Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel was born 2 March 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He graduated Dartmouth College in 1925, and proceeded on to Oxford University with the intent of acquiring a doctorate in literature. At Oxford he met Helen Palmer, who he wed in 1927. He returned from Europe in 1927, and began working for a magazine called Judge, the leading humor magazine in America at the time, submitting both cartoons and humorous articles for them. Additionally, he was submitting cartoons to Life, Vanity Fair and Liberty. In some of his works, he'd made reference to an insecticide called Flit. These references gained notice, and led to a contract to draw comic ads for Flit. This association lasted 17 years, gained him national exposure, and coined the catchphrase "Quick, Henry, the Flit!"
In 1936 on the way to a vacation in Europe, listening to the rhythm of the ship's engines, he came up with And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, which was then promptly rejected by the first 43 publishers he showed it to. Eventually in 1937 a friend published the book for him, and it went on to at least moderate success.
During World War II, Geisel joined the army and was sent to Hollywood. Captain Geisel would write for Frank Capra's Signal Corps Unit (for which he won the Legion of Merit) and do documentaries (he won Oscar's for Hitler Lives and Design for Death). He also created a cartoon called Gerald McBoing-Boing which also won him an Oscar.
In May of 1954, Life published a report concerning illiteracy among school children. The report said, among other things, that children were having trouble to read because their books were boring. This inspired Geisel's publisher, and prompted him to send Geisel a list of 400 words he felt were important, asked him to cut the list to 250 words (the publishers idea of how many words at one time a first grader could absorb), and write a book. Nine months later, Geisel, using 220 of the words given to him published
The Cat in the Hat
, which went on to instant success.
In 1960 Bennett Cerf bet Geisel $50 that he couldn't write an entire book using only fifty words. The result was
Green Eggs and Ham
. Cerf never paid the $50 from the bet.
Helen Palmer Geisel died in 1967. Theodor Geisel married Audrey Stone Diamond in 1968. Theodor Seuss Geisel died 24 September 1991.
Also worked under the pen name:
Theo Le Sieg
“Fun is good”
“I will not eat them in a house, i will not eat them with a mouse,i will not eat them in a box i will not eat them with a fox, i will not eat them here of there i will not eat them anywhere, I do not like green eggs and ham i do not like them sam i am”
“The Sneetches got really quite smart on that day. The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches. And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches. That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars and whether they had one, or not, upon thars.”
“You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
“Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars.”
“I think I can communicate with kids because I don’t try to communicate with kids. Ninety percent of the children’s books patronize the child and say there’s a difference between you and me, so you listen to this story. I, for some reason or another, don’t do that. I treat the child as an equal.”
“When you're in a Slump,you're not in for much fun.Un-slumping yourselfis not easily done.”
“Nonsense wakes up the brain cells. And it helps develop a sense of humor, which is awfully important in this day and age. Humor has a tremendous place in this sordid world. It's more than just a matter of laughing. If you can see things out of whack, then you can see how things can be in whack.”
“Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find, for a mind maker-upper to make up his mind”
“Got something new , maybe it'll work before the end of the day if that's ok .”
“Out there things can happen, and frequently do,To people as brainy and footsy as you.And when things start to happen, don't worry, don't stew.Just go right along, you'll start happening too!”
“Pop guns! And bicycles! Roller skates! Drums! Checkerboards! Tricycles! Popcorn! And plums!And he stuffed them in bags. Then the Grinch, very nimbly,Stuffed all the bags, one by one, up the chimbley!”
“The Lorax: Which way does a tree fall? The Once-ler: Uh, down? The Lorax: A tree falls the way it leans. Be careful which way you lean.”
“And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day”
“Kid, you'll move mountains.”
“Sometimes you will never know the value of something,until it becomes a memory.”
“You can find magicwherever you look.Sit back and relax,all you need is a book.”
“Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.And the magical things you can do with that ballwill make you the winning-est winner of all.Fame! You'll be as famous as famous can be,with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.Except when they don'tBecause, sometimes they won't.I'm afraid that some timesyou'll play lonely games too.Games you can't win'cause you'll play against you.”
“Fiction Is My Addiction”
“life is a suscess”
“Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.”
“To the world you may be one person; but to one person you may be the world.”
“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!”
“But I've bought a big bat.I'm all ready, you see.Now my troubles are goingTo have troubles with me!”
“Oh, what a day. I will make it a holiday.”
“Today is gone. Today was fun.Tomorrow is another one.Every day,from here to there,funny things are everywhere.”
“No matter what you do, somebody always imputes meaning into your books.”
“You make 'em, I amuse 'em.”
“The words in this book are all phooey. When you say them, your lips will make slips and back flips and your tongue may end up in Saint Looey!”
“And, now, come to this spotWhere the spotlight is hotAnd you'll see in the spotlightA Juggling JottWho can juggle some stuffYou might think he could not...Such as twenty-two question marks,Which is a lot.Also forty-four commasAnd, also, one dot!That's the kind of Circus McGurkus I've got!”
“And will you succeed?Yes! You will, indeed!(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!So...be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Brayor Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,you're off to Great Places!Today is your day!Your mountain is waiting.So...get on your way!”
“The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house. All that cold, cold, wet day.”
“You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed. You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.Except when you don't.Because, sometimes, you won't.”
“You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.Some windows are lighted. but mostly they're darked. But mostly they're darked. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?How much can you lose? How much can you win?”
“It is better to know how to learn than to know.”
“You can get so confusedthat you'll start in to racedown long wiggled roads at a break-necking paceand grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.The Waiting Place...”
“If I were invited to a dinner party with my characters, I wouldn't show up.”
“Shorth is better than length.”
“And he, he himself...the Grinch...carved the roast-beast!”
“I meant no harm I most truly did not, but I had to grow bigger so bigger I got. I biggered my factory, I biggered my roads, I biggered the wagons, I biggered the loads, of the Thneeds I shipped out I was shipping them forth from the South, to the East, to the West. To the North, I went right on biggering selling more thneeds. And I biggered my money which everyone needs.”
“Why are they sad and glad and bad? I do not know, go ask your dad.”
“Oh the thinks you can think up if only you try!”
“My trouble was I had a mind but I couldn't make it up!”
“Oh, the jobs people work at! Out west near Hawtch-Hawtch there's a Hawtch-Hawtcher bee watcher, his job is to watch. Is to keep both his eyes on the lazy town bee, a bee that is watched will work harder you see. So he watched and he watched, but in spite of his watch that bee didn't work any harder not mawtch. So then somebody said "Our old bee-watching man just isn't bee watching as hard as he can, he ought to be watched by another Hawtch-Hawtcher! The thing that we need is a bee-watcher-watcher!". Well, the bee-watcher-watcher watched the bee-watcher. He didn't watch well so another Hawtch-Hawtcher had to come in as a watch-watcher-watcher! And now all the Hawtchers who live in Hawtch-Hawtch are watching on watch watcher watchering watch, watch watching the watcher who's watching that bee. You're not a Hawtch-Watcher you're lucky you see!”
“Think they work you too hard? Think of poor Ali Sard. He has to mow grass in his uncle's backyard and its quick growing grass and it grows as he mows it the faster he mows it the faster he grows it. And all that his stingy old uncle will pay for his shoving mower around the hay is piffulous pay of two dooklas a day. And Ali can't live on such piffulous pay!”
“You ought to be thankful a hole heaping lot, for The places and people you're lucky you're not!”
“The news just came in from the County of KeckThat a very small bug by the name of Van VleckIs yawning so wide you can look down his neck.This may not seem very important, I know, but it Is, so I'm bothering telling you so.”
“And today the great Yertle, that Marvelous he, Is king of the Mud. That is all he can see.And the turtles of course... all the turtles are freeAs turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.”
“Don't grumble! Don't stew!Some critters are much-much,Oh, ever so much-muchSo muchly much-much more unlucky than you!”
“And when you're alone there's a very good chanceyou'll meet things that scare you right out of your pantsThere are some, down the road between hither and yon,that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.”