The satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive and eventually releases him again for another chance.
Peter De Vries

The tuba is certainly the most intestinal of instruments, the very lower bowel of music.
Peter De Vries

The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe.
Peter De Vries

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Peter De Vries

There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you.
Peter De Vries

We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.
Peter De Vries

We must love one another, yes, yes, that's all true enough, but nothing says we have to like each other.
Peter De Vries

When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones.
Peter De Vries

Who of us is mature enough for offspring before the offspring themselves arrive? The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults.
Peter De Vries

Words fashioned with somewhat over precise diction are like shapes turned out by a cookie cutter.
Peter De Vries