go while the going is good
go while the going is good
Get away while you can; make progress while conditions are favorable. This turn of phrase, a twentieth-century Americanism, appears in several popular novels of the first half of the century, among them John O’Hara’s Appointment in Samarra (1934), as well as in a letter of H. L. Mencken’s of 1916: “You would be a maniac not to go out for all that money while the going is good.”
See also: go, going, good, while
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
- color of your money, let's see the
- all-time high (low)
- gussied up, to get (all)
- give (someone/something) the once-over, to
- for the birds, it's/that's
- get a kick out of (something/someone), to
- at this juncture/moment/point in time
- the suspense is killing me
- get stiffed, to
- what do you know, (well)