Peter De Vries Quotes

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

~ Peter De Vries

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

~ Peter De Vries

Stein resented the sedative power of religion, or rather the repose available to those blissfully ignorant that the medicament was a fictitious blank. In this exile from peace of mind to which his reason doomed him, he was like an insomniac driven to awaken sleepers from dreams illegitimately won by going around shouting, 'Don't you realize it was a placebo!' Thus it seemed to me that what you were up against in Stein was not logic rampant, but frustrated faith. He could not forgive God for not existing.

~ Peter De Vries

But I made an issue of the precise wording of the vows. I wanted liberalized ones, with no outmoded Pauline nonsense exacting from the bride the promise to 'obey' the groom. Here I put my foot down, rather in the manner of a husband determined to show at the outset who was boss. 'I'll have no obedience around here!' I said, banging the table. 'Is that clear?''Is it an order?''Yes.

~ Peter De Vries

Deep down, he's shallow.

~ Peter De Vries

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

~ Peter De Vries

I made a tentative conclusion. It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration: not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is.

~ Peter De Vries

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

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

If there's anything I hate it's the word humorist - I feel like countering with the word seriousist.

~ Peter De Vries

Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked.

~ Peter De Vries

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

~ Peter De Vries

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

~ Peter De Vries

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

~ Peter De Vries

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

~ Peter De Vries

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

~ Peter De Vries

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

~ Peter De Vries

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

~ Peter De Vries

Life is a zoo in a jungle.

~ Peter De Vries