know if this is true or not, but I think some people, not many, are starting to wonder why I'm still around.

i-am die man people

I found out I'd spent my whole life believing things that weren't necessarily accurate. My sisters' memories of certain events are entirely different from mine.

things events memories life

A humorist has to be taken seriously before he's considered a rea... by Art Buchwald

A humorist has to be taken seriously before he's considered a real writer.

seriously before he real

Being in the hospice didn't work out exactly the way I had expected. By all rights, I should have finished my time here in mid-March 2006 - at least, that's when Medicare stopped paying.

being work time way

It is one thing to choose to go into a hospice; it's another thing to get on the air and tell everybody about it.

choose go tell air

Becoming eighty is a matter of life or death. I chose life. It is a much better position to be in, and it's easier on your back.

better matter life death

I was put on earth to make people laugh. by Art Buchwald

I was put on earth to make people laugh.

laugh make earth people