Don Marquis

Donald Robert Perry Marquis (29 July 1878 – 29 December 1937) was an American humorist, journalist, and author. He was variously a novelist, poet, cartoonist, newspaper columnist, and playwright. He was best known for creating the characters "Archy" the cockroach, and "Mehitabel" the cat.

Sourced

• i have noticed that when chickens quit quarreling over their food they often find that there is enough for all of them i wonder if it might not be the same with the human race
  • archy's life of mehitabel, random thoughts by archy (1933)

archy and mehitabel (1927)

• dedicated to babs
  with babs knows what
  and babs knows why

• the octopus's secret wish
  is not to be a formal fish
  he dreams that some time he may grow
  another set of legs or so
  and be a broadway music show

• oh i should worry and fret
  death and i will coquette
  there s a dance in the old dame yet
  toujours gai toujours gai
  • the song of mehitabel

• procrastination is the
  art of keeping
• certain maxims of archy

• an optimist is a guy
  that has never had
  much experience
  • certain maxims of archy

• what in hell
  have i done to deserve
  all these kittens
  • mehitabel and her kittens

• dance mehitabel dance
  caper and shake a leg
  what little blood is left
  will fizz like wine in a keg
  • mehitabel dances with boreas

what the ants are saying

• no insect likes human beings
  and if you think you can see why
  the only reason i tolerate you is because
  you seem less human to me than most of them

• it wont be long now it wont be long
  man is making deserts of the earth
  it wont be long now
  before man will have used it up
  so that nothing but ants
  and centipedes and scorpions
  can find a living on it
  man has oppressed us for a million years
  but he goes on steadily
  cutting the ground from under
  his own feet making deserts deserts deserts

• what man calls civilization
  always results in deserts

• men talk of money and industry
  of hard times and recoveries
  of finance and economics
  but the ants wait and the scorpions wait
  for while men talk they are making deserts all the time
  getting the world ready for the conquering ant
  drought and erosion and desert
  because men cannot learn

• each generation wastes a little more
  of the future with greed and lust for riches

• it wont be long now It won't be long
  till earth is barren as the moon
  and sapless as a mumbled bone

• dear boss i relay this information
  without any fear that humanity
  will take warning and reform

archy does his part (1935)

• it is a cheering thought to think
  that god is on the side of the best digestion
  • the big bad wolf

• there is bound to be a certain amount of
  trouble running any country
  if you are president the trouble happens to you
  but if you are a tyrant you can arrange things so
  that most of the trouble happens to other people
  • archy's newest deal

• there is always
  a comforting thought
  in time of trouble when
  it is not our trouble
  • comforting thoughts

warty bliggens, the toad

• i met a toad
  the other day by the name
  of warty bliggens
  he was sitting under
  a toadstool
  feeling contented
  he explained that when the cosmos
  was created
  that toadstool was especially
  planned for his personal
  shelter from sun and rain
  thought out and prepared
  for him

• a little more
  conversation revealed
  that warty bliggens
  considers himself to be
  the center of the said
  universe
  the earth exists
  to grow toadstools for him
  to sit under
  the sun to give him light
  by day and the moon
  and wheeling constellations
  to make beautiful
  the night for the sake of
  warty bliggens

• i asked him
  why is it that you
  are so greatly favored
  ask rather
  said warty bliggens
  what the universe
  has done to deserve me

the robin and the worm

• a robin said to an
  angleworm as he ate him
  i am sorry but a bird
  has to live somehow the
  worm being slow witted could
  not gather his
  dissent into a wise crack
  and retort he was
  effectually swallowed
  before he could turn
  a phrase

• demons and fishhooks
  he exclaimed
  i am losing my personal
  identity as a worm
  my individuality
  is melting away from me
  odds craw i am becoming
  part and parcel of
  this bloody robin
  so help me i am thinking
  like a robin and not
  like a worm any
  longer yes yes i even
  find myself agreeing
  that a robin must live
  i still do not
  understand with my mentality
  why a robin must live
  and yet i swoon into a
  condition of belief

• amen said a beetle who had
  preceded him into the
  interior that is the way i
  feel myself is it not
  wonderful when one arrives
  at the place
  where he can give up his
  ambitions and resignedly
  nay even with gladness
  recognize that it is a far
  far better thing to be
  merged harmoniously
  in the cosmic all
  and this confortable situation
  in his midst
  so affected the marauding
  robin that he perched
  upon a blooming twig
  and sang until the
  blossoms shook with ecstacy
  he sang
  i have a good digestion
  and there is a god after all
  which i was wicked
  enough to doubt
  yesterday when it rained

• breakfast breakfast
  i am full of breakfast
  and they are at breakfast
  in heaven
  they breakfast in heaven
  all s well with the world

• how beautiful is the universe
  when something digestible meets
  with an eager digestion
  how sweet the embrace
  when atom rushes to the arms
  of waiting atom

• well well boss there is
  something to be said
  for the lyric and imperial
  attitude
  believe that everything is for
  you until you discover
  that you are for it
  sing your faith in what you
  get to eat right up to the
  minute you are eaten
  for you are going
  to be eaten

• there are more things
  twixt the vermiform appendix
  and nirvana than are dreamt of
  in thy philosophy horatio