Quotes - Part Seven

 

76.                   I have a great diet. You’re allowed to eat anything you want, but you must eat it with naked fat people.

--Ed Bluestone

77.                   The neurodivergent experience is thinking you’re sharing fun, interesting, or helpful information in a normal human conversational fashion, while they think you’re an asshole lecturing them, or looking down at them like they’re stupid, and also that no matter how many times you have this experience, you always think you’re doing it the right way this time.

--@bogleech

78.                   A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself.

--Niels Bohr

79.                   If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

--Derek Bok, president of Harvard

80.                   He thinks Roe v. Wade are options for crossing the Potomac.

--Julian Bond on Vice President Dan Quayle

81.                   I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three.

--Elayne Boosler

82.                   A person who can, within a year, solve x² ‑ 92y² = 1 is a mathematician.

--Brahmagupta

83.               Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.

--Werner von Braun

84.               You can lead a yak to water, but you can’t teach an old dog to make a silk purse out of a pig in a poke.

Opus, “Bloom County” by Berkely Breathed

85.               Time is like a zombie, it moves slow as shit, but when you’re not looking, “Boo! Got your brains!”

--Jennie Breeden

86.               In an argument it’s not proving that you are right, but that the other person is wrong.

--Jason Bridges

87.               “Women are the bloodthirsty sex,” said Ric sadly. “We get the reputation, but it is only because the women stand behind us, and say, ‘Kill it. Squish it.’”

--Patricia Briggs, Hunting Ground

Quotes - Part Six

63.                   You know “quantitative analysis” is going to suck because it has the word “anal” in it.

--Drew Baxter

64.                   I don’t know what’s wrong with my television set. I was getting C‑Span and the Home Shopping Network on the same station. I actually bought a congressman.

--Bruce Baum

65.                   MPAA call the internet going dark in protest of SOPA, “An abuse of power.”  In related news, the Eye of Sauron accuses Hobbits of terrorism.

--@beach_fox

66.                   Do you know how the Amish hunt? They sneak up on a deer and build a barn around it.

--Tim Bedore

67.                   A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.

--Robert Benchley

68.                   Any technology, which is distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.

--Gregory Benford

69.                   Sometimes you can observe a lot by watching.

--Yogi Berra

70.                   No wonder nobody comes here – it’s too crowded.

--Yogi Berra

71.                   You grasp the Zen of the Sniper. “Taking fire is not my job.”

--Doug Berry

72.               If you want to know why Gen Xers are always mad, it’s because we had to replace our record collection with a tape collection that was then replaced with a CD collection that was then replaced with MP3s.  And damn it, how many times must I pay to listen to grunge?

--@bewgtweets

73.               Never say anything on the phone that you wouldn’t want your mother to hear at your trial.

--Sydney Biddle Barrows, the “Mayflower Madam”

74.               Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.

--Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary

75.               I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.

                        --A Bit of Fry and Laurie

Quotes - Part Five

Reading this group, I realize some of these can be dated.  Like #52, that I think I found around the time Disney was doing a lot of stranger sequels or semi-parallel direct to home movies.  Still, with the thought of the recordings he did that mean there could be an R-rated "Aladdin" this is still a nice little bit of head-canon.

51.                   Only decent girls keep a diary. The others don’t have the time.

--Tallulah Bankhead

52.                   I’m waiting for “Aladdin -.5: Robin Williams Just Talks to Himself in a Bottle”.

--Jon “Ngamer” Barber

53.                   If sweeping ice in front of a rock can become an Olympic event, why not moving your thumbs in front of a television?

--Jon Barber, The Perfect Dark Elite

54.                   Proofreading is more effective after publication.

--Barker

55.                   I think that the team that wins game five will win the series. Unless we lose game five.

--Charles Barkley

56.                   My initial response was to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized that I had no character.

--Charles Barkley, on hearing Tonya Harding proclaim herself “the Charles Barkley of figure skating”

57.                   Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.

--Dave Barry

58.                   Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.

--Dave Barry

59.                   If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life without even considering if there are men on base.

--Dave Barry

60.               Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.

--Dave Barry

61.               Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.

--Dave Barry

62.               Thus, the metric system did not really catch on in the United States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the 9-millimeter bullet.

--Dave Barry

Quotes - Part Four

 So #48 is taken from a book by Kage Baker.  It's said by a wife at the funeral of her husband.  I just found it beautiful.  kage Baker's writing tended to be pretty amazing all of the time.

34.                   People refer to “the good ol’ days”, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. As someone who’s battled cancer, if I lived more than 20 years ago, I’d be a dead man.

--Lance Armstrong

35.                   I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don’t intend to waste any of mine running around doing exercises.

--Neil Armstrong

36.                   Not all construction work is equally enjoyable.  For example, enlarging a drilled hole is boring, but fastening pieces of metal together is riveting.

--@aromanticduck

37.                   I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it.  The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.

--Isaac Asimov

38.                   The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I’ve found it!), but “That’s funny…”

--Isaac Asimov

39.                   Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete.

--Isaac Asimov, The Relativity of Wrong

40.                   I’ve never understood Christianity’s obsession with homophobia.  Because if you read the 1,700-page bible. and think the main message is to hate gay people, you probably think the main message of Harry Potter is to not date Asians.

--Geoffrey Asmus

41.                   I’m sitting at the opera, and I’m thinking, “Look how much work it takes to bore me to tears.”

--Dave Attell

42.                   Some things just aren’t funny. Beatings aren’t funny. Mimes aren’t funny. But beating a mime… why is that so hilarious?

--Dave Attell

43.               I have this thing I call “The Two Rogers Rule of Manliness”: Basically, if Steve or Fred wouldn’t do it, neither should I.  It’s stupid, it’s simplistic, and it’s geeky, but it works.

--Greg B (@ak404)

44.               G: If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?

EB: Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area.

--BA4, Somewhere in No Man’s Land

45.               Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.

--Jim Backus

46.               The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they miss, and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other

--Francis Bacon

47.               If Paul saw the church in America, we’d be getting a letter.

--Chad Bailey

48.               Will you never open your eyes to me again? Once you walked with me in the long grass, where the lilies poked through and opened their bright throats, and the white mist was on the hillsides and concealed us when we lay down; and your eyes looked into mine.

Will you never speak to me again? Once you lay with me in the summer groves, and the blossoms drifted over us and the branches bowed down to my lips, and the long red sunlight of summer dappled the forest floor; and you sang all night long.

Will you never lift your head again? Once you rose, you moved without tiring, and on the dancing green under stars you were light-footed, and through the red and yellow leaves that drifted you were the swiftest in the chase, and brought me down, best of all the young men; and you rose above me high and strong.

Will you never hear my call again? Once I sang like a bird, no heartbroken note, once I sang and you heard me over the meadows, over valleys, over mountains, and groves; once you came to me voice dropping down swift from where you soared. You heard if I turned in my sleep, you woke if I murmured in my dreams.

But you have been unfaithful, you have listened to the earth’s voice, you have despaired, gone down into sleep and left me to my grief. How will I go after you and leave your children unprotected? Who will care for us now?

--Kage Baker, The House of the Stag

49.               The reason everyone my age has back pain is because our entire lives it was super uncool to carry your backpack on both shoulders.

--Missy Baker

50.               Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories: those that don’t work, those that break down, and those that get lost.

--Russell Baker

Quotes - Part Three

So the last two of this group are mine.  The first was conceived on a day when the balance of creation was totally in evidence; however, I don't remember the situation anymore.  The second, I came up with at a bar during school in Sacramento.  The wordplay just stuck with me.

22.                   I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead - not sick, not wounded - dead.

--Woody Allen

23.                   Sex is dirty only when it’s done right.

--Woody Allen

24.                   Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it’s one of the best.

--Woody Allen

25.                   Some guy hit my fender, and I said to him, “Be fruitful and multiply,” but not in those words.

--Woody Allen

26.                   Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once.

--Woody Allen

27.                   The shortest distance between two points is under construction.

--Altito

28.                   I don’t want to attack religious people; it feels like a sort of unkind thing to so, to attack religious people, because, you know, it’s too easy, and it feels like the battle has already been won.  But it just feels rude.  Like if you’re at a party and say, “Oh, how ridiculous.”  I feel at this point we have to treat people with kindness and love and respect, in the same way you’d treat a child running ‘round a party saying, “I’m a helicopter!”  And you can say, “Good for you!  We’re all having fun.  I’m a choo-choo train!”

--Simon Amstell

29.                   I have a Level 85 Dwarven paladin, an 82 shadow priest, and I’m currently leveling a warrior though Northrend, although I spend most of my time tanking instances in the Dungeon Finder.  I’ve held off on getting Mists of Pandaria because I got burned out on endgame progression after Wrath of the Lich King and the Cataclysm content is still new to me.  Plus monks seem redundant in an era of dual specialization and viable hybrid DPS, and while I know they’re well-established in the lore, Pandaren don’t appeal to me.  So, I’m wrapping up a Taunka questline in the Borean Tundra, trying to determine if I should go to Dragonblight or grizzly Hills, and now you know how I feel when you won’t shut up about sports.

--Nathan Anderson

30.                   A fun part of having a black cat is occasionally accidentally talking to a crumpled up black T-shirt on the floor.

--Sarah Anderson

31.               Any tool, when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner.

--Anthony’s Law of the Workshop

32.               For every constructive act, there is an equal, and usually unrelated, destructive act.

--Erik Appel

33.               You can dig a good well, but you can’t dig a well well. You can dig a well well, but you can’t dig a well good.

--Erik Appel

Quotes - Part Two

So, I've found that lots of things have changed since I first started collecting these quotes.  Like for example, some of these people have turned out to be, or over time become, assholes.

If you're offended by the people, oh well.  Some of the pre-insanity wisdom is still pretty funny.

11.                   Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl.

--Mike Adams

12.                   Catbert is a typical cat, in the sense that he looks cute, but he doesn’t care if you live or die.

--Scott Adams, dilbert.com

13.                   Man is a game-playing animal, and a computer is another way to play games.

--Scott Adams

14.                   The only time women are not attracted to intelligent men is when they have the option of a good-looking guy who is dumber than pants on fish.

--Scott Adams, dilbert.com

15.                   A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

--Agent K, “Men in Black”

16.                   Almost everything in life is easier to get into than out of.

--Agnes’ Law

17.                   Time heals all wounds unless you pick at them.

--Shawn Alexander

18.                   Your mother mates out of season.

Tenctonese insult, Alien Nation

19.                   The solution to asylum seekers is better signs to the asylum

--allseeingeye, on Everything2

20.               Electricity can be dangerous. My nephew tried to stick a penny into a plug. Whoever said a penny doesn’t go far didn’t see him shoot across that floor. I told him he was grounded.

--Tim Allen

21.               Never comment on a woman’s rear end. Never use the words “large” or “size” with “rear end.” Never. Avoid the area altogether. Trust me.

--Tim Allen

Quotes - Part One

 I don't remember when it started, but I began collecting quotes from books I was reading.

Insults and greetings.  Interesting turns of phrase.

These were all kept in a spiral bound notebook, and then once I had a computer, I thought, "Wouldn't it be easier to keep track of them in a text file.  This has grown into a Word doc that is over 100 pages long with over 1,300 entries.

And so, I thought i'd start sharing them here.

1.                   The word “laptop” comes from a Latin expression meaning “don’t drop this”.

--3 Dead Trolls in A Baggie

2.                   Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

--Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See

3.                   I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.

--Douglas Adams

4.                   In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

--Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

5.                   The big corporations are suddenly taking notice of the web, and their reactions have been slow. Even the computer industry failed to see the importance of the Internet, but that’s not saying much. Let’s face it, the computer industry failed to see that the century would end.

--Douglas Adams

6.                   The major difference between something that can go wrong and something that cannot possibly go wrong is that when something that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair.

--Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

7.                   There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

8.                   The world’s a lot less scary when you’re carrying a rocket launcher around with you.

--Ernest Adams, The Designer’s Notebook, Gamasutra

9.                   I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.

--Franklin P. Adams

10.               The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

   -- John Adams, Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife