“Every dictionary contains a world. I open a book of thieves’ slang from Queen Anne’s reign and they have a hundred words… — Mark Forsyth Books Copy Share Image
“Pot itself has nothing to do with pots and pans, but comes from the Mexican-Spanish word potiguaya, which means marijuana leaves. And… — Mark Forsyth English Copy Share Image
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it was the sausage-maker who disposed of the body. — Mark Forsyth Body Copy Share Image
Poetry is much more important than the truth, and, if you don't believe that, try using the two methods to get laid. — Mark Forsyth Believe Copy Share Image
“Wouldst like to con a glimmer with me this early black?’, which he [Cab Calloway] helpfully explains as ‘the proper way to… — Mark Forsyth Jive Copy Share Image
“Love is nothing because those who do something for the love of it do it for nothing.” — Mark Forsyth Humor Copy Share Image
“Wamblecropt is the most exquisite word in the English language. Say it. Each syllable is intolerably beautiful.” — Mark Forsyth English language Copy Share Image
“Shakespeare was not a genius. He was, without the distant shadow of a doubt, the most wonderful writer who ever breathed. But… — Mark Forsyth Intelligence Copy Share Image
“The glamour's off. Almost any question you ask can be answered. It's only the questions that you didn't know to ask that… — Mark Forsyth Books Copy Share Image
“There's always a strange feeling you get when you come across one particular line by chance. It feels somehow significant. That's irrational… — Mark Forsyth Bibliomancy Copy Share Image
“Oxygen was called flammable air for a while, but it didn't catch on.” — Mark Forsyth Copy Share Image
But Shakespeare never drank coffee. Nor did Julius Caesar, or Socrates. Alexander the Great conquered half the world without even a café… — Mark Forsyth Achievement Copy Share Image
If you are to use Alexander Graham Bell’s product, which is to say the blower, you should, in all courtesy, use it… — Mark Forsyth Bells Copy Share Image
“It is, incidentally, a favour that e-books have done for the Good Bookshop: they have made books beautiful again. A few years… — Mark Forsyth Books Copy Share Image
So familiar are eggs to us, however, that in the eighteenth century they were referred to as cackling farts, on the basis… — Mark Forsyth Bases Copy Share Image
“English teaching at school is, unfortunately, obsessed with what a poet thought, as though that were of any interest to anyone. Rather… — Mark Forsyth Civilised society Copy Share Image
“Lord, deliver us from what we already knew we wanted . Give us some new desires, the weirder the better.” — Mark Forsyth Books Copy Share Image
“If Jupiter was in the ascendant when you were born, you are of a jovial disposition; and if you're not jovial but… — Mark Forsyth Astrology Copy Share Image
“If the soup had been as warm as the wine, and the wine as old as the fish, and the fish as… — Mark Forsyth Food Copy Share Image
Reality changes words far more than words can ever change reality. — Mark Forsyth Change Copy Share Image
“It was after an incident such as this that my friends and family decided something must be done. They gathered for a… — Mark Forsyth Family Copy Share Image
Freud said that everything was secretly sexual. But etymologists know that sex is secretly food. — Mark Forsyth Said Copy Share Image
A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher. A poet is somebody who… — Mark Forsyth Commonplace Copy Share Image
“A book would therefore have a twofold benefit. First, it would rid me of my demons and perhaps save some innocent conversationalist… — Mark Forsyth Book Copy Share Image
