Goncourt brothers on clever jabs

Today I begin to understand what love must be, if it exists. When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I imagine love to be: incompleteness in absence.

If there is a God, atheism must strike Him as less of an insult than religion.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

Winston Churchill1874–1965

Thus far, the reputed idiot Bush has graduated from Yale and Harvard, made a stack of cash in the oil industry, become the first consecutive-term governor of Texas, defeated a dual-term VP for the presidency, and led his party to [November 5th’s] extraordinary triumphs. Let his opponents keep calling him stupid; if they do, within five years Bush will be King of England, the Pope, and world Formula One motor racing champion.

Tim Blairborn 1965

• Politics

I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

Mark Twain1835–1910