Jean Kerr Quotes

I make mistakes; I'll be the second to admit it.

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?

Do you know how helpless you feel if you have a full cup of coffee in your hand and you start to sneeze?

Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only when driven to speak by something outside himself-like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks.

Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get home, but it doesn't always go with everything in the house.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation.

The only reason that they say, 'Women and children first' is to test the strength of the lifeboats.

The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain terrible.

Dearer to me than the evening star A Packard car A Hershey bar Or a bride in her rich adorning Dearer than any of these by far Is to lie in bed in the morning

the real menace in dealing with a 5-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a 5-year-old.

Now the thing about having a baby - and I can't be the first person to have noticed this - is that thereafter you have it.

Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only when driven to speech by something outside himself - like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks.

Hope is the feeling that the feeling you have isn't permanent.

The thing that worries me is that I'm so different from other writers. Connecticut is just another state to me. And nature - well, nature is just nature. When I see a tree whose leafy mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowing breast, I think, 'Well, that's a nice-looking oak,' but it doesn't change my way of life. Now I'm not going to stand here and run down trees and flowers. Personally, I have three snake plants of my own, and in a tearoom I'm the first one to notice the geraniums. But the point is, I keep my head.

I’m tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin deep. That’s deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?

Hoffnung ist das Gefühl, dass das Gefühl, das du hast, nicht ewig dauert

Oftentimes, in the evening after they have finished spreading the fertiliser, the writer and his wife sit on the fence - with a wonderful sense of "togetherness" - and listen to the magic symphony of the crickets. I can understand that. Around our house, we're pretty busy, and of course we're not the least bit integrated, but nevertheless my husband and I often sit together in the deepening twilight and listen to the sweet, gentle slosh-click, slosh-click of the dishwasher. He smiles and I smile. Oh, it's a golden moment.

Some people have such a talent for making the best of a bad situation that they go around creating bad situations so they can make the best of them

In fact, it was the religion of Calvin of which Sandy felt deprived, or rather a specified recognition of it. She desired this birthright; something definite to reject. It pervaded the place in proportion as it was unacknowledged. In some ways the most real and rooted people whom Sandy knew were Miss Gaunt and the Kerr sisters who made no evasions about their believe that Gold had planned for practically everybody before they were born an nasty surprise when they died. Later, when Sandy read John Calvin, she found that although popular conceptions of Calvinism were sometimes mistaken, in this particular there was no mistake, indeed it was but a mild understanding of the case, he having made it God's pleasure to implant in certain people an erroneous since of joy and salvation, so that their surprise at the end might be the nastier.

When I was younger and full of Dr. Spock I used to make the common mistake of trying to be “fair” with the children. At the peak of every crisis I would summon the entire brood from the four corners of the television set and ask stern, equivocal questions like “Who threw the calendar in the toilet?” Naturally, nobody did. Now I rely on blind instinct. After assessing the evidence and asking myself a few routine questions like who was in the bathroom last and who is sopping wet, I seize the probable culprit, give him a little whack, and announce flatly, “So, you threw the calendar in the toilet!” This undoubtedly leads to an occasional injustice, but you’d be surprised how it cuts down on the plumbing bills.

What is missing in him is probably necessary for what is missing in you. Let us not to the marriage of true impediments admit minds. JEAN KERR

Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent. —JEAN KERR

Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn't always go with everything else.

Right after we signed {George} Gervin, I took him to one of our games and he sat in the stands next to me. After it was over, we walked down to the court. George was wearing a T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. He said, 'Why don't they use the 3-point shot more?' I said, 'Coach [Al] Bianchi doesn't think it's a good percentage shot unless we're behind at the end of the game.' George said, 'Suppose you could make 15-of-20.' I said, 'George, that's a really long shot.' He said, 'But say you could make 15-of-20.' I said, 'Then Al would probably change his mind.' The game had been over for a while and the lights were dimmed. It wasn't dark, but it wasn't easy to see the rim, either. George wanted a ball and someone threw him one. He went behind the 3-point line and starting shooting. He took shot after shot and swish after swish. Then he said 'That's 18 out of 20.' I said, 'Hey George, let's go make sure that the ink is dry on your contract.' -Johnny Kerr

Another distressing aspect of disciplining young children is that somehow you are always left with the flat end of the dialogue – a straight man forever. It’s not just that you feel idiotic. The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old. Let’s say you hear a loud, horrifying crash from the bedroom, so you shout up: “In heaven’s name, what was that?” “What?” “That awful noise.” “What noise?” “You didn’t hear that noise?” “No. Did you?” “Of course I did – I just told you.” “What did it sound like?” “Never mind what it sounded like. Just stop it.” “Stop what?” “Whatever you’re doing.” “I’m not doing anything.” “Stop it anyway.” “I’m brushing my teeth. Shall I stop that?” Obviously this way madness lies. Personally, I knew I had to win this battle of dialectics or seek psychiatric care. I don’t promise that my solution will work equally well in all cases, but it does do nicely around here. Nowadays when I hear that crash I merely call up, clearly and firmly, “Hey you, pick up your pants.” I am, of course, operating on the absolute certainty that whoever it is will have at least one pair of pants on the floor. And the mere motion of picking them up will distract him, temporarily at least, from whatever mayhem he was involved in. As far as that crash is concerned, I never really wanted to know what it was. I just wanted it to stop.

Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window.  You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn't always go with everything else in the house.  Jean Kerr