Marilyn Vos Savant Quotes & Sayings

My thoughts are like waffles - the first few don't look so good. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The difference between America and England is that the English think 100 miles is a long distance and the Americans think 100 years is a long time. The difference between an autobiography and an unauthorized biography is like the difference between an account of your life written by your mother and one written by your mother-in-law. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know the names of past and current artists who are most famous for playing their instruments. — Marilyn Vos Savant

No one would choose to be jerked randomly off task again and again until you have half a dozen things you're trying to get done, all at the same time. — Marilyn Vos Savant

There are days when I feel I can do anything and days when I feel I can do nothing. But fortunately for those around me, neither sort occurs very often. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I've never found an interesting person with a foul mouth. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The length of your education is less important than its breadth, and the length of your life is less important than its depth. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know where to find the sunrise and sunset times and note how the sky looks at those times, at least once. — Marilyn Vos Savant

An ounce of sequins can be worth a pound of home cooking. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Have you ever noticed that when you must struggle to hear something, you close your eyes? — Marilyn Vos Savant

I believe that one can indeed work on two or more tasks at once, but in ways yet to be understood. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Spending waiting moments doing crossword puzzles or reading a book you brought yourself. — Marilyn Vos Savant

One of the few articles of clothing that a man won't try to remove from a woman is an apron. — Marilyn Vos Savant

While you're writing, you can't concentrate nearly as well on what the speaker is saying. — Marilyn Vos Savant

When you're in a good mood, bring up the past. When you're in a bad mood, stick to the present. And when you're not feeling emotional at all, it's time to talk about the future. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to hiccup silently, or at least without alerting neighbors to your situation. The first hiccup is an exception. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to notice all the confusion between fact and opinion that appears in the news. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Email, instant messaging, and cell phones give us fabulous communication ability, but because we live and work in our own little worlds, that communication is totally disorganized. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Just because you're unemployed doesn't mean you're not doing anything useful. You are, for example, at least keeping your mother-in-law's wit sharp. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The original answer defines certain conditions, [ ... ] Anything else is a different question. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to confide your innermost secrets to your mother and your innermost fears to your father. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Think of a hypothesis as a card. A theory is a house made of hypotheses. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The only real meaning in life can be found in a good man. And maybe Paris. Preferably the two together. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying. — Marilyn Vos Savant

To acquire knowledge, one must study;
but to acquire wisdom, one must observe. — Marilyn Vos Savant

If you never heard opportunity knock, maybe you're never at home. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to recognize the dangerous snakes, spiders, insects, and plants that live in your area of the country. — Marilyn Vos Savant

An error becomes a mistake when we refuse to admit it. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how to travel from your town to a nearby town without a car, either by bus or by rail. — Marilyn Vos Savant

[When asked if the voice is an instrument:] Yes, of course. Some are violins, some are fountain pens and some are stethoscopes. And others are just washboards. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Relatively few of us will find the time-or take it-to live an ever enlarging life. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Make a habit of canceling every subscription to anything you don't have time to read. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The magnitude of an action may change not only the strength of its impact, but the direction. If you became a dentist, for example, you would certainly be an asset to our society. But what if everyone became a dentist? Who would bake the bread? Who would build the houses? — Marilyn Vos Savant

Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses. — Marilyn Vos Savant

A person who learns to juggle six balls will be more skilled than the person who never tries to juggle more than three. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Attention-deficit disorders seem to abound in modern society, and we don't know the cause. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The difference between talking on your cell phone while driving and speaking with a passenger is huge. The person on the other end of the cell phone is chattering away, oblivious. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know what happens when an individual declares bankruptcy and how it affects his or her life. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to correctly pronounce the words you would like to speak and have excellent spoken grammar. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, the others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you: 'Do you want to pick door #2?' Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors? — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how to behave at a fine restaurant, which is a telltale measure of social maturity. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know the official post office abbreviations for all 50 states without having to consult a list. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to identify the most common breeds of dogs and cats on sight. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know about the appeals process, especially in the case of the most serious crimes. — Marilyn Vos Savant

If your head tells you one thing and your heart tells you another ,before you do anything,you should first decide wether you have a better head or a better heart. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how and how much to tip people who expect gratuities, even in the case of poor service. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I love having ten times as much stuff to do as I can possibly find time to do. That way, I can pick the one-tenth that I want to do most. But if I only have enough to just occupy all my time, I'm stuck doing all of whatever stuff it happens to be. — Marilyn Vos Savant

It is a lot easier to prove that you don't love someone than it is to prove that you do, but one of the best 'proofs' I know is the desire to devote time to the person with no expectation of any sort of compensation, including gratitude, in return. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I think change is possible, but only for individuals who were never truly gay in the first place and who have a strong personal motivation to recover their heterosexuality. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Stop asking for directions so much. Assuming that you're in a safe environment, pay attention and figure things out for yourself. Have the nerve to take a wrong turn now and then. You'll develop better working instincts and have more self-esteem too. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The 40s are when you start trading your psychological problems for physical ones. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how to behave at a buffet. Take a clean plate for a second helping. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know why certain foods, such as truffles, are expensive. It's not because they taste best. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to sneeze without sounding ridiculous. That means neither stifling yourself or spraying your immediate vicinity. — Marilyn Vos Savant

If you're wondering if you're dreaming, you're dreaming. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to set a table so that you feel like you're dining, not just sitting and eating. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The chess player who develops the ability to play two dozen boards at a time will benefit from learning to compress his or her analysis into less time. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Teens think listening to music helps them concentrate. It doesn't. It relieves them of the boredom that concentration on homework induces. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to recognize when you're reading or hearing material biased to your own side. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to decline a date so gracefully that the person isn't embarrassed that he or she asked. — Marilyn Vos Savant

When our spelling is perfect, it's invisible. But when it's flawed, it prompts strong negative associations. — Marilyn Vos Savant

You're who you think you are, even if you never admit it to yourself or to anyone else. You may be in the worst position to judge, but you're in the best position to know. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how to drive safely when it's raining or when it's snowing. The two conditions are different. — Marilyn Vos Savant

The lower our self-esteem, the more we're attracted to our opposite, and the higher our self-esteem, the more we are attracted to another like ourselves. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know how your representatives stand on major national or state issues. — Marilyn Vos Savant

People who work crossword puzzles know that if they stop making progress, they should put the puzzle down for a while. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to tell whether garments that look good on the hanger actually look good on you. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Evolution has long been the target of illogical arguments that use presumption. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Multi-tasking arises out of distraction itself. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Scientists and creationists are always at odds, of course. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to analyze statistics, which can be used to support or undercut almost any argument. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Yes. The original argument is defective. Substitute the word 'male' for 'gay,' and you'll see the flaw: 'Male people cannot be normal. If everyone were male starting tomorrow, the human race would die out, so being male cannot be nature's intended way.' Or you could substitute the word 'female.' In either case, the argument makes no sense: Being male or female is perfectly normal. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to cite three good qualities of every relative or acquaintance that you dislike. — Marilyn Vos Savant

What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom 'to' and freedom 'from.' — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be in the habit of getting up bright and early on the weekends. Why waste such precious time in bed? — Marilyn Vos Savant

I suspect that some apparently homosexual people are really heterosexuals who deeply phobic about the opposite sex or have other emotional problems. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I?d rather be rejected than used because they both amount to the same thing in the end, but being used takes a lot longer. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Everybody loves an accent. It you've been unlucky in love, consider pulling up stakes and moving to another country. Then you'll be the one with a neat foreign accent. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Geometry is beautifully logical, and it teaches you how to think and prove that things are so, step by step by step. Proofs are excellent lessons in reasoning. Without logic and reasoning, you are dependent on jumping to conclusions or - worse - having empty opinions. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Many people feel they must multi-task because everybody else is multitasking, but this is partly because they are all interrupting each other so much. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to live alone, even if you don't want to and think you will never find it necessary. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Ultimately, our future is like a mirror. Whenever we face it, it always reflects what we left behind. — Marilyn Vos Savant

A friend is someone who stays by your side all through the troubles he's caused you. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to draw an illustration as least well enough to get your point across to another person. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Be able to suffer wearing a necktie or slightly high heels for an entire evening without complaint or early removal. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Have enough sense to know, ahead of time, when your skills will not extend to wallpapering. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Profit is what we have left after we make a donation to a worthwhile cause. — Marilyn Vos Savant

A good idea will keep you awake during the morning, but a great idea will keep you awake during the night. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Know which officials are voted into office and which are appointed, and by whom. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Success may be the ability to be happy with whatever we're stuck with. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Understand why casinos and racetracks stay in business - the gambler always loses over the long term. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Capital punishment is the source of many an argument, both good and bad. — Marilyn Vos Savant

A 45-year old looks a lot like a 25-year old who's been out all night. And feels just as good about having survived the experience. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Common sense comes from experience, and kids need to fail as well as succeed in order to learn it. It's difficult to develop common sense when you spend a lot of time in your room where nothing much happens. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Experts say you can't concentrate on more than one task at a time. — Marilyn Vos Savant

I believe that love
not imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery. Your imitator thinks that you can be duplicated; your lover knows you can't. — Marilyn Vos Savant

Try square dancing-at least long enough to no longer feel silly and begin to have fun. — Marilyn Vos Savant