Ogden Nash Biography Quotes 37 Report mistakes

Early Life
Frederic Ogden Nash was born on August 19, 1902, in Rye, New York, and grew up along the Eastern seaboard, moving with his family through a succession of towns that included stops in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. The frequent relocations gave him an early ear for regional voices and a lifelong fascination with how Americans actually speak. He attended St. George's School in Newport, Rhode Island, where he developed a taste for clever turns of phrase, and he briefly studied at Harvard University before leaving to work. The classroom and the campus gave way to the world of work, yet the love of words that had animated his school days remained constant.

Finding a Literary Path
In the years after leaving university, Nash held a variety of jobs, including teaching and work in advertising and publishing. The practical demands of these roles were balanced by a private discipline of writing playful, pointed verse during odd hours. He began submitting poems to magazines, and by the early 1930s his work was appearing regularly in national outlets. The New Yorker became a particularly important venue, where his airy wit found a ready readership alongside contemporaries such as Dorothy Parker, E. B. White, and James Thurber. Publication in these pages helped establish Nash as a distinctive presence in American letters: a poet of light verse whose humor carried serious insight within its laughter.

Breakthrough and Early Books
Nash's first collection, Hard Lines (1931), was a breakthrough success. It showcased an approach to rhyme that was both mischievous and precise, with lines that swerved unexpectedly and coinages that seemed to bend the English language without breaking it. The book's popularity led to further collections and a national reputation. Around this time he married Frances Leonard, and the couple eventually had two daughters. Family life furnished him with subjects and settings; the daily comedy of domesticity enters his poems not as confession but as affectionate observation, lending warmth to the verbal acrobatics.

Voice and Technique
What made Nash unmistakable was his method: extravagant rhymes, jocular misspellings, and the nimble extension of words to fit a metrical joke, all marshaled to deliver a satiric sting without malice. He delighted in pairing high-flown, polysyllabic terms with colloquial punch lines, a juxtaposition that highlighted both the oddity and the sturdiness of American English. His beasts and bugbears are famous: "If called by a panther / Don't anther", he advises in a compact gem, and generations have quoted his sparkling epigram, "Candy is dandy; but liquor is quicker". The humor is inclusive rather than inside: it invites the reader to share the game, to hear a rhyme forming and then watch it sidestep expectations.

Magazines, Stages, and Collaborations
Nash's magazine work remained a backbone of his career, with poems and short prose pieces appearing in widely read periodicals. His knack for lyrics led him to the stage in the 1940s, most notably in collaboration with composer Kurt Weill on the Broadway musical One Touch of Venus. In that production, with a book by S. J. Perelman and Nash, he supplied lyrics including the enduring song "Speak Low", which demonstrates how his comic timing could also carry romantic melancholy. He enjoyed the company of writers who prized pointed brevity and urbane humor, and he moved comfortably between the publishing world and the theater, giving readings and talks on the lecture circuit that brought his voice and timing directly to audiences.

Baltimore Years and Public Persona
Nash eventually settled in the Baltimore area, a city that became his long-term home and a base for steady production. He traveled widely for readings, but he cultivated the persona of the approachable humorist who could be both a neighbor and a national figure. Those who heard him in person often remarked on his deadpan delivery and the way his printed exuberance translated into a conversational cadence. Friends, colleagues, and admirers encountered a writer as attentive to everyday kindness as to wit, a quality that humanized even his sharpest barbs.

Later Work and Reach
Through the 1950s and 1960s Nash continued to publish collections that extended his range, including verses written with children in mind. "Custard the Dragon" became a cherished piece for younger readers, proving that his linguistic high jinks could be a gateway to reading rather than an obstacle. His poems were anthologized widely, taught in classrooms, and recited in living rooms, not least because they rewarded being read aloud. He shared the cultural space of light verse with figures like Phyllis McGinley, yet his particular blend of whimsy and wordplay remained inimitable. Newspapers and magazines kept turning to him to puncture pretension and to find levity in public life.

Style, Themes, and Influence
Beneath the grin of the rhyme, Nash was a shrewd observer of human foibles: vanity, impatience, sentimentality, and the ever-hopeful urge to improve ourselves. He favored the comic miniature, a form that allowed him to test how far language could stretch while still snapping satisfyingly into place. His approach legitimized light verse as a durable American mode, influencing humorists and poets who learned from his elasticity and ear. Lines of his seeped into everyday speech, a sure sign that the poems had joined the folk memory of a culture. Performers and writers alike have acknowledged the usefulness of his example, which showed that levity could be rigorous and that play could be a mode of truth.

Final Years and Legacy
Ogden Nash died in Baltimore on May 19, 1971, after a long and remarkably consistent career. By then he had compiled a body of work that mapped the possibilities of comic poetry in the twentieth century. His contemporaries had changed, the magazines had evolved, and the American vernacular had shifted, yet his poems continued to feel current because they were built from the living textures of speech. The craft behind the jokes ensured their longevity. Today, Nash stands as the preeminent American light verse poet of his century, a writer whose best lines are still quoted, whose rhythms are still fun to mouth, and whose genial intelligence still opens readers to the idea that laughter is a form of understanding.

Our collection contains 37 quotes who is written by Ogden, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Puns & Wordplay - Parenting - Aging - Family.

Other people realated to Ogden: Richard Armour (Poet)

• 1938 I'm a Stranger Here Myself (Collection)
• 1931 Hard Lines (Collection)