Quote of the Day (William Faulkner, With an Early Version of ‘The Great Resignation’)

“As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp. This, sir, is my resignation.”— Nobel Prize-winning American novelist and short-story writer William Faulkner (1897-1962), from an October 1924 letter of resignation from his job as Univ. of Mississippi postmaster, quoted in Conversations with William Faulkner, edited by M. Thomas Inge (1999) 

Quote of the Day (S.J. Perelman, on Concealing ‘One's True Livelihood From the Kiddies’)

"The instinct to conceal one's true livelihood from the kiddies, for fear of their possible scorn, is as normal as snoring. A highly solvent gentleman in Forest Hills, a vestryman and the father of three, once told me in wine that for thirty years, under twelve different pseudonyms, he had supplied the gamiest kind of pulp fiction to Snappy Stories and Flynn's, although his children believed him to be a stockbroker."— American humorist and screenwriter S.J. Perelman (1904-1979), “How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth," in The Most of S.J. Perelman (1957)

Quote of the Day (Amy Poehler, on Her Teen Summer Job Scooping Ice Cream)

“Chadwick’s was one of those fake old-timey restaurants. The menus were written in swoopy cursive. The staff wore Styrofoam boaters and ruffled white shirts with bow ties. Jangly music blared from a player piano as children climbed on counters. If the style of the restaurant was old-fashioned, the parenting that went on there was distinctly modern. Moms and dads would patiently recite every item on the menu to their squirming five-year-olds, as if the many flavors of ice cream represented all the unique ways they were loved.”--Amy Poehler, “Work for Hire: Take Your Licks,” The New Yorker, October 14, 2013

Quote of the Day (Stewart Francis, on Why He Quit His Job)

“I quit my job at the helium gas factory. I refuse to be spoken to in that tone.”—Comic Stewart Francis quoted in “Laugh!” Reader’s Digest, May 2010

Quote of the Day (Rita Rudner, on “The Most Boring Office Job in the World”)

“I had the most boring office job in the world—I used to clean the windows on envelopes.”—Rita Rudnick quoted in Reader’s Digest, September 2009