Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Discover the life, poetic style, and enduring legacy of Ogden Nash—the American master of light verse. Read his biography, biggest achievements, famous sayings, and the lessons we can draw from his witty, whimsical world.

Introduction

Frederic Ogden Nash (August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971) was an American poet renowned for his playful, humorous, and often mischievous verse. He penned more than 500 poems—many deceptively simple in form but sly in meaning—and became arguably the most widely known poet of light verse in 20th-century America.

Unlike epic or solemn poets, Nash embraced laughter, wordplay, and unexpected rhymes to reflect on everyday life, human foibles, and social quirks. His lines—such as “Candy / Is dandy, / But liquor / Is quicker”—are now part of American popular culture.

This article explores Nash’s origins, his development as a poet, the contours of his work, and why his humor continues to resonate.

Early Life and Family

Ogden Nash was born Frederic Ogden Nash in Rye, New York, on August 19, 1902, to Edmund Strudwick Nash and Mattie (Chenault) Nash.

Though Nash had distinguished ancestry—one of his forebears, Abner Nash, served as governor of North Carolina, and his brother’s name gave rise to the city of Nashville—Ogden Nash had little patience for gravitas and often mocked pretension in his writing.

From a young age, Nash possessed a musical ear for rhyme. He later recalled that he “thought in terms of rhyme” as early as age six.

In his youth, Nash lived briefly in Savannah, Georgia, and elsewhere along the East Coast, as his family’s circumstances dictated.

Youth and Education

Nash attended St. George’s School in Newport, Rhode Island, during his teenage years.

After leaving Harvard, Nash worked a variety of odd jobs: selling bonds (with mixed success), teaching for a short time, and working in advertising and publishing.

Nash’s anecdotes suggest he often found more inspiration in the margins—scribbling humorous lines and tossing them to co-workers—than in formal assignments.

Career and Achievements

First Breakthroughs

Nash’s poetic career gained traction around 1930, when The New Yorker published his poem “Spring Comes to Murray Hill.”

In 1931, Nash published his first collection, Hard Lines, with Simon & Schuster. That book was an immediate success: it went through multiple printings during its first year.

By the mid-1930s and 1940s, Nash’s output expanded. He published a series of volumes of poems, children’s verse, humorous essays, and occasional theatrical works.

Theater, Lyrics, and Popular Fame

Nash also ventured into the theater. In 1943 he provided the lyrics for the Broadway musical One Touch of Venus, collaborating with librettist S. J. Perelman and composer Kurt Weill. Two’s Company in 1952.

Over time, Nash became a recognizable public figure. He made guest appearances on radio and television, toured lecture circuits, and remained an unapologetic champion of light verse in literary circles.

In 1968, Life magazine ran a feature on Nash’s affection for the Baltimore Colts, pairing his poems about the team with dramatic photographs of players.

Style, Themes, and Literary Position

Nash’s poetry is often categorized as “light verse”—that is, humorous, witty, playful—but it would be a mistake to see it as superficial. He approached language with mischievous creativity, twisting idioms, inventing coinages, and embracing odd rhyme schemes.

Some of his more famous lines have become embedded in American vernacular:

• “If called by a panther / Don’t anther”

• “In the vanities / No one wears panities”

• “Candy / Is dandy, / But liquor / Is quicker”

His work often targets the small absurdities of culture: marriage, aging, consumer habits, political hypocrisy, human vanity. He was not above gentle satire or parody, yet he usually avoided bitterness.

Literary critics have sometimes marginalised light verse, considering it lesser than solemn poetry. But during his lifetime and afterward, Nash was widely anthologized—even in supposedly serious collections.

Later Years and Death

In 1931 Nash married Frances Rider Leonard, from Baltimore.

After marriage, Nash settled in Baltimore and remained there for much of his life.

Historical Context & Milestones

• Nash’s rise coincided with the golden age of American magazines. His relationship with The New Yorker gave him a steady platform for reaching a refined audience.

• His decision to focus on humor during eras of economic turmoil (e.g. the Depression) allowed him to voice skepticism, satire, and relief simultaneously.

• Over decades, Nash’s work bridged popular culture and literary respectability, making him a rare figure whose verses circulated in parlor rooms, anthologies, classrooms, and newspapers alike.

• In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service honored Nash’s centennial by issuing a postage stamp featuring his portrait and lines from six of his poems.

Legacy and Influence

Ogden Nash’s legacy is multifaceted:

1. Popularizing Light Verse
   He remains perhaps the best-known American poet of light verse. During his lifetime, he was widely imitated; after his death, his name and lines continued to circulate.

2. Cultural Quotations
   His humorous lines have entered the public lexicon. Many casual readers may recognize “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker” without knowing the author.

3. Encouraging a Gentle Satire
   Nash showed that humor need not be harsh to be effective. His tone was often affectionate rather than contemptuous—a style that influenced later humorists and poets seeking to balance wit and wisdom.

4. Inspiration to Light Poets
   Writers who blend humor and wordplay (especially in children’s poetry or limericks) often acknowledge Nash as a model.

5. Commemorations and Scholarship
   Nash’s work continues to be studied in poetry courses, anthologies, and biographies. The 2002 postage stamp and continued critical interest keep his name alive in American letters.

Personality and Talents

Nash projected the air of a genial observer. He relished language puzzles, playful inversions, and the cracks in human pretension. He once wrote:

“Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor … a wry acceptance of our predicament.”

He was self-aware about his poetic niche—he sometimes called himself a “worsifier”, a pun on “poet” and “versifier.”

Despite health struggles and the vagaries of the literary marketplace, Nash persisted. He sometimes supplemented his poetic income by writing lyrics, making speaking appearances, or penning light verse for greeting cards.

His sense of humor was both sharp and affectionate; he looked for irony in modest daily life rather than grand tragedies. In that restraint, his poetry finds a timeless, accessible voice.

Famous Quotes of Ogden Nash

Here are some of Nash’s best-known sayings—small gems of wit and insight:

• “To keep your marriage brimming,
  ?With love in the loving cup,
  ?Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
  ?Whenever you're right, shut up.”

• “You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.”

• “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.”

• “Some pains are physical, and some pains are mental, but the one that’s both is dental.”

• “The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.”

• “Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other who never forgets them.”

• “I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance, Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance.”

• “If you don’t want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won’t have to work.”

• “There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, And that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.”

• “Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor …”

These lines reflect Nash’s playful logic, his ironic distance, and his ability to turn a familiar idea into a comedic twist.

Lessons from Ogden Nash

From Nash’s life and work, several lessons emerge—useful not only for poets, but for anyone who values creativity and wit:

1. Humor as lens
   Nash shows that humor is not a retreat from gravity, but a lens through which to see truth. In laughing at the small absurdities, we come to see ourselves more clearly.

2. Embrace constraints
   His playful rhymes and invented words display how self-imposed constraints—rhyme, meter, brevity—can fuel rather than stifle creativity.

3. Stay light in serious times
   When the world is troubled, Nash’s light verse reminds us that not everything needs weight. Sometimes levity offers resilience.

4. Persistence over prestige
   Nash never insisted on being a “great serious poet.” He carved a niche that suited him—and succeeded on his own terms.

5. Accessibility doesn’t mean vacuity
   His popular appeal, counter to dismissals of humor, testifies that work can be widely loved without being shallow.

Conclusion

Ogden Nash’s gift was the ability to see life’s foibles and laugh alongside them, without cruelty. He found the comic groove in marriage, aging, language, human desire—and distilled it in deceptively simple forms that linger in memory.

His legacy endures not only through anthologies and scholarly studies, but through the ordinary conversation: people still quote Nash’s lines at dinner tables and in greeting cards. He occupies a rare place where wit, humility, and poetic craft intersect.

Let his example encourage us: to look at the world with sharper eyes, to twist cliché into surprise, and to remember that humor can be a companion to insight.

Explore his collections—Hard Lines, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, The Face Is Familiar, and many more—and let Nash’s droll voice brighten your own journey.