Richard Lederer puts it this way:
"Paradox is a partricularly powerful device to ensnare truth
because it concisely illuminates the contradictions that are at the very heart of our lives. It engages our hearts and minds
because, beyond its figurative employment, paradox has always been at the center of the human experience."
Other thoughts:
"Good fiction is that which is real." (Ralph Ellison)
"Some people can stay longer in an hour than others can in
a week." - William Dean Howells
"He has not a single redeeming defect." Benjamin Disraeli
(about William Gladstone)
"A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove
that you don't need it." - Bob Hope
"I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of
which is to be flexible at all times." - Everett Dirksen
"How is it possible to have a civil war?" - George Carlin
"To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life."
- Gelett Burgess
"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family--
in another city." - George Burns
"I had to give up masochism; I was enjoying it too much."
- Mel Calman
"You can't make anything idiot-proof because idiots are so
ingenious." - Ron Burns
"I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?" (Benjamin
Disraeli)
"There is always a right and a wrong way, and the wrong way
always seems the most reasonable." (George Moore)
"George Moore wrote brilliant English until he discovered
grammar."
(Oscar Wilde)
"Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while
you're at it."
(Horace Greely)
"Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?"
(James Thurber)
"Deep down, I'm pretty superficial." (Ava Gardner)
"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."
(Peter Ustinov)
And who said "His ignorance is encylopedic?"
