Joseph Mitchell Quotes & Sayings

I have a great deal of experience in justifying myself to myself. — Joseph Mitchell

He had a habit of remarking to bartenders that he didn't see any sense in mixing whiskey with water since the whiskey was already wet. — Joseph Mitchell

It is perhaps an ugly comment on the American press, but the function of the interviewer on most newspapers is to entertain, not to shed light. . . . An interviewer soon begins to judge public figures on the basis of their entertainment value, overlooking their true importance. It is not easy to get an interview with Professor Franz Boas, the greatest anthropologist in the world, across a city desk, but a mild interview with Oom the Omnipotent will hit the bottom of page one under a two-column head. . . . It is safe to write accurately only about the nuts and bums. When a public figure does something ridiculous reporters may then write about him accurately. — Joseph Mitchell

I never felt at home. I stuck outIn New York City, especially in Greenwich Village, down among the cranks and the misfits and the one-lungers and the has-beens and the might've beens and the would-bes and the never-wills and the God-knows-whats, I have always felt at home. — Joseph Mitchell

I was coughing and sneezing, my eyes were sore, my knees were shaky, I was as hungry as a bitch wolf, and I had exactly eight cents to my name. I didn't care. my history was longer by eleven thousand brand-new words, and at that moment I bet there wasn't a chairman of the board in all New York as happy as I. — Joseph Mitchell

My dad was a cotton buyer and cotton buyers always considered themselves superior to the rest of the world. — Joseph Mitchell

You can hate a place with all your heart and soul and still be homesick for it. — Joseph Mitchell

Life is a goddam mess ... but you wouldn't want to miss it! — Joseph Mitchell

When things get too much for me, I put a wild-flower book and a couple of sandwiches in my pockets and go down to the South Shore of Staten Island and wander around awhile in one of the old cemeteries down there. (Mr Hunter's Grave, 1956) — Joseph Mitchell

All information of a spiritual or personal nature will have to come from our father, who art in heaven, and I think he's in New York right now. — Joseph Mitchell

Also, I had not yet found out about time; I was still under the illusion that I had plenty of time - time for this, time for that, time for everything, time to waste. — Joseph Mitchell

it takes almost a lifetime to learn how to do a thing simply. — Joseph Mitchell

The best talk is artless, the talk of people trying to reassure or comfort themselves, women in the sun, grouped around baby carriages, talking about their weeks in the hospital or the way meat has gone up, or men in saloons, talking to combat the loneliness everyone feels. — Joseph Mitchell

You're a trouble-maker. What race do you belong to, anyhow?' 'The human race,' I said. 'I come from the womb and I'm bound for the tomb, the same as you, the same as King George the Six, the same as Johnny Squat. — Joseph Mitchell

When I get through tearing a lobster apart, or one of those tender West Coast octopuses, I feel like I had a drink from the fountain of youth. — Joseph Mitchell