Cheaper By The Dozen Quotes

In a person's lifetime there may be not more than half a dozen occasions that he can look back to in the certain knowledge that right then, at that moment, there was room for nothing but happiness in his heart.

Dad himself used to tell a story about one time when Mother went off to fill a lecture engagement and left him in charge at home. When Mother returned, she asked him if everything had run smoothly. Didn't have any trouble except with that one over there,' he replied. 'But a spanking brought him into line.' Mother could handle any crisis without losing her composure. That's not one of ours, dear,' she said. 'He belongs next door.

Someone once asked Dad: “But what do you want to save time for? What are you going to do with it?” “For work, if you love that best,” said Dad. “For education, for beauty, for art, for pleasure.” He looked over the top of his pince-nez. “For mumblety-peg, if that's where your heart lies.

Dad took moving pictures of us children washing dishes, so that he could figure out how we could reduce our motions and thus hurry through the task. Irregular jobs, such as painting the back porch or removing a stump from the front lawn, were awarded on a low-bid basis. Each child who wanted extra pocket money submitted a sealed bid saying what he would do the job for. The lowest bidder got the contract.

I give nightly praise to my Maker that I never cast a ballot to bring that lazy, disreputable, ill-tempered beast into what was once my home. I'm glad that I had the courage to go on record as opposing that illegitimate, shameless flea-bag that now shares my bed and board. You abstainer, you!

Ernestine used to remark, in a tone tinged with envy, that Lill was probably New Jersey's youngest gold digger, and that few adult gold diggers ever had received more, in return for less.

Although a graduate of the University of California the bride is nonetheless an extremely attractive young woman.

Not the penultimate, nor yet the ante-penultimate,” said Mother. “But the ultimate.

Some simpleton with pimples in his voice wants to speak to Ernestine," he grumbled to Mother when he answered the phone.

Now, suddenly, she wasn’t afraid anymore, because there was nothing to be afraid of. Now nothing could upset her because the thing that mattered most had been upset. None of us ever saw her weep again.

Dad, who knew that Mother’s favorite poet was Browning and suspected where the Robert came from, nevertheless bunched the fingers of his right hand, kissed their tips, and threw his hand into the air. “Ah, Robert,” he intoned, “if I could but taste the nectar of thy lips.

I forgot to take off the inside lens cap cap... P.S. I quit." Dad threw off the covers and reached for his bathrobe. For the first time in two weeks he spoke: "I'll track him down to the ends of the earth," he croaked. "I'll take a blunt hook and pull his tonsils out by the byjingoed roots, just like I promised him. He doesn't quit. He's fired.

To multiply forty-six times forty-six, you figure how much greater forty-six is than twenty-five. The answer is twenty-one. Then you figure how much less forty-six is than fifty. The answer is four. You square the four and get sixteen. You put the twenty-one and the sixteen together and the answer is twenty-one sixteen, or 2,116. To multiply forty-four times forty-four, you figure how much greater forty-four is than twenty-five. The answer is nineteen. Then you figure how much less forty-four is than fifty. The answer is six. You square the six and get thirty-six. You put the nineteen and the thirty-six together, and the answer is nineteen thirty-six, or 1,936.

AI will bring that same monopolistic tendency to dozens of industries, eroding the competitive mechanisms of markets in the process. We could see the rapid emergence of a new corporate oligarchy, a class of AI-powered industry champions whose data edge over the competition feeds on itself until they are entirely untouchable. American antitrust laws are often difficult to enforce in this situation, because of the requirement in U.S. law that plaintiffs prove the monopoly is actually harming consumers. AI monopolists, by contrast, would likely be delivering better and better services at cheaper prices to consumers, a move made possible by the incredible productivity and efficiency gains of the technology.

But it was Mother who spun the stories that made the things we studied really unforgettable. If Dad saw motion study and teamwork in an ant hill, Mother saw a highly complex civilization governed, perhaps, by a fat old queen who had a thousand black slaves bring her breakfast in bed mornings. If Dad stopped to explain the construction of a bridge, she would find the workman in his blue jeans, eating his lunch high on the top of the span. It was she who made us feel the breathless height of the structure and the relative puniness of the humans who had built it. Or if Dad pointed out a tree that had been bent and gnarled, it was Mother who made us sense how the wind, eating against the tree in the endless passing of time, had made its own relentless mark.

If life were free of contingencies, then we could live by a few rules written in stone that would apply to all our decisions. Every baby would come with an operating manual, the same guide that worked for her older brother. Every rule of thumb would apply to every situation. The early bird would always catch the worm, everything would be cheaper by the dozen, and the world would come in two colors: black and white. But alas, it doesn’t. Sometimes, under some circumstances (say, jumping out of an airplane for the first time), it’s a very bad idea to look before you leap. Sometimes the enemy of your enemy makes a terrible friend. Girl

It had all kinds of improvements, it would be cheaper to run, it was the bee's knees, mutt's nuts, and various wonderful bits of half a dozen other creatures.