George Sanders > Quotes

“Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored.”
― George Sanders

“Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.”
― George Sanders

“Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool.”
― George Sanders

“Everywhere liberty is surrounded by secret or open enemies”
― George Sanders

“How, then, to proceed? My method is: I imagine a meter mounted in my forehead, with ‘P’ on this side (‘Positive’) and ‘N’ on this side (‘Negative’). I try to read what I’ve written uninflectedly, the way a first-time reader might (‘without hope and without despair’). Where’s the needle? Accept the result without whining. Then edit, so as to move the needle into the ‘P’ zone. Enact a repetitive, obsessive, iterative application of preference: watch the needle, adjust the prose, watch the needle, adjust the prose (rinse, lather, repeat), through (sometimes) hundreds of drafts. Like a cruiseship slowly turning, the story will start to alter course via those thousands of incremental adjustments.”
― George Sanders

“I am ineluctably drawn to the gloomy conclusion that the genius of the American people will drive them into ever tightening bonds of enslavement to technological progress. Out of this the machine will emerge triumphant, man will concern himself exclusively with its maintenance, and we shall all sing, “Oh say, does that star-spangled banner still wave O’er the land of TV and the home of the slave.”
― George Sanders, Memoirs of A Professional Cad

“Why will it not work. What magic word made it work. Who is the keeper of that word. What did it profit Him to switch this one off. What a contraption it is. How did it ever run. What spark ran it. Grand little machine. Set up just so. Receiving the spark, it jumped to life.

What put out that spark? What a sin it would be. Who would dare. Ruin such a marvel. Hence is murder anathema. God forbid I should ever commit such a grievous—”
― George Sanders

“The fact is that women should be worn like a boutonniere, to add to one’s look of distinction and contribute to one’s air of charm and mood of gaiety. Delightful to pick and easy to replace, put on with pleasure, removed without pain, and remembered with the appreciative nostalgia normally reserved for those nice garlands they put round your neck in the South Seas, whose name for the moment escapes me. I air these views gratuitously as I do not myself greatly care for boutonnieres or for that matter, women. If I were asked to express an opinion on the most aggravating feminine attributes – and God knows there would be a broad horizon of choice on such a subject – I would say that the two which have caused me the greatest exasperation and anguish are, one, that they are irresistible, and two, that they are irreplaceable.”
― George Sanders, Memoirs of a Professional Cad

“It is one of the sad ironies of life that one has to make money in order to spend time but waste time in order to make money. In”
― George Sanders, Memoirs of a Professional Cad

“Listen, the bass lisper intoned. At the time Marie and I did away with that baby, we felt ourselves to be working in the service of good. Honestly! We loved one another; the baby was not quite right; was an impediment to our love; its (his) stunted development impeded the natural expression of our love (we could not travel, could not dine out, were rarely given the slightest degree of privacy) and so it seemed (to us, at that time) that to remove the negative influence that was that baby (by dropping him into Furniss Creek) would free us up; to be more loving, and be more fully in the world, and would relieve him of the suffering entailed in being forevermore not quite right; would, that is, free him up from his suffering as well, and maximize the total happiness.

- It seemed that way to you, the Brit said.

- It did, it truly did, the bass lisper said.

- Does it seem that way to you now? the woman asked.

- Less so, the bass lisper said sadly.

- Then your punishment is having the desired effect, the woman said.”
― George Sanders

“Jakież czarodziejskie zaklęcie w ruch go wprawiało. Kto jest zaklęcia tego włodarzem. Co na tym zyskał, że go wyłączył. Cóż to za machina. Jakim cudem w ogóle działała. Jakąż napędzana iskrą. Wspaniała machina. Akuratnie dostrojona. Iskrę otrzymawszy, do życia się zerwała.
Kto iskrę tę zgasił? (...) Kto by śmiał. Zniszczyć taki cud.”
― George Sanders