TV Quote of the Day (‘Everybody Loves Raymond,’ As the Barones Eat a Healthy Thanksgiving Meal)

[Marie Barone, trying to go on a healthier diet, has just presented the tofu turkey on Thanksgiving.]

Frank Barone [played by Peter Boyle]: “May I have my carving knife, please?”

Marie Barone [played by Doris Roberts]: “Thank you, Frank.”

Frank: “I wanna slit my throat!”— Everybody Loves Raymond, Season 3, Episode 10, “No Fat,” original air date Nov. 23, 1998, teleplay by Ellen Sandler, Susan Van Allen, and Ray Romano, directed by Steve Zuckerman

TV Quote of the Day (‘All in the Family,’ As Edith Recalls Archie’s Past Thanksgiving Heroism)

[Archie saves the life of a passenger in a cab he’s driving by administering “mouth-to-mouth restitution”—unaware that this “lady” is a female impersonator.]

Edith Bunker [played by Jean Stapleton]: “I ain't been so proud of you since Uncle Willie cut his finger carving the Thanksgiving turkey and you stopped the bleeding by tying it up with the string they used to tie up the turkey's you-know-what with.”

Archie Bunker [played by Carroll O’Connor]: “How can you do that all in one breath?”— All in the Family, Season 6, Episode 4, “Archie the Hero,” original air date Sept. 29, 1975, teleplay by Lou Derman, Bill Davenport, and Johnny Speight, directed by Paul Bogart

TV Quote of the Day (‘Friends,’ on a Thanksgiving Necessity)

Joey Tribbiani [played by Matt LeBlanc]: “You can't have Thanksgiving without turkey. That's like Fourth of July without apple pie, or Friday with no two pizzas.”—Friends, Season 8, Episode 9, “The One with the Rumor,” teleplay by Shana Goldberg-Meehan, directed by Gary Halvorson

Quote of the Day (John F. Kennedy, With His Last Thanksgiving Day Proclamation)

“Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers—for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”—John F. Kennedy, 35^th President of the United States (1917-1963), “Proclamation 3560—Thanksgiving Day, 1963,” issued Nov. 5, 1963

Quote of the Day (O. Henry, on a 'Super-Bountiful' Thanksgiving Feast)

“[Stuffy] Pete was not hungry. He had just come from a feast that had left him of his powers barely those of respiration and locomotion. His eyes were like two pale gooseberries firmly imbedded in a swollen and gravy-smeared mask of putty. His breath came in short wheezes; a senatorial roll of adipose tissue denied a fashionable set to his upturned coat collar. Buttons that had been sewed upon his clothes by kind Salvation fingers a week before flew like popcorn, strewing the earth around him. Ragged he was, with a split shirt front open to the wishbone; but the November breeze, carrying fine snowflakes, brought him only a grateful coolness. For Stuffy Pete was overcharged with the caloric produced by a super-bountiful dinner, beginning with oysters and ending with plum pudding, and including (it seemed to him) all the roast turkey and baked potatoes and chicken salad and squash pie and ice cream in the world. Wherefore he sat, gorged, and gazed upon the world with after-dinner contempt.”—William Sidney Porter, aka O. Henry (1862-1910), “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen,” in The Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories of the Four Million (1907)

Quote of the Day (G.K. Chesterton, on Thanks as ‘The Highest Form of Thought’)

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”—English man of letters G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), A Short History of England (1917)

Quote of the Day (Desmond Tutu, on the Blessing of Families)

“You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.”—South African Anglican Archbishop, human-rights advocate, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time (2004)

Happy Thanksgiving, for all our families.

(Photo of Archbishop Tutu taken by Elke Wetzig at the Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag in Cologne, Germany, in 2007.)

TV Quote of the Day (‘New Girl,’ As Jess Ponders a Novel Method of Turkey Thawing)

Jess [played by Zooey Deschanel] [unable to thaw a frozen turkey]: “Maybe if I take off all my clothes and I get in bed with it, the heat of my body will warm it up.”—New Girl, Season 1, Episode 6, “Thanksgiving,” original air date Nov. 15, 2011, teleplay by Berkley Johnson, directed by Miguel Arteta

This post is for a friend of mine (AND HE KNOWS WHO HE IS!!!!) who is a great admirer of Ms. Deschanel.

Quote of the Day (George Parsons Lathrop, on Thanksgiving)

“When the skies are sad and murky,

   'Tis a cheerful thing to meet

Round this homely roast of turkey—

   Pilgrims, pausing just to greet,

   Then, with earnest grace, to eat

          A new Thanksgiving turkey.

“And the merry feast is freighted

   With its meanings true and deep.

Those we've loved and those we've hated,

   All, to-day, the rite will keep,

   All, to-day, their dishes heap

          With plump Thanksgiving turkey.”— American poet, novelist and newspaper editor George Parsons Lathrop (1851-1898), “Thanksgiving Turkey,” Harper’s, December 1876

Quote of the Day (Sam Levenson, on a Group Very Prominent on Thanksgiving)

“Siblings: children of the same parents, each of whom is perfectly normal until they get together.”—American humorist, TV host, and journalist Sam Levenson (1911-1980), Everything But Money: A Life of Riches (1966)

Quote of the Day (Ann Beattie, on an Airport Experience for Some Women This Weekend)

“After clearing security at the airport, did you remove from the bin your belt, your loose change, the necklace that initially set off the alarm and resulted in your having to step aside to be patted down, your laptop, your folding umbrella, your empty thermos, your jacket, your sweater, your beret, your purse, and the brooch that may have contributed to the necklace’s having set off the alarm that subsequently resulted in your being patted down, forgetting one shoe?” —American short-story writer Ann Beattie, with nearly 25 questions to help “How to Think Through Finding a Lost Shoe,” The New Yorker, Oct. 8, 2018

Song Lyric of the Day (Don Henley, on ‘My Thanksgiving’)

“For everyone who helped me start

And for everything that broke my heart

For every breath, for every day of living

This is my Thanksgiving.”— Don Henley, Stan Lynch, and Jai Winding, “My Thanksgiving,” performed by Henley on his Inside Job CD (2000)

(Photo of Don Henley backstage taken by Steve Jurvetson, on the Eagles’ Farewell Tour 1, Oct. 29, 2006.)

Quote of the Day (G. K. Chesterton, on Thanks as ‘The Highest Form of Thought’)

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." — English man of letters (and Catholic convert) G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), A Short History of England (1917)