162 Quotes by Calvin Trillin

among married couples the person who actually makes out the mortgage check is likely to be more cautious about spending money than the person who doesn't. There is something sobering about sending away that much money every month in the knowledge that, rain or shine, you'll have to come up with the same amount of money the next month and the month after that.

As far as I'm concerned, 'whom' is a word that was invented to make everyone sound like a butler.

...the existential paradox we all experience; we feel that we are immortal, yet we know that we will die.

The price of purity is purists.

Why in the world are you a Republican?

By the way, did you fellows know that a hummingbird weighs as much as a quarter? Do you think a hummingbird also weighs the same as two dimes and a nickel? But then she asked a question of her own: How do they weigh a hummingbird?

Once, in Lisbon, I tried my best to work the phone book in a way that would assuage a longing [Alice and I] had for certain Chinese dishes . . . .

I suppose it's possible that the Sundance Kid didn't like to make much of his birthdays — they may have struck him as just another reminder that his draw was getting slower by the year—but what if he truly liked a major celebration? What if he looked forward every year to marking the day of his birth with what they used to call in the West 'a real wingding, with pink balloons and a few survivors'?

Do my ears deceive me, or can I actually hear the sounds of worms turning? You say a turning worm makes no sound? But how about a chorus of turning worms?