Passing Clouds - a talk about the writer Damon Runyon

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Comment by Richard Paul Roman on April 18, 2015 at 22:42

Ok everyone. Am down in Shenzhen at the moment but hoping that if I have enough time when I get back, that I will make this into an interactive participation event!

Comment by Richard Paul Roman on April 17, 2015 at 20:58

Come on Sunday to find out more about this amazing writer

Comment by Richard Paul Roman on April 7, 2015 at 17:17

A free-loader is a confirmed guest. He is the man who is always willing to come to dinner.


Always try to rub up against money, for if you rub up against money long enough, some of it may rub off on you.
Damon Runyon - "A Very Honorable Guy" in Cosmopolitan (August 1929)

And you cannot tell by the way a party looks or how he lives in this town, if he has any scratch, because many a party who is around in automobiles, and wearing good clothes, and chucking quite a swell is nothing but a phonus bolonus and does not have any real scratch whatever.


He is without strict doubt a Hoorah Henry, and he is generally figured as nothing but a lob as far as doing anything useful in this world is concerned.


He who tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted.
Damon Runyon - Guys and Dolls (1932)

I long ago come to the conclusion that all life is six to five against.
Damon Runyon - "A Nice Price"

I once knew a chap who had a system of just hanging the baby on the clothes line to dry and he was greatly admired by his fellow citizens for having discovered a wonderful innovation on changing a diaper.
Damon Runyon - "Short Takes" (1946)

If I have all the tears that are shed on Broadway by guys in love, I will have enough salt water to start an opposition ocean to the Atlantic and Pacific, with enough left over to run the Great Salt Lake out of business. But I wish to say I never shed any of these tears personally, because I am never in love, and furthermore, barring a bad break, I never expect to be in love, for the way I look at it love is strictly the old phedinkus, and I tell the little guy as much.
Damon Runyon - "Tobias the Terrible" in More than Somewhat (1937)

It may be that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong - but that's the way to bet.
Damon Runyon - Guys and Dolls (1932)

One of these days in your travels a guy is going to come up to you and show you a nice brand-new deck of cards on which the seal is not yet broken, and this guy is going to offer to bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of the deck and squirt cider in you ear. But son, do not bet this man, for sure as you stand there, you are going to wind up with an earful of cider.
Damon Runyon - Guys and Dolls (1932)

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.


She has a laugh so hearty it knocks the whipped cream off an order of strawberry shortcake on a table fifty feet away.


She is a smart old broad. It is a pity she is so nefarious.


Well, now, Dobber has a pretty fair sort of memory, and he says that Miss Sarah Brown tells The Sky that since he seems to know so much about the Bible, maybe he remembers the second verse of the Song of Solomon, but the chances are Dobber muffs the number of the verse, because I look the matter up in one of these Gideon Bibles, and the verse seems a little too much for Miss Sarah Brown, although of course you never can tell.
Damon Runyon - Guys and Dolls (1932)

You can become a winner only if you are willing to walk over the edge.