Welcome to On the Road

Many years ago I wrote a newsletter column called On the Road. The column lusted after literary credibility by borrowing (stealing) the title from Jack Kerouac's novel. But in fact, it sunk to the rambling and muttering that is the fate of virtually all running-related writing.
The rambling and muttering continue here in quasi-blog form. My writing and interests (links) are random, personal, and ad-free. Dave Smith.

Quote Archive

Illusion is the first of all pleasures. [Oscar Wilde]

If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no longer be fantasies. [Fran Lebowitz]

There's no such thing as advice to the lovelorn. If they took advice, they wouldn't be lovelorn. You see, advice and lovelorn don't go together. Because advice makes love sound like some sort of cognitive activity, but we know that it isn't. We all know that it's some sort of horrible chemical reaction over which we have absolutely no control. And that's why advice doesn't work. [Fran Lebowitz]

Everything about Randy proclaimed him to be a man's man, though neither in the sense of being the kind of man women are drawn to and men want to be nor in the homosexual sense, rather, in the sense of being a highly efficient and well-compensated valet.

Elaine: And what about the pony huh? What kind of abnormal animal is that? They're like big riding dogs. [Seinfeld]

I believe in getting into hot water. I think it keeps you clean. [G. K. Chesterton]

On the other hand, the hallowed Ella Fitzgerald herself long knew she couldn't sing the blues. As one critic put it, when Billie sings "My man done left me . . " it is an apocalypse; when Ella does, it sounds as if he's gone down to the corner for some cigarettes. [Don Rose]

Your daughter's attention-seeking rendition of "I'm a Little Teapot" will backfire this week when it suddenly dawns on you that you'd much rather have a teapot than a daughter.

Set aside some time to enjoy the simple pleasures life has to offer. Ten to 15 seconds should be more than enough to experience them all.

Hector had just met Sabina minutes before, and yet there they were, knees touching, faces just inches apart in the dimly-lit room, and her gazing deep into his eyes, which should not have been a surprise to either of them given that she was an ophthalmologist and he was a boxer whose left retina may have become detached the night before when "Mad Dog" Washington clocked him with a vicious right cross.

A par on the final hole would clinch the U.S. Open for the in-form Tiger Woods but, in truth, this mattered little to Herbert Cruddle as a gigantic wave swept him over the side of his floundering shrimp trawler.

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. [Edward Phelps]

Stanley looked quite bored and somewhat detached, but then penguins often do.

She clung to the memory of their love like those tiny bits of used tissues he always left in his pockets, which mostly ended up in the dryer lint basket although enough of them welded themselves to her favorite navy blue, polar fleece pullover, rendering it as permanently flawed and unappealing as his name tattooed on her butt.

As a scientist, Throckmorton knew that if he were ever to break wind in the echo chamber, he would never hear the end of it.

I mean, they were the kind of mellow times, but not exactly state-of-the-art times, if you follow. [Peter Schermerhorn]

It was high noon in the jungles of South India when I began to recognize that if we didn't find water for our emus soon, it wouldn't be long before we would be traveling by foot; and with the guerilla warriors fast on our heals, I was starting to regret my decision to use poultry for transportation.

With a curvaceous figure that Venus would have envied, a tanned unblemished oval face framed with lustrous thick brown hair, deep azure-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, perfect teeth that vied for competition, and a small straight nose, Marilee had a beauty that defied description. [Alice A. Hall]

The November snow was thin and slushy -- almost as if the angels in Heaven were brushing their teeth and dribbling toothpaste over the earth. [Mary Catherine Weir]

The surface of the strange, forbidden planet was roughly textured and green, much like cottage cheese gets way after the date on the lid says it is all right to buy it. [Scott Davis Jones]

As Roland slithered from a sly fox-trot into a torrid fandango, Melanie felt herself collapsing in his arms like meringue, or maybe like a slightly warmed raspberry sauce, or no, she decided -- definitely like a peche flambe, but of course lit up on all edges. [Sarah Remington]

Randi gazed thoughtfully up at the clear night sky, an inky canvas dotted with the tiny lights of distant suns, like lint on an infinite pair of dress slacks. [Cora Williams Weisenberg]

As Maria walked along the beach, the clouds grew angry, the sea raged, the wind howled, and the sand was just plain irritated. [Jeff Kruse]

As he finished off the last of his bourbon, Sidney realized that he was in for another evening of dancing rodents and flying elephants; God, how he hated working the night shift at Disney Studios. [James Dainis]

Being turned into a cockroach was a shock of epic proportions, but at least Twinkies still tasted the same. [Jeremy Rice]

Mike Hardware was the kind of private eye who didn't know the meaning of the word "fear," a man who could laugh in the face of danger and spit in the eye of death -- in short, a moron with suicidal tendencies. [Eddie Lawhorn]

Tom stopped picking the fuzz of Linda's angora sweater off his shirt, glanced up to see Linda clomp out of their hideously well-decorated bedroom carrying her ferns and his Don Ho albums, and felt a cold chill go up his spine as he realized that he did not know how to operate the microwave oven. [Lucian Janik, Jr.]

It didn't matter to Gordon that he couldn't outrun the enraged mother grizzly; all he had to do was outdistance his chubby hiking partner, Fred.

Herr Professor Doktor Weiss' reputation was made when he conclusively proved the fraudulency of the Mayan codex that claimed to show that that ancient people knew the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter to an exactitude unknown until modern times, in his article, "Bye, Bye, Mesoamerican Pi." [John L. Drost]

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues. [Duke Ellington]

Like a baleen whale inhaling krill--a collection of small marine crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea--or an anteater sucking up Formicidae-- characteristically having wings only in the males and fertile females and living in colonies that have a complex social organization--her lips sought out mine in a passionate kiss. [Michael J. Sheehan]

Police Officer: If we find your stuff we'll let you know.
Jerry: Do you ever find anything?
Police Officer: No. [Seinfeld]

Jerry: "Explain to me how this baby shower thing works."
Elaine: "What do you wanna know?"
Jerry: "Well, I mean, does it ever erupt into a drunken orgy of violence?"
Elaine: "Rarely." [Seinfeld]

Kramer: [about Elaine] I still don't understand what the problem is having her in the building.
Jerry: Let me explain something to you.. You see, you're not normal. You're a great guy, I love you, but you're a pod. I, on the other hand, am a human being. I sometimes feel awkward, uncomfortable, even inhibited in certain situations with the other human beings. You wouldn't understand. [Seinfeld]

Carol: Would you like to come upstairs for coffee?
George: No, thanks, I can't drink coffee late at night. It keeps me up. [Seinfeld]

Kramer: I'm human . . .
Jerry: In your way. [Seinfeld]

There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory. [Josh Billings]

As the newest Lady Turnpot descended into the kitchen wrapped only in her celery-green dressing gown, her creamy bosom rising and falling like a temperamental souffle, her tart mouth pursed in distaste, the sous-chef whispered to the scullery boy, "I don't know what to make of her." [Laurel Fortuner]

It was a day, like any other day, in that Linus got up, faced the sunrise, used his inhaler, applied that special cream between his toes, wrote a quick note and put it in a bottle, and wished he'd been stranded on the island with something other than 40 cases each of inhalers, decorative bottles, and special toe cream. [Chris Harget]

When Cinderella saw that the Prince had sent the Duke to find the woman of his dreams, like some rich schoolboy who pays the smartest kid in the class to do his homework, or worse, like someone who has been on welfare so long that he has trouble doing any kind of work, she suddenly realized the spoiled nature of the King's son and stealthily slid the slipper back into her pocket. [Milton Combs]

"Grasshopper, the three secrets of life are as follows: first, keep your eyes and ears open; second: don't tell everything you know." [Andy Otes]

Some years ago, after the men's Olympic Marathon Trials in Hawaii, Duncan Macdonald said the marathon "was designed by perverts to be run by people with sick minds." Pete Pfitzinger responded: "The marathon is grueling but success comes through preparation. You get ready for a marathon like you get ready for war. But if you're not prepared for the marathon, it takes a sick mind to run it."

You're only as young as the last time you changed your mind. [Timothy Leary]

The goose waddled slowly, heavily, across the road, exactly the way my mother-in-law would if she were a goose. [Mary Montiel]

On reflection, Angela perceived that her relationship with Tom had always been rocky, not quite a roller-coaster ride but more like when the toilet-paper roll gets a little squashed so it hangs crooked and every time you pull some off you can hear the rest going bumpity-bumpity in its holder until you go nuts and push it back into shape, a degree of annoyance that Angela had now almost attained. [Rephah Berg]

The notes blatted skyward as the sun rose over the Canada geese, feathered rumps mooning the day, webbed appendages frantically peddling unseen bicycles in their search for sustenance, driven by Nature's maxim, "Ya wanna eat, ya gotta work," and at last I knew Pittsburgh. [Sheila B. Richter]

Criminy, thought Francine as she left the birthing center, if the baby's an unknown life-form, it probably means Ricky wasn't really from West Hartford, either. [David Wyman]

Can’t explain
The sources of this hidden pain
You burned your way into my heart
You got the key to my brain. ["Spirit on the Water" Bob Dylan]

David loved Marisela's voice, which was like fresh honeydew melon wrapped in fine prosciutto, and pierced with a round, teal gourmet toothpick, set on a Lenox Fruits of Life serving plate upon a mahogany table in a brilliantly sunlit (albeit in need of redecorating) dining room, but he wasn't very fond of anything she said. [Stephen V. Masse]

He loved her like no other, their romance developing quickly, like the rapid growth of farm swine which grow from 2 to 4 pounds daily until they're fully grown and put to market for slaughter, or like the rapidly growing cells that produce moose antlers until they fall off in early spring, and suddenly Bill sensed the imminent doom of his romance lying in wait. [Jeremy Perreaux]

Despite the vast differences it their ages, ethnicity, and religious upbringing, the sexual chemistry between Roberto and Heather was the most amazing he had ever experienced; and for the entirety of the Labor Day weekend they had sex like monkeys on espresso, not those monkeys in the zoo that fling their feces at you, but more like the monkeys in the wild that have those giant red butts, and access to an espresso machine. [Dennis Barry]

It had been a dark and stormy night, but as dawn began to light up the eastern sky, to the west the heavens suddenly cleared, unveiling a pale harvest moon that reposed gently atop the distant mesa like a pumpkin on a toilet with the lid down. [Gerald R. Johnson]

A saddle-weary Cactus Sam smashed the glass down on the bar of the Two-Gun Saloon and said, with barely controlled fury, "This Banana Daiquiri is not sweet enough!" [Richard C. Johnson]

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time. [George Bernard Shaw]

It's tough when you make an embarrassing mistake. It's even tougher when you discover that you're so unimportant that no one noticed it. [G. K. Chesterton]

If a man smiles all the time, he's probably selling something that doesn't work. [George Carlin]

We were longing for the pitter-patter of little feet, so we bought a dog. It's cheaper, and you get more feet. [Rita Rudner]

Reality is good for you . . . in small doses.

By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me. (Oscar Wilde)

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

Why do people who know the least know it the loudest.

We move from one stage of self-deception to another. [Sartre]

My attitude toward punctuation is that it ought to be as conventional as possible. The game of golf would lose a good deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green. You ought to be able to show that you can do it a good deal better than anyone else with the regular tools before you have a license to bring in your own improvements. [Ernest Hemingway]

What I say is that, if a fellow really likes potatoes, he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow. [Alan Alexander Milne]

I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.

I've never seen a homeless guy with a bottle of Gatorade. [George Carlin]

Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always explaining things to them. [Le Petit Prince]

Just because swans mate for life, I don't think it's that big a deal. First of all, if you're a swan, you're probably not going to find a swan that looks much better than the one you've got, so why not mate for life? [Jack Handy]

Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present -- which seldom happens to us. [La Bruyère]

This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don't want to mix emotions up with a wine like that. You lose the taste. [Ernest Hemingway]

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank the cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and make plans. [Ernest Hemingway]

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know? [Ernest Hemingway]

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. [Benjamin Franklin]

We perceive when love begins and when it declines by our embarrassment when alone together.

Where do I begin . . . on the heels of Rimbaud moving like a dancing bullet thru the secret streets of a hot New Jersey night filled with venom and wonder. Meeting the Queen Angel in the reeds of Babylon and then to the Fountain of Sorrow to drift away in the hot mass of the deluge . . . [Bob Dylan]

No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the mistake is to do it solemnly. [D. A. Battista]

I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy, I was deprived. Then they told me deprived was a bad image, I was underprivileged. Then they told me underprivileged was overused, I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime. But I sure have a great vocabulary. [Jules Feiffer]

Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she would come in and sink my boats.

According to a new survey, women say they feel more comfortable undressing in front of men than they do undressing in front of other women. They say that women are too judgmental, where, of course, men are just grateful. [Rita Rudner]

Some folks can look so busy doing nothin' that they seem indispensable. [Kin Hubbard]

The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat. [Albert Einstein]

If you're going to have delusions, you may as well go for the really satisfying ones.

She had a lot of face and chin. She had pewter-colored hair set in a ruthless permanent, a hard beak, and large moist eyes with the sympathetic expression of wet stones. [Raymond Chandler]

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. [Woody Allen]

I'm not a fighter, I have bad reflexes. I was once run over by a car being pushed by two guys. [Woody Allen]

A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' [Douglas Adams]

Just remember: bullies are a lot more afraid of you than you are of them ... wait, no, that's snakes. [Samantha Bee]

Some drink deeply from the river of knowledge. Others only gargle. [Woody Allen]

Carla Wolper, MD: Americans are the fattest they've ever been.
Samantha Bee: Are we the fattest nation in the world?
Wolper: We are.
Bee: AWESOME! WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WHOOHOO! High five! Whoo! Yes!
[The Daily Show, all the news you need]

Stay with me; I want to be alone. [Joey Bishop]

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why? Answer: I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever. [Miss Alabama, in the 1994 Miss Universe contest]

We didn't send you to Washington to make intelligent decisions. We sent you to represent us. [Kent York, Baptist minister to US Rep. Bill Sarpalius]

True friends are hard to come by . . . I need more money. [Calvin]

Because modeling is lucrative, I'm able to save up and be more particular about the acting roles I take. [Kathy Ireland, star of 'Alien From L.A.' and 'Danger Island']

Confidence is what you have before you understand the problem. [Woody Allen]

If I tell a lie it's only because I think I'm telling the truth. [Phil Gaglardi, Minister of Highways, British Columbia, Canada]

The worst part is that I don't even have the fun of doing the things I'm getting blamed for. [Calvin]

His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy. [Woody Allen]

Who decides when the applause should die down? It seems like it's a group decision; everyone begins to say to themselves at the same time, "Well, okay, that's enough of that." [George Carlin]

I always get the feeling that when lesbians look at me, they're thinking, 'That's why I'm not a heterosexual.' [George Costanza]

I'm afraid we have a lunatic on our hands . . . Look he's doing it again! That same man from yesterday just drove by and threw a newspaper at our porch!

Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
Hobbes: Isn't your pants zipper supposed to be in the front?

With the truth so dull and depressing, the only working alternative is wild bursts of madness and filigree. [Hunter S. Thompson]

Reality continues to ruin my life. [Calvin]

I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry. [Rita Rudner]

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out. [David Sedaris]

What's the difference between skiing and paying someone three hundred bucks to drag you out into the snow and break your knee?
I don't know.
Then let's go skiing. [toothpastefordinner]

ITEM #53404211708: crappy dog (pug dogs poop NR).
dog craps everywhere. comes w/ 4 legs, tail. SOLD AS IS. no reserve [toothpastefordinner]

You see, son, love is like a cast-iron pan. It sounds like a good idea at first, but then it turns black and you can never wash it and
eventually you just get tired of messing with it so you throw it out in the alley. [toothpastefordinner]

What's the point? How can you burn calories if they are frozen? [John Lussier, after Bob ran 15 miles in frigid temperature, blistering wind, and snow]

You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help. [Calvin]

One great thing about getting old is that you can get out of all sorts of social obligations just by saying you're too tired. [George Carlin]

It was his subconscious which told him this - that infuriating part of a person's brain which never responds to interrogation, merely gives little meaningful nudges and then sits humming quietly to itself, saying nothing. [Douglas Adams]

Love without reason lasts the longest.

Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction. [Antoine de Saint-Exupery]

Everybody has a right to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilege. [Joseph Stalin]

Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be. [Rita Rudner]

It seems like once people grow up, they have no idea what's cool. [Calvin]

I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead -- not sick, not wounded -- dead. [Woody Allen]

Life's a lot more fun when you're not responsible for your actions. [Calvin]

Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all. [Woody Allen]

Excuse me, sir, I'm having trouble locating my square dancing club meeting? Can you help me? Also, my glasses fell out of my fanny pack, and I can't find my asthma inhaler, and I feel an attack of my allergies coming on. I'm allergic to wheat, sugar, bumblebees, milk, wool, cotton, polyblends, pony hair, oatmeal, soap, sunshine. I should probably also mention that I'm a virgin and a bedwetter. [Samantha Bee, The Daily Show]

Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you? [Benjamin Braddock, The Graduate]

We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us. [La Rochefoucauld]

A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika. [Dorothy Parker]

It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes. [Douglas Adams]

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. [James Thurber]

The perfect lover is one who turns into a pizza at 4am. [Charles Pierce]

London tabloids published photos of supermodel Kate Moss snorting cocaine.
One columnist said it would be bigger news if a supermodel had snorted donuts.

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well. [Joe Ancis]

Happiness? That's nothing more than health and a poor memory. [Albert Schweitzer]

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire. [George Bernard Shaw]

Writing is turning one's worst moments into money. [J.P. Donleavy]

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. [George Bernard Shaw]

I will not listen to reason. Reason always means what someone else has to say. [Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell]

It's a dull child who knows less than its father.

Law school is the opposite of sex. Even when it's good, it's lousy.

The happiest liaisons are based on mutual misunderstanding. [La Rochefoucauld]

I like life. It's something to do. [Ronnie Shakes]

Babies don't need vacations, but I still see them at the beach. [Steven Wright]

I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster and drank pina coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn't I get that day over and over and over! [Bill Murray, Groundhog Day]

Everyone has talent at 25. The difficulty is to have it at 50. [Edgar Degas]

In the United States, anybody can become president. That's the problem. [George Carlin]

Does God get stoned? I think so. Look at the platypus. [Robin Williams]

Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it. [Harry Truman]

Arthur Dent: You know, it's a time like this, when I'm stuck in a Volgon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, about to die of asphyxiation in deep space, that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young.
Ford Perfect: Why? What did she tell you?
Arthur Dent: I don't know. I didn't listen.
[Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]

Man was made at the end of week's work, when God was tired. [Mark Twain]

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. [Franklin P. Jones]

French fries. I love them. Some people are chocolate and sweets people. I love French fries. That and caviar. [Cameron Diaz]

Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies. [Oscar Wilde]

Youth is such a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children. [George Bernard Shaw]

The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf. [Will Rogers]

There is much to be said for modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. [Oscar Wilde]

I never know how much of what I say is true. [Bette Midler]

Why torture yourself when life will do it for you. [Laura Walker]

I like winter because I can stay indoors without feeling guilty. [Teressa Skelton]

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke. [Lynda Barry]

I think the world is run by C students. [Al McGuire]

I kissed my first girl and had my first cigarette on the same day. I haven't had time for tobacco since. [Arturo Toscanini]

My mother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is. [Ellen DeGeneris]

The last 10 yards his body was a solid block of lactic acid, with those straining neck muscles pulling his lip down and his back arched, trapezia trying to pull him over backwards. And all the way Quenton Cassidy is telling himself . . . [Once a Runner, John Parker]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. [Sigmund Freud]

Strife is better than loneliness. [Irish saying]

I prefer Hostess fruit pies to pop-up toaster tarts because they don't require so much cooking. [Carrie Snow]

Some day we'll look back on this moment and plow into a parked car. [Evan Davis]

Whoever said money can't buy happiness didn't know where to shop.

If you can't be kind, at least be vague. [Judith Martin]

Tips for Teens -- Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra. [Fran Lebowitz]

Tips for Teens. Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you. [Fran Lebowitz]

Children ask better questions than adults. "May I have a cookie?" "Why is the sky blue?" "What does a cow say?" are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than "Where's your manuscript?" "Why haven't you called?" and "Who's your lawyer?" [Fran Lebowitz]

Cheese that is required by law to append the word "food" to its title does not go well with red wine or fruit. [Fran Lebowitz]

I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up. [Tom Lehrer]

Alvy sees a young trendy-looking couple, arms wrapped around each other. "You-you look like a really happy couple. Uh, uh . . . are you?"
Young woman: "Yeah."
Alvy: "Yeah ! So . . . so h-h-how do you account for it?"
Young woman: "Uh, I'm very shallow and empty and I have no ideas and nothing interesting to say."
Young man: "And I'm exactly the same way."
Alvy: "I see. Well, that's very interesting. So you've managed to work out something, huh?"
Young man: "Right."
Young woman: "Yeah."
[Annie Hall]

Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for. [Earl Warren]

The average person thinks he isn't. [Father Larry Lorenzoni]

If my film makes one person miserable, I've done my job. [Woody Allen]

There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply.
The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey. [John Ruskin]

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses. [Margaret Millar]

Some guy hit my fender, and I said to him, "Be fruitful and multiply," but not in those words. [Woody Allen]

If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you.
This is the primary difference between a dog and a man. [Mark Twain]

A woman who takes things from a man is called a girlfriend. A man who takes things from a woman is called a gigolo. [Ruthie Stein]

Living with a conscience is like driving a car with the brakes on. [Budd Schulberg]

Where there's smoke, there's toast.

Men should stop fighting among themselves and start fighting insects. [Luther Burbank]

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance. [Jane Austen]

If it tastes good, it's tryin to kill you. [Roy Qualley]

The word "hamstrings" comes from the fact that it is these muscles by which a butcher would hang a slaughtered pig.

Never mistake endurance for hospitality.

I'm astounded by people who want to know the universe, when it's hard enough to find your way around Chinatown. [Woody Allen]

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature. [George Bernard Shaw]

I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. [Hunter S. Thompson]

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well. [Joe Ancis]

He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.

If you cannot annoy somebody, there is little point in writing. [Kingsley Amis]

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. [Howard Aiken]

How much money did you make last year? Mail it in. [simplified tax form]

There are more of them than us. [Herb Caen]

Bed is the poor man's opera. [Italian proverb]

If you want to look young and thin, hang around old fat people. [Jim Eason]

As a novelist, I tell stories, and people give me money. Then financial planners tell me stories, and I give them money. [Martin Cruz Smith]

Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything. [Charles Kuralt]

The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature is to build better mice.

I'm a lousy writer; a helluva lot of people have got lousy taste. [Grace Metalious]

A clear conscience is often the sign of a bad memory.

Sometimes a fool makes a good suggestion. [Nicolas Boileau]

The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of its behind. [General Joseph Stilwell]

Prejudices save time. [Robert Byrne]

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. [John Nesvig]

Jack liked his women the way he liked his kiwi fruit; sweet yet tart, firm-fleshed yet yielding to the touch, and covered with short brown fuzzy hair. [Gretchen Schmidt, entry in San Jose State's bad writing contest, 1989]

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid. [George Bernard Shaw]

It was such a lovely day, I thought it a pity to get up. [W. Somerset Maugham]

I'm for abolishing and doing away with redundancy. [J. Curtis McKay, Wisconsin State Elections Board]

Anyone who doesn't make mistakes isn't trying hard enough. [Wess Roberts]

Don't spit in the soup. We all gotta eat. [Lyndon Johnson]

They gave me a book of checks. They didn't ask for any deposits. [Joe Early, Congressman (Mass), at a press conference to answer questions about the House Bank scandal]

We didn't send you to Washington to make intelligent decisions. We sent you to represent us. [Kent York, Baptist minister to US Rep. Bill Sarpalius]

I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law. [David Dinkins, former New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes]

I'm not indecisive. Am I indecisive? [Jim Scheibel, mayor, St. Paul MN]

Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of range before it is understood.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. [Gustave Flaubert]

If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you. [Groucho Marx]

I am my mother's daughter. Just as she would have done, I arrived at the airport, checked my bag, snaked through security, and got to the Alaska Airlines gate two hours before departure. I am genetically wired to be ridiculously early." [Laurie Snyder]

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. [Oscar Wilde]

I am not young enough to know everything. [Oscar Wilde]

Everything I want is either illegal, immoral, or fattening. [Alexander Woollcott]

"There's a deer standing in the front hall," she told me one quiet evening in the country.
"Really?"
"No. I just wanted to tell you something once without your saying 'I know.'" [Annie Dillard]

I was afraid, too, that my letter would disappoint him by betraying my own ignorance, which was just beginning to attract my own notice. [Annie Dillard]

At 1pm went out to buy fruit, thinking I needed more fruit in my life. Purchased grapefruits, mangos, blueberries, and plums. [Jonathan Ames]

My girlfriend and I watched Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Young Max Von Sydow's face was incredible to look at. Luminous and deathly. At the end of the film, the knight dies, and the fool lives. That's the kind of story I like. [Jonathan Ames]

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs. [Christopher Hampton]

Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes. [Oscar Wilde]

The best audience is intelligent, well educated, and a little drunk. [Alben Barkley]

There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness and death. [Fran Liebowitz]

No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up. [Lily Tomlin]

When we talk to God, we're praying. When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic. [Lily Tomlin]

I have such poor vision I can date anybody. [Gary Shandling]

If you can't beat them, arrange to have them beaten. [George Carlin]

If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you. This is the primary difference between a dog and a man. [Mark Twain]

Action: the last resource of those who know not how to dream. [Oscar Wilde]

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. [H.P. Lovecraft]

Wait here, Audrey. This is between me and the vegetable. [Rick Moranis, Little Shop of Horrors]

I believe you should live each day as if it is your last, which is why I don't have any clean laundry because, come on, who wants to wash clothes on the last day of their life? [Jack Handey]

Your life is a Fellini movie lacking only Anita Ekberg with a cat on her head. [Camille Paglia]

The wicked at heart probably know something.

Early to rise, Early to bed, Makes a man healthy but socially dead.

Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation. [Edward R. Murrow]

I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. [Hunter S. Thompson]

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain. [Ambrose Beirce]

I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.

The goal I can neither reach nor let go of is out there somewhere. I dread meeting it.
So until it shows its face I will continue to do what I have always done: I will keep on doing my best. [Joan Benoit Samuelson, "Running Tide"]

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo. [H. G. Wells]

He hasn't an enemy in the world -- but all his friends hate him. [Eddie Cantor]

There are three side effects of acid. Enhanced long term memory, decreased short term memory, and I forget the third. [Timothy Leary]

I know I'm not beautiful and I'll never be tall and thin
But these things mean so much when you feel with your eyes and not from within [Lori McKenna]

It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. [Gore Vidal]

Many men die at 25 and aren't buried until they are 75. [Benjamin Franklin]

If the phone doesn't ring, it's me. [Jimmy Buffet]

One hundred thousand lemmings can't be wrong.

An optimist is one who thinks the future is uncertain.

The sooner you make your five thousand mistakes, the sooner you will be able to correct them. [Kimon Nicolaides]

Bed is the poor man's opera. [Italian proverb]

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. [Phylliss Diller]

A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say. [Michael Winner, British film director]

The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. [Andres S. Tannenbaum]

Familiarity breeds children. [Mark Twain]

The price of purity is purists. [Calvin Trillin]

Plant carrots in January and you'll never have to eat carrots.

When I complain, I do it because "it's good to get things off my chest." When you complain, I remind you that "griping doesn't help anything." [Sydney Harris]

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. [Winston Churchill]

There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence. [Henry Adams]

There's no real need to do housework -- after four years it doesn't get any worse. [Quentin Crisp]

The toughest part of being on a diet is shutting up about it. [Gerald Nachman]

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. [Marcus Aurelius (121-180)]

Virtue is its own revenge. [E.Y. Harburg]

Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle. [Heinrich Heine]

After a certain age, if you don't wake up aching in every joint, you are probably dead. [Tommy Mein]

If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself. [Mickey Mantle]

Start each day with a smile and get it over with. [W. C. Fields]

Someone's boring me. I think it's me. [Dylan Thomas]

Eating an artichoke is like getting to know someone really well. [Willi Hastings]

Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on. [Samuel Butler]

I've tried relaxing, but -- I don't know -- I feel more comfortable tense.

I don't even butter my bread. I consider that cooking. [Katherine Cebrian]

The lion and calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep. [Woody Allen]

One of the keys to happiness is a real bad memory. [Rita Mae Brown]

Running is an unnatural act, except from enemies and to the bathroom.

It felt not so much as if the lights were being turned down, but as if the darkness were being turned up. [Neil Galiman]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer? [George Price]

Life's a gamble and its dealer is not your friend. But folding's a lousy option, so put on your smirk, play your hands, and ignore your shrinking stack of chips.

All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance.

No one should try to live if he has not completed his training as a victim. [E. M. Cioran]

Law school is the opposite of sex. Even when it's good it's lousy.

Miss Piggy is a boar. [Ed Lucaire]

Men who never get carried away should be. [Malcolm Forbes]

It takes a big man to cry, but it takes an even bigger man to laugh at that man. [Jack Handey]

The more he talked of his honor the faster we counted our spoons. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

One reason I don't drink is that I want to know when I'm having a good time. [Nancy, Lady Astor]

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people. [Seneca, 4 B.C - 65 A.D.]

While floating down river on a raft . . .
Porky Pine - "After all the excitements, this is the only way to come back home."
Pogo - "Yep . . . easy an' slow. What day is it anyhows?"
Porky Pine - "What day is what?"
Pogo - "What day is it right where we is now?"
Porky Pine - "That depends on what month it is."
[Walt Kelly]

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. [H.P. Lovecraft]

If you don't fail now and again, it's a sign you're playing it safe. [Woody Allen]

Living with a saint is more grueling than being one. [Robert Neville]

Running is like sex -- too much is just enough.

Chaos is a friend of mine. [Bob Dylan]

It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old undifferentiated weirdness. [Jerry Garcia]

No man is lonely while eating spaghetti.

I've always been interested in people, but I've never liked them. [Somerset Maugham]

It's okay to laugh in the bedroom so long as you don't point. [Will Durst]

Sex is the most fun you can have without smiling.

We aren't worried about posterity; we want it to sound good right now. [Duke Ellington]

I always turn to the sports pages first, which record people's accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man's failures. [Chief Justice Earl Warren]

Few great men could pass Personnel. [Paul Goodman]

Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. [T.S. Eliot]

I was the kid next door's imaginary friend. [Emo Philips]

Most of our future lies ahead. [Denny Crum]

You appeal to a small, select group of confused people. [fortune cookie]

Prejudices save time. [Robert Byrne]

I have won several prizes as the world's slowest alto player, as well as a special award in 1961 for quietness. [Paul Desmond]

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory. [Paul Fix]

The closest anyone ever comes to perfection is on a job application form.

He who lives far from neighbors may safely praise himself. [Erasmus (1466-1536)]

I don't know anything about music. In my line of work, you don't have to. [Elvis Presley]

I have no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing. [Bette Midler]

Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?

Experience teaches you to recognize a mistake when you've made it again.

Remember that a kick in the ass is a step forward.

I've given up reading books. I find it takes my mind off myself. [Oscar Levant]

If you want to catch a trout, don't fish in the herring barrel. [Ann Landers on singles bars]

It's relaxing to go out with my ex-wife because she already knows that I'm an idiot. [Warren Thomas]

I have a new philosophy. I'm going to dread one day at a time. [Charles Schulz]

Nowadays the illiterates can read and write. [Alberto Moravia]

If you have any problems at all, don't hesitate to shut up. [Robert Mankoff]

The prime purpose of eloquence is to keep other people from talking. [Louis Vermeil]

Never let a computer know you're in a hurry.

The nail that sticks up gets hammered down. [Japanese proverb]

If it tastes good, it's trying to kill you. [Roy Qualley]

I don't jog. If I die I want to be sick. [Abe Lemons]

Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be surprised at how little you have. [Ernest Haskins]

Stay with me; I want to be alone. [Jerry Bundsen]

It's not what you are, it's what you don't become that hurts. [Oscar Levant]

She's descended from a long line her mother listened to. [Gypsy Rose Lee]

Praise does wonders for the sense of hearing.

It's so beautifully arranged on the plate -- you know someone's fingers have been all over it. [Julia Child on nouvelle cuisine]

Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other. [W. Somerset Maugham]

Never mistake endurance for hospitality.

You've always made the mistake of being yourself. [Eugene Ionesco]

A clear conscience is often the sign of a bad memory.

As Miss America, my goal is to bring peace to the entire world and then to get my own apartment. [Jay Leno]

There are very few people in the world who don't become more interesting when they stop talking. [Mary Lowry]

And those who were dancing were thought to be insane by those who couldn't hear the music.

A character is a jerk with personality.

Logic is a systematic method of coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence.

You can be sincere and still be stupid.

Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what's for lunch. [Orson Welles on reaching 300 pounds]

When ideas fail, words come in very handy. [Goethe]

The biggest sin is sitting on your ass. [Florynce Kennedy]

You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap. [Dolly Parton]

There are two kinds of people -- those who finish what they start and so on. [Robert Byrne]

If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know. [Mark Twain]

Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. [A.H. Weiler]

Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. [Gene Fowler (1890-1960)]

If it weren't for my lawyer, I'd still be in prison. It went a lot faster with two people digging. [Mister Boffo]

Wit is educated insolence. [Aristotle]

I will always cherish the misconceptions I had about you.

Once you accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid becomes easy. [Albert Einstein]

Laugh alone and the world thinks you're an idiot.

Only the mediocre are always at their best. [Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944)]

Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try. [Fran Liebowitz]

Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses. [Lord Dewar]

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character. [Oscar Levant]

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.

Did you ever walk in a room and forget why you walked in? I think that's how dogs spend their lives. [Sue Murphy]

I just broke up with someone and the last thing she said to me was, "You'll never find anyone like me again!" I'm thinking, "I should hope not! If I don't want you, why would I want someone like you?" [Larry Miller]

We are what we pretend to be. [Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.]

My mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, "Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim." [Paula Poundstone]

Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math.

Tell me what you believe and I'll tell you where you're going wrong.

The statistic on sanity is that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you. [Rita Mae Brown]

A girl phoned me and said...Come on over there's nobody home. I went over... Nobody was home!

A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking.

Just because you're smart does not mean that the other guy is stupid.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have -- so let us economize it. [Mark Twain]

The happiest liaisons are based on mutual misunderstanding. [La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)]

In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily. [Charles, Count Talleyrand]

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. [George Bernard Shaw]

A true friend stabs you in the front. [Oscar Wilde]

I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me. [Dave Barry]

I went into a McDonald's yesterday and said, "I'd like some fries." The girl at the counter said, "Would you like some fries with that?" [Jay Leno]

They should put expiration dates on clothing so we would know when they go out of style. [Gary Shandling]

Don't ever get your speedometer confused with your clock, like I did once, because the faster you go the later you think you are. [Jack Handey, Deep Thoughts]

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

If you want to give a man something practical, consider tires. More than once, I would have gladly traded all the gifts I got for a new set of tires. [Dave Barry]

In order to keep a true perspective of one’s importance, everyone should have a dog that will worship him and a cat that will ignore him. [Dereke Bruce]

I never know how much of what I say is true. [Bette Midler]

If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

I would like to be able to admire a man’s opinions as I would his dog - without being expected to take it home with me. [Frank A. Clark]

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.

The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible. [A Yale University management professor, in response to student Fred Smith’s paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express.)]

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

A dork is a dork is a dork. [Judy Markey]

If there's another way to skin a cat, I don't want to know about it. [Steve Kravitz]

Anyone who eats three meals a day should understand why cookbooks outsell sex books three to one. [L.M. Boyd]

I'm dating a woman who, evidently, is unaware of it. [Garry Shandling]

Never let a computer know you're in a hurry.

That would be nice. -- Charlie Brown on hearing that in life you win some and you lose some. [Charles Schulz]

A good listener is usually thinking about something else. [Kin Hubbard]

I Can't Give You Anything but Love and a Baby. [song title by Willie Tyler]

Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is.

Who the hell wants to hear actors talk? [H. M. Warner (1881-1958), founder of Warner Brothers, in 1927]

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. [Clarence Darrow]

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things. [Governor George W. Bush, Jr., 11/30/96]

Man is the only animal that laughs and has a state legislature. [Samuel Butler]

Love is the crocodile on the river of desire. [Bhartrihari]

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency. [Eugene McCarthy]

Never mistake motion for action. [Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)]

There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, employ someone, or forbid your children to do it. [Monta Crane]

It is a luxury to be understood. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

First get your facts; then you may distort them at your leisure.

Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow... They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth! [Anne Tyler]

Most dogs are earnest, which is why people like them. You can say any fool thing to a dog, and he will give you this look that says, "Wow! You're RIGHT! I NEVER would have thought of that!" [Dave Barry]

You appeal to a small, select group of confused people. [message in a fortune cookie]

Did you know that when someone annoys you, it takes forty-two muscles to frown, but it only takes four muscles to extend your arm out and smack 'em in the head?

Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease." Disraeli replied, "That all depends, Sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell my children that, they just about throw up. [Barbara Bush]

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. [Earl Weaver]

Indecision is the key to flexibility.

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career. [Gloria Steinem]

We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out. [Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962]

Why don't you write books people can read? [Nora Joyce to her husband James (1882-1941)]

When turkeys mate they think of swans. [Johnny Carson]

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. [Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)]

Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. [Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)]

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't. [Erica Jong]

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. [Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)]

Some people believe that by wearing sunglasses, other people can't see them.

I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves. [Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)]

We hope that when the insects take over the world they will remember with gratitude how we took them along on our picnics.

The difference between "involvement" and "commitment" is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was "involved" -- the pig was "committed."

An optimist is someone who tells you to cheer up when things are going his way.

People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done. [Mike Noonan in Bag of Bones]

If you don't disagree with me, how will I know I'm right? [Samuel Goldwyn]

We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly. [E. M. Cioran]

I have so much to do that I am going to bed. [Savoyard Proverb]

Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago. [Bernard Berenson]

If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem. [John Paul Getty]

The hair is real -- it’s the head that’s a fake. [Steve Allen]

We're all in this alone. [Lily Tomlin]

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. [Noel Coward]

The richer your friends, the more they will cost you. [Elisabeth Murray]

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm. [Colette]

There must be more to life than having everything. [Maurice Sendak]

The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you. [Bette Midler]

He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful. [Sydney Smith, referring to Macaulay]

Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin -- it's the triumphant twang of a bedspring. [S.J. Perelman]

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused.

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. [Mark Twain]

Some years ago, after the men's Olympic Marathon Trials in Hawaii, Duncan Macdonald said the marathon "was designed by perverts to be run by people with sick minds." Pete Pfitzinger responded: "The marathon is grueling but success comes through preparation. You get ready for a marathon like you get ready for war. But if you're not prepared for the marathon, it takes a sick mind to run it."

Man was destined to have free will. [Hal Lee Luyah]

Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife. [Groucho Marx]

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well. [Joe Ancis]

A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason. [Thomas Carlyle]

Conversation would be vastly improved by the constant use of four simple words: I do not know. [André Maurois]

There is no such thing as fun for the whole family. [Jerry Seinfeld]

I really didn't say everything I said. [Yogi Berra]

Only dead fish swim with the stream.

An egotist is a person of low taste--more interested in himself than in me. [Ambrose Bierce]

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot; C++ makes it harder, but when you do, it blows away your whole leg. [Bjarne Stroustrup]

Any clod can have the facts; having opinions is an art. [Charles McCabe]

Do you remember the "Me Decade?" I do. I watched the news all the time and I wasn't on there once. I think they should have called it "Some Other People Decade, and You're Not Really Involved." [Nick DeCamp]

Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived. [Jonathan Swift]

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not. [Andre Gide]

I think somebody should come up with a way to breed a very large shrimp. That way, you could ride him, then, after you camped at night, you could eat him. How about it, science? [Jack Handey]

Everyone wants to see justice done, to somebody else.

One nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people. [Lucille S. Harper]

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well. [Samuel Butler]

The art of marathon training is to teach one's body to consume itself. [Seamus Daly]

We already have the "Weather Channel," so the next logical step is "The Time Network." Announcer: "Well, it's ten o'clock Eastern Standard right now, but later on we expect to reach twelve noon. Back to you, Phyllis." [Nick DeCamp]

When it comes to getting things done, we need fewer architects and more bricklayers. [Colleen C. Barret]

It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it. [Sam Levenson]

When I bore people at a party, they think it is their fault. [Henry Kissinger]

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me. [Benjamin Disraeali]

I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me. [John Cleese]

If you cannot convince them, confuse them. [Harry S. Truman]

I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. He called me a quitter. [Steven Pearl]

Conjugation of the verb "firm" -- I am firm. You are stubborn. He is pig-headed. [Dr. K. J. Stavrinides]

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account. [Oscar Wilde]

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. [Franklin P. Jones]

I am not sincere, even when I say I am not. [Jules Renard]

Never eat more than you can lift. [Miss Piggy]

Veni, Vedi, Visa: I Came. I Saw. I Did a Little Shopping.

I was a vegetarian until I started leaning toward the sunlight. [Rita Rudner]

It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them. [Caron de Beaumarchais]

There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have. [Don Herold]

Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome. [Oscar Levant]

Did you ever notice that when you are reading a really good book, some rude person always interrupts you? They're like, "What are you reading?" And I'm always like, "A book," and then they say something stupid like, "Is it good?" So I say, "I don't know, I can't read with you yakking my ear off," so they're like, "Okay, but I just wanted to order a cheeseburger." Whatever. [Nick DeCamp]

Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. [Wernher von Braun]

Never wrestle with a pig. You both get all dirty, and the pig likes it.

Anything too stupid to be said is sung. [Voltaire]

If more politicians knew poetry, and more poets knew politics, I am convinced the world would be a little better place in which to live. [John F. Kennedy, 5/29/17-11/22/63]

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience. [George Bernard Shaw]

Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.

Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. [Gore Vidal]

I don't care where I sit, as long as I get fed.

There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about. [John von Neumann]

History is a selective interpretation of events designed to justify those currently in power. Memory is the same thing on an individual scale.

I thought I had an appetite for destruction, but all I wanted was a club sandwich. [Homer Simpson]

The older you get, the better you realize you were. [George Carlin]

Now that I've given up hope I feel much better . . .

A crisis is when you can't say: "let's forget the whole thing."

Never argue with a stupid person. First they'll drag you down to their level, then they will beat you with experience.

Never confuse having a career with having a life.

The whole world is our dining room, but be careful: it is also our garbage can.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. [Voltaire]

My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating.

I find it difficult not to trip when the floor is totally covered with marbles, but at least I go to bed feeling safe and secure every night. [Nick DeCamp]

One of my fondest memories is waiting for the Ice Cream Man on hot summer mornings. He was such a good-hearted man. He would always stop right in front of my house and throw all of our trash in the back of his immense truck before saying, "Sorry, son. No ice cream this week." [Nick DeCamp]

If you are searching desperately for the meaning of life, try the floor of my car, because there's a lot of crap down there. [Nick DeCamp]

If I may use an analogy; life is like a big thing that spins around really fast or something. I don't know. I'm really bad at analogies. [Nick DeCamp]

When people tell me about their problems, I try to help them not focus so much on all the negative stuff, and focus more on what's going on with me. [Nick DeCamp]

I think people will agree with me when I say that there is not enough research being done on chafing. [Nick DeCamp]

If I ever were to run for president, my platform would be "snacks," because, hey, who doesn't love snacks? [Nick DeCamp]

I love children, especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away. [Nancy Mitford]

There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result. [Winston Churchill]

To live outside the law you must be honest. [Bob Dylan]

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said. [Peter F. Drucker]

Tired of arguing with people who didn't believe in evolution, the biologist Thomas Huxley said in 1861, "Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more than once." He had never been to Kansas.

You can't be late until you show up.

All I want is a warm bed and a kind word and unlimited power.

Those who cannot think for themselves are emotionally unequipped to spend time alone.

The sooner you make your five thousand mistakes the sooner you will be able to correct them. [Kimon Nicolaides]

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field. [Niels Bohr]

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. [Lisa Grossman]

Nothing is as terrible to see as ignorance in action. [Goethe]

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. [James Thurber]

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

No one is listening until you make a mistake.

Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible. I think . . . I think it's in my basement . . . let me go upstairs and check. [Escher]

Water is the only drink for a wise man. [Thoreau]

She could carry off anything; and some people said that she did. [Ada Leverson]

I have nothing definite to apologize for; I'm just sorry about everything in general.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. [President Thomas Jefferson]

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. [Woody Allen]

My life has a superb cast but I can't figure out the plot.

It's only words . . . unless they're true. [David Mamet]

I think it would be totally inappropriate to even contemplate what I am thinking about. [Dan Mazankowski, former Canadian Minister of Finance]

Finally, in conclusion, let me just say this. [Peter Sellers]

I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent.

My philosophy is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration, and ignoble deaths. [Harlan Ellison]

If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. [Ashleigh Brilliant]

Don't worry over what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying over what you are thinking about them.

I'll play it first and tell you what it is later. [Miles Davis]

I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it.

'Tis better to argue a point and not settle it than to settle a point and not argue it. [J. Joubert]

Paranoids are people too; they have their own problems. It's easy to criticize, but if everybod hated you, you'd be paranoid too. [D.J. Hicks]

If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all. [Michelangelo]

If you judge someone, you have no time to love them. [Mother Theresa]

Either that wallpaper has to go or I shall. [Oscar Wilde on his deathbed]

He who cannot lie, knows not what truth is. [Nietzche]

Kindness is loving people more than they deserve. [Joseph Joubert]

There's a fine line between clever and stupid.

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. [Benjamin Disraeli]

Every once in a while, it's a good idea to call out "Computer, end program" just to check.

He knows so little and knows it so fluently. [Ellen Glasgow]

Adorable in her not-very-bright submissiveness, charming in her childlike delight in shiny floors, even forgivable in her spiteful competition for the whitest, brightest wash, Madison Avenue's girl-next-door is all the American male could wish for -- unless he should fancy human companionship. [Vivian Gornick and Barbara K. Moran]

Hie there! Who goest through the drivethrough now; would you likest some french fries with your cow? [Shakespeare today]

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation. [W.C. Fields]

Reality is frequently inaccurate. [Douglas Adams]

Hey! I don't steal. I gave that up.

Life doesn't throw you curve balls. It just hits you with a bat.

Success didn't spoil me; I've always been insufferable. [Fran Lebowitz]

I'm not shy. I'm just studying my prey.

Life is not too bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination. [Christopher Isherwood]

I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll make an exception. [Groucho Marx]

Skiing: the art of catching cold and going broke while rapidly heading nowhere at great personal risk.

What do you take me for, an idiot? [General Charles DeGaulle, when a reporter asked him if he was happy]

He used statistics the way a drunkard uses lampposts -- for support, not illumination. [Andrew Lang]

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones. [La Rochefoucauld]

You know you need to re-boot your life when you're overjoyed whenever you get email that doesn't start with a Re:

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city. [George Burns]

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. [Oscar Wilde]

If we could just get everyone to close their eyes and visualize world peace for an hour, imagine how serene and quiet it would be until the looting started. [Deep Thoughts]

What's the difference between ignorance and indifference?
We don't know and we don't care.

Any couple who can blush in unison deserve each other.

You know it's love when you memorize her IP number to skip DNS overhead.

PHILOSOPHY: A study that lets us be unhappy more intelligently.

There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets? [Dick Cavett]

He was such a good man that people hated to see him coming. [Mark Twain]

Some people who yearn for endless life don't know what to do with a rainy afternoon. [Harvey H. Potthoff]

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. [Hanlon's Razor (from Murphy's Laws)]

Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams. [Mary Ellen Kelly]

FOOT: A device for finding furniture in the dark.

If you think before you speak the other guy gets his joke in first.

I knew I'd been living in Berkeley too long when I saw a sign that said "Free firewood" and my first thought was "Who was Firewood and what did he do?" [John Berger]

When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" [From "I Have a Dream," a speech delivered by Martin Luther King, Jr., on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. Dr. King's birthday is observed on Monday, January 18th.]

The question is not if you are paranoid, it is if you are paranoid enough.

A modest little person, with much to be modest about. [Winston Churchill]

I catnap now and then . . . but I think while I nap, so it's not a waste of time. [Martha Stewart]

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. [Herm Albright]

The man who can smile when things go wrong has thought of someone else he can blame it on. [Robert Bloch]

This is the earliest I've ever been late. [Yogi Berra, perhaps commenting on Strider Time.]

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. [Wernher von Braun]

We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by. [Will Rogers]

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.

Leisure time is that five or six hours when you sleep at night. [George Allen]

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season; the Christians called it "Christmas" and went to church; the Jews called it "Hanukka" and went to synagogue; the atheists went to parties and drank. People passing each other on the street would say Merry Christmas! or Happy Hanukka! or (to the atheists) Look out for the wall!. [Dave Barry]

I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them. [Jane Austen (1775-1817)]

With the truth so dull and depressing, the only working alternative is wild bursts of madness and filigree. [Hunter S. Thompson]

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. [Philip K. Dick]

I'm a controversial figure: my friends either dislike me or hate me. [Oscar Levant (1906-1972)]

Eagles may soar, free and proud, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.

Numbers are like people; torture them enough and they'll tell you anything.

Love doesn't make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. [Franklin P. Jones]

A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming. [Barbarella]

SUSHI: Known to the rest of the world as Bait.

Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. [Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.]

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. [Aristotle]

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all. [Georg Christopher Lichtenberg]

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer "yes" without having to ask any clear question. [Albert Camus]

However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional manner . . . sulking and nausea. [Tom K. Ryan]

He had that weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving "normally." [Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing, '72"]

Mediocrity requires aloofness to preserve its dignity. [Charles G. Dawes]

Maybe I'm lucky to be going so slowly, because I may be going in the wrong direction. [Ashleigh Brilliant]

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. [F.P. Jones]

I don't want to join the kind of a club that accepts people like me as members. [Groucho Marx]

Auntie Em: Hate You. Hate Kansas. Taking the Dog. Dorothy

He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know. [Abraham Lincoln]

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. [W. Somerset Maugham]

Some people stay longer in an hour than others can in a week. [William Dean Howells]

I'd probably be famous now if I wasn't such a good waitress. [Jane Siberry]

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. [George Bernard Shaw]

He's liked, but he's not well liked. [Arthur Miller]

You have a good and kind soul. It just doesn't match the rest of you. [Norm Papernick]

She never lets ideas interrupt the easy flow of her conversation. [Jean Webster]

He was happily married -- but his wife wasn't. [Victor Borge]

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. [Winston Churchill]

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. [John Lennon]

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. [Winston Churchill (1874-1965)]

Don't play dumb. You're not as good at it as I am. [Colonel Flagg, "M*A*S*H"]

Ordinarily he is insane. But he has lucid moments when he is only stupid. [Heinrich Heine]

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. [William G. McAdoo]

Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. [H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)]

While he was not dumber than an ox he was not any smarter either. [James Thurber]

Young normal tigers do not eat people. If eaten by a tiger, you may rest assured it was abnormal. [Will Cuppy]

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. [Mark Twain]

What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error. [Raymond Aron, "The Opium of the Intellectuals", 1957]

My play was a complete success. The audience was a failure. [Ashleigh Brilliant]

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do. [Dale Carnegie]

I will always love the false image I had of you. [Ashleigh Brilliant]

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. [Thomas Edison]

I can’t believe that out of 100,000 sperm, you were the quickest. [Steven Pearl]

We are getting into semantics again. If we use words, there is a very grave danger they will be misinterpreted. [H. R. Haldeman, testifying in his own defense]

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech. [George Bernard Shaw]

I feel so miserable without you, it’s almost like having you here. [Stephen Bishop]

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends. [Oscar Wilde]

Nature, not content with denying him the ability to think, has endowed him with the ability to write. [A. E. Housman]

Happiness is just an illusion caused by the temporary absence of reality.

Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. [Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?)]

It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose. [Darrin Weinberg]

Like other occult techniques of divination, the statistical method has a private jargon deliberately contrived to obscure its methods from non-practitioners. [G. O. Ashley]

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. [Albert Einstein]

If you had your life to live over again--you'd need more money. [Construction Digest]

Nothing is as terrible to see as ignorance in action. [Goethe]

Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink. -- Lady Astor to Winston Churchill
Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it. -- His reply

Always remember that you are unique. Just like everyone else.

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted. [Fred Allen]

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.

Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly. [Batman costume warning label]

Probably the earliest flyswatters were nothing more than some sort of striking surface attached to the end of a long stick.

To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other.

Track workouts? I'd rather light my hair on fire and put it out with a hammer.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it. [George Bernard Shaw]

Every absurdity has a champion to defend it.

I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves. [August Strindberg]

Happiness, noun. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. [Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?)]

Too many people are ready to carry the stool when the piano needs to be moved.

If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one. [Andy Rooney]

Always go to the bathroom when you have a chance. [King George V]

Truth is not determined by majority vote. [Doug Gwyn]

I like the word indolence. It makes my laziness seem classy. [Bern Williams]

It's always the quiet ones . . .

Happiness is good health and a bad memory. [Ingrid Bergman]

One man's wilderness is another man's theme park.

We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up. [Phyllis Diller]

Be smarter than other people, just don't tell them so. [H. Jackson Brown, Jr.]

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness. [George Orwell]

The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas at all. [Edward de Bono]

Reporter: "Mr. Gandhi, what's your opinion on western civilization?"
Gandhi: "I think it would be a good idea."

Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help. [Alex Haley]

We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. [Gaius Petronius Arbiter, 210 BC]

Food is an important part of a balanced diet. [Fran Lebowitz]

Don't ask the barber whether you need a haircut. [Daniel Greenberg]

You know children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers. [John Plomp]

I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated. [Poul Anderson]

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. [Andre Gide]

I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true. [Katherine Hepburn]

There are moments when everything goes well; don't be frightened, it won't last. [Jules Renard]

Avoid running at all times. [Satchel Paige]

Don't tell your friends about your indigestion. "How are you." is a greeting, not a question. [Arthur Guiterman]

Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice-weasels come. [from "Life in Hell - What is Love?" by Matt Groening (although he claims Nietzsche said it]

You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty. [Sacha Guitry]

I recognize my limits but when I look around I realise I am not living exactly in a world of giants. [Giulio Andreotti]

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice; that is, until we have stopped saying "It got lost," and say, "I lost it." [Sydney J. Harris]

Always behave as if nothing had happened, no matter what has happened. [Arnold Bennett]

No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other. [Jascha Heifetz]

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. [Herm Albright]

Anybody can win unless there happens to be a second entry. [George Ada (1866-1944)]

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. [Katherine Hepburn]

No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you will see why. [Mignon McLaughlin]

The weaker the data available upon which to base one's conclusion, the greater the precision with which it should be quoted in order to give the data authenticity. [Norman R. Augustine (1935- ), Chairman, Martin Marietta Corporation]

What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork. [Pearl Bailey]

You never saw a fish on the wall with its mouth shut. [Sally Berger]

A little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation. [C. E. Ares]

Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life. [Herbert Henry Asquith]

My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people. [Orson Welles]

If you can't win, make the fellow ahead of you break the record.

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai E. Stevenson "Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!" Stevenson called back "That's not enough, madam, we need a majority!"

When your dreams turn to dust, vacuum.

Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived. [Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)]

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness. [Don Marquis (1878-1937)]

Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it. [Maurice Chevalier]

The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues. [Elizabeth Taylor]

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing; if you can fake that, you've got it made. [Groucho Marx (1890-1977)]

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. [Benjamin Disraeli]

The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be. [Paul Valery]

Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff - it is a palliative rather than a remedy. [Peter De Vries]

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. [Yogi Berra]

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. [Douglas Adams]

Nothing like a bad decision says who you are. [Gin Blossoms]

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. [Bertrand Russell]

There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were trapped on the escalators. [Steven Wright]

If you can't say anything good about someone, sit right here by me. [Alice Roosevelt Longworth]

Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country. [Steven Wright]

Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment. [Robert Benchley]

If there was a big gardening convention, and you got up and gave a speech in favor of fast-motion gardening, I bet you would get booed right off the stage. They're just not ready. [Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey]

Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone. [Tommy Cooper]

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. [William James]

For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. [Abraham Lincoln]

Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each day as it comes. [Donald Kaul]

There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot. [Steven Wright]

Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity. [Albert Einstein]

Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair. [George Burns]

Women like silent men. They think they're listening. [Marcel Archard]

The streets are safe in Philadelphia, it's only the people who make them unsafe. [Frank Rizzo]

Behind every successful man stands a surprised mother-in-law. [Hubert Humphrey]

Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties. [Jules Renard]

The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true. [James B. Cabell]

We will occasionally use this arrow notation unless there is danger of no confusion. [Ronald Graham, "Rudiments of Ramsey Theory"]

When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, "Did you sleep good?" I said, "No, I made a few mistakes." [Steven Wright]

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened. [Winston Churchill (1874-1965)]

Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much. [Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)]

Inform all the troops that communications have completely broken down. [Ashleigh Brilliant]

You know you're living in the high tech age when your weekly shopping list includes computer paper. [Seamus Daly]

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. [James Thurber (1894-1961)]

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition. [Woody Allen]

If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars. [J. Paul Getty]

I don't know why I did it, I don't know why I enjoyed it, and I don't know why I'll do it again. [Bart Simpson]

The trick is to stop thinking of it as "your" money. [IRS auditor]

Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out. [Anton Chekhov]

A city is a large community where people are lonesome together.

Eat a live toad in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day.

Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge. [Paul Gauguin]

People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never slept in a room with a single mosquito.

Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry. [Gloria Steinem]

Boring people are a reflection of boring people.

I'm an experienced woman; I've been around... well, alright, I might not've been around, but I've been... nearby. [Mary Richards (Mary Tyler Moore Show)]

Women! Can't live with them...pass the beer nuts. [Norm (Cheers)]

A reasonable man adapts himself to suit his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. [George Bernard Shaw]

Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. [Lily Tomlin]

A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern. [Edgar A. Shoaff]

No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next. [E. W. Howe]

If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. [Earl Wilson]

If you were arrested for kindness, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better. [Laurie Anderson]

I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

My father hated radio and could not wait for television to be invented so he could hate that too. [Peter De Vries]

There's a fine line between participation and mockery. [Scott Adams]

Work is accomplished by those employees who have not reached their level of incompetence.

I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell my children that, they just about throw up. [Barbara Bush]

Reality is the original Rorschach.

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory. [Rita Mae Brown]

I bet the human brain is a kludge. [Marvin Minsky]

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. [Josh Billings (1818-1885)]

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. [Socrates (470-399 BC)]

Life is like quotations. Sometimes, it makes you laugh. Sometimes, it makes you cry. Most of the time, you don't get it.

When you're not looking at it, this sentence is in Spanish. [Douglas R. Hofstadter from Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid]

Dick Cavett: "Do you consider yourself a disciplined guy? Do you get up every day and `go to work'?"
Jimi Hendrix: "Well, yeah. I try to get up every day."

Reality isn't what it used to be. [Walter Truett Anderson]

Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it. [Niels Bohr (1885-1962)]

I don't understand anything about the ballet; all I know is that during the intervals the ballerinas stink like horses. [Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)]

She's afraid that if she leaves, she'll become the life of the party. [Groucho Marx (1890-1977)]

My husband and I are either going to buy a dog or have a child. We can't decide whether to ruin our carpet or ruin our lives. [Rita Rudner]

God created man and, finding him not sufficiently alone, gave him a companion to make him feel his solitude more keenly. [Paul Valery (1871-1945)]

Women's liberation will not be achieved until a woman can become paunchy and bald and still think that she's attractive to the opposite sex. [Earl Wilson]

I am a deeply superficial person. [Andy Warhol]

People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. [Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)]

I've had a wonderful evening, but this wasn't it. [Groucho Marx (1890-1977)]

Humility is no substitute for a good personality. [Fran Lebowitz]

It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar. [Jerome K. Jerome]

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them. [Bill Vaughan]

Thank you. [Whistler (1834-1903), when approached by a man who said "I passed by your house this morning, Mr Whistler."]

If the world were a logical place, men would ride sidesaddle. [Rita Mae Brown]

Even paranoids have real enemies. [Delmore Schwartz]

If you can't annoy somebody, there's little point in writing. [Kingsley Amis]

Conscience: the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking. [H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)]

The good people sleep much better at night than the bad people. Of course, the bad people enjoy the waking hours much more. [Woody Allen]

My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there. [Indira Gandhi]

It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance? [Ronald Reagan, Speech, April 22, 1987, Annual Gridiron Dinner, Washington DC]

Exit, pursued by a bear. [Stage direction in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (1611)]

If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. [Paul Beatty]

I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of people waiting to abuse me. [Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters"]

Gentleman! What do you think you are doing? You can't fight in here, this is the War Room! [Peter Sellars, "Dr. Strangelove"]

I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell. [Harry S Truman (1884-1972)]

It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. [Andrew Jackson]

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. [George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)]

More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to utter hopelessness and despair, the other to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to choose correctly. [Woody Allen]

I'm free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally. [W.C. Fields (1880-1946)]

If you look good and dress well, you don't need a purpose in life. [Fashion consultant Robert Pante]

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving any excuse. [Jules Renard (1864-1910)]

A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. [Gloria Steinem]

I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart. [e. e. cummings (1894-1962)]

There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom. [Francis Bacon (1561-1626)]

You look into his eyes, and you think someone else is driving. [David Letterman]

"For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong." [H.L. Mencken]

"Wait here, Audrey. This is between me and the vegetable." [Rick Moranis, 'Little Shop of Horrors']

Exercise is bunk. If you are healthy, you don't need it; if you are sick, you shouldn't take it. [Henry Ford]

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem. [John Galsworthy]

One's need for loneliness is not satisfied if one sits at a table alone. There must be empty chairs as well. [Karl Kraus (1874-1936)]

Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others. [Groucho Marx (1890-1977)]

Many wealthy people are little more than janitors of their possessions. [Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959)]

I wasn't kissing her, I was whispering in her mouth. [Chico Marx (1891-1961)]

Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to what I call the Ready- Aim-Aim-Aim Syndrome. You must be willing to fire. [T. Boone Pickens]

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. [H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)]

Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an exchange of ignorance. [Robert Quillen]

Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity. [Sigmund Freud]

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. [Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)]

Santa Claus had the right idea. Visit everyone once a year. [Victor Borges]

Come quickly, I am tasting stars! [Dom Perignon (1638-1715) at the moment of his discovery of champagne]

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast. [Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)]

Virtue is insufficient temptation. [George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)]

The day broke gray and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow.

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