Words fashioned with somewhat over precise diction are like shapes turned out by a cookie cutter.

About Peter De Vries

Peter De Vrieswas an American editor and novelist known for his satiric wit.

More about the author

More quotes from Peter De Vries

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

The murals in restaurants are on par with the food in museums.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

I was thinking that we all learn by experience, but some of us have to go to summer school.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Let us hope, that a kind Providence will put a speedy end to the acts of God under which we have been laboring.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Words fashioned with somewhat over precise diction are like shapes turned out by a cookie cutter.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

My father hated radio and could not wait for television to be invented so he could hate that too.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Life is a zoo in a jungle.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Everybody hates me because I’m so universally liked.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff – it is a palliative rather than a remedy.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

The rich aren’t like us, they pay less taxes.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds – they mature slowly.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

A suburban mother’s role is to deliver children obstetrically once, and by car forever after.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

I wanted to be bored to death, as good a way to go as any.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

The tuba is certainly the most intestinal of instruments, the very lower bowel of music.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Celibacy is the worst form of self-abuse.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

We must love one another, yes, yes, that’s all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

I write when I’m inspired, and I see to it that I’m inspired at nine o’clock every morning.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Pain is the question mark turned like a fishhook in the human heart.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

Murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)

It is the final proof of God’s omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us.

Peter De Vries

American editor and novelist (1910-1993)