Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.

— Don Marquis

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.

— Don Marquis

An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience.

— Don Marquis

An optimist is a man who has never had much experience.

— Don Marquis

A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.

— Don Marquis

A spider and a fly heard a spider and a fly arguing wait said the fly do not eat ma serve a great purpose in the world you will have to show me said the spider scurry around gutters and sewer sand garbage cans said the fly and gather up the germs of typhoid influenza and pneumonia on my feet and wings then I carry these germs into households of Menard give them diseases all the people who have lived the right sort of life recover from the disease sand the old soaks who have weakened their systems with liquor and iniquity succumb it is my mission to help rid the world of these wicked persons am a vessel of righteousness scattering seeds of justice and serving the noblest use sit is true said the spider that you are more useful in a plodding material sort of way than I am but I do not serve the utilitarian deities serve the gods of beauty look at the gossamer webs weave they float in the sunlike filaments of song if you get what i mean do not work at anything play all the time am busy with the stuff of enchantment and the materials of fairyland my works transcend utility am the artist creator and Demi Godot is ridiculous to suppose that I should be denied the food I need in order to continue to create beauty I tell you plainly mister fly it is all damned nonsense for that food to rear up on its hind Legrand say it should not be eaten you have convinced me said the fly say no Moreland shutting all his eye she prepared himself for dinner and, yet he said i could have made out a case for myself too if i Haddad a better line of talk of course you could say the spider clutching a sirloin from him but the end would have been just the same if neither offs had spoken at all boss I am afraid that what the spider said is true and it gives me to think furiously upon the futility of literaturearchy

— Don Marquis

Every cloud has its silver lining, but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.

— Don Marquis

Every honorable man is forced to yield to blackmail once or twice in his life, just for the sake of keeping peace in the community.

— Don Marquis

Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man's hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them.

— Don Marquis

Fire is beautiful and we know that if we Gentoo close it will kill us but what does that matter it is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while

— Don Marquis