101 hits
The reason I'm going to miss Bill Clinton is that watching him these past eight years has given me the same unbridled, childlike joy as watching a cartoon. Clinton was our first cartoon president. He ran off cliffs, was crushed by anvils and flattened by turn-of-the-century trains. Yet moments later, we always saw him, just like Wile E. Coyote or Daffy Duck, completely reassembled and eagerly pursuing his next crazy scheme. Essentially, people love cartoon characters because they cannot be hurt. They defy the rules of Greek tragedy. Clinton, unlike Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson, was not undone by his flaws. Whenever the smoke cleared, Clinton remained standing, covered in soot and looking at us slightly chagrined. ... [T]he irony of Bill Clinton is that he may have felt our pain, but we didn't feel his. We just listened joyously for which funny sound he'd make as he bounced happily off the canyon floor.-- Conan O'Brien ('What I'll Miss About Bill Clinton,'' in the 08 Jan 2001 "Time" magazine.)
It's strange that men should take up crime when there are so many legal ways to be dishonest.-- Sunshine magazine
The future exists first in the imagination, then in the will, then in reality.
Sometimes before bed, I look in the mirror and wonder just what I'll be doing in ten years. Then I look at the clock and think, 'Probably flossing.'-- April Van Scherpe
Beauty lies in the hands of the beer holder.
A bird in the hand is the best way to eat chicken.
Half of the people in the world are below average.
Patience is something you admire greatly in the driver behind you but not in the one ahead of you.
Of all the truths in the world, humor is the most satisfying and often the healthiest.
"Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog."
"There's very little advice in men's magazines, because men think, 'I know what I'm doing. Just show me somebody naked.'"-- Jerry Seinfeld
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.-- Gandhi
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought"-- Basho
"If there is one thing that always comes out of a terrible tragedy, it is really dumb legislation." (Esquire magazine)
I'm extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
Eat a live toad in the morning, and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.
Talk to your kids about sex. Tell them just how absolutely incredible it really is. (The Covert Comic)
Is not that the nature of men and women--that the pleasure is in the learning of each other?
"Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones."-- Phillips Brooks
"God, so atrocious in the Old Testament, so attractive in the New--the Jekyll and Hyde of sacred romance."-- Mark Twain
"[Men, particularly in the British press] come in asking me why I'm so agressive and why I hate them, and, and, what they don't understand with this record is that it's about incredible passion and incredible desire and incredible need and then, love. It's all gotta be in there if you're being fair about it."-- Tori Amos
Adult: A person that has stopped growing at both ends but not in the middle.
Linda Emery: A philosophy major? Now, what can you do with a philosophy major?
Bruce Lee: You can think deep thoughts about being unemployed. (Dragon)
He's come up with half of the algorithms used in the 20th century, but wouldn't actually recognize an actual computer if you dropped it on him.-- Jason Riek (about Dana Scott)
'Be yourself' is about the worst advice you can give to people.-- Tom Masson
Can there be, when you think about it, a more improbable sentiment than 'Get fucked!'? We might as well snarl 'Make a lot of money!' or 'Have a nice day!'-- Bill Bryson (The Mother Tongue)
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
Almost everything alive is about some kind of balance. Heck, even a lot of things that are not alive are about balance. However, thinking a particular balance is the only balance is often a mistake.
"We apologize for the error in last week's paper in which we stated that Mr. Arnold Dogbody was a defective in the police force. We meant, of course, that Mr. Dogbody is a detective in the police farce." (Correction Notice in the Ely Standard)
Arithmetic: An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries.
Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?-- Paul Simon
Even if complaints about man-bashing in this film were 99% true, it still wouldn't make up for the years of portraying women as bimbos in movies.-- Geena Davis (about "Themla & Louise")
People want stories about things they can relate to: life and death, good and evil.
"Man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road."-- Alexander Smith
Robin: I wanna make sure you're serious about turning over a new leaf. I need a sign.
Poison Ivy: How about "Slippery When Wet"? (Batman & Robin)
Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was "aardvark".
People must think I'm a mushroom. They constantly keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.
Law of diminishing IQ:
The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group.
Proof by eminent authority: I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP-complete.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.-- Oscar Wilde
Three Accounts for the Super-users in the sky,
Seven for the Operators in their halls of fame,
Nine for Ordinary Users doomed to crie,
One for the Illegal Cracker with his evil game
In the Domains of Internet where the data lie.
One Account to rule them all, One Account to watch them,
One Account to make them all and in the network bind them
In the Domains of Internet where the data lie.
And it came to pass that in the hands of the ignorant, the words of the Bible were used to beat plowshares into swords.-- Alan Watts
I want to die like my grandfather, peaceful and in my sleep - not screaming like the other people in the car.
Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in movies.-- Bill Bulko
We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.-- Anais Nin
Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.-- Steven Wright
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."-- Carl Jung
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.-- W. Somerset Maugham
Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to become comfortable?-- Mia (Pulp Fiction)
Genies rarely have nightmares, for the same reason that elephants don't usually worry about being trampled underfoot. With the possible exception of bottles, there's nothing in the cosmos large enough or malicious enough to frighten them, or stupid enough to try.-- Tom Holt ("Djinn Rummy")
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.-- Lily Tomlin
"The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone."-- Henrik Ibsen
"I wanted to make a little spot in the context of the record where there was this break in the action. In the midst of this buildup of these ever-growing, terrible machines, I just wanted to remember that there is somewhere... else."-- Trent Reznor
From the 'Rules for women':
Women wearing Wonderbras and low-cut blouses lose their right to complain about being stared at.
What is inconceivable about the universe is that it is at all conceivable.-- Albert Einstein
Revolution is a trivial shift in the emphasis of suffering.-- Tom Stoppard
What if nothing exists and we're all in somebody's dream? Or what's worse, what if only that fat guy in the third row exists?-- Woody Allen ("Without Feathers")
How can I tell you what I think until I've heard what I'm going to say?
If you sat a monkey down in front of a keyboard, the first thing typed would be a UNIX command.-- Bill Lye
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.-- Albert Einstein
"Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture on a rock."-- New York Times
Men are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.-- Moliere
Sniglet, n: Any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
Law of Cat Landing:
A cat will always land in the softest place possible; often the mid-section of an unsuspecting, reclining human.
Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure.
If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?-- Lily Tomlin
Reason, v.i: To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.-- Ambrose Bierce
"I find imperfection the most interesting thing about a person"-- Jodi Foster
Hang in there, retirement is only thirty years away!
Laugh, and the world laughs with you. But you know most of them didn't get the joke in the first place, the lying weasels.-- Wade Kwon
If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?-- Steven Wright
There's so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?-- Dick Cavett
"I love Saturday morning cartoons, what classic humour! This is what entertainment is all about... Idiots, explosives and falling anvils."-- Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes)
"No, I'm not trying to save on psychiatrist's bills. It's more me asking, 'does anyone else feel this way?' And if it does reach the point where it gets uncomfortably personal, I tend to disguise what I'm saying in the phrasing."-- Beth Gibbons
I don't know much about morality but I know what I shouldn't like.-- Tim Minchin
All esoteric teachings seek to apprehend the unseen happenings in the psyche, and all claim supreme authority for themselves.-- Carl Jung
You're about as accurate as an archer in a centrifuge.
"The thing that I'm into is the philosophy of the music. I love the surprise of things, the accidents--just the sound of a word, to try to express them in the best way, so that the emotion is totally revealed."-- Beth Gibbons
"We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles."-- Mark Twain
Join the army: meet interesting people, then kill them.