123 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.
Patience is something you admire greatly in the driver behind you but not in the one ahead of you.
A bird in the hand is the best way to eat chicken.
Half of the people in the world are below average.
Of all the truths in the world, humor is the most satisfying and often the healthiest.
"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
"Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog."
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought"-- Basho
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.-- Gandhi
"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.
"[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
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
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.
Adult: A person that has stopped growing at both ends but not in the middle.
"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)
Talk to your kids about sex. Tell them just how absolutely incredible it really is. (The Covert Comic)
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)
'Be yourself' is about the worst advice you can give to people.-- Tom Masson
Arithmetic: An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries.
Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.
People want stories about things they can relate to: life and death, good and evil.
Why am I so soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?-- Paul Simon
"Man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road."-- Alexander Smith
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)
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")
Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer.
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.
People must think I'm a mushroom. They constantly keep me in the dark and feed me bullshit.
In the beginning was the word, and the word was "aardvark".
Proof by eminent authority: I saw Karp in the elevator and he said it was probably NP-complete.
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.
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)
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.-- Oscar Wilde
"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
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")
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)
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."-- Carl Jung
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
Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.-- W. Somerset Maugham
"The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone."-- Henrik Ibsen
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.-- Lily Tomlin
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
Why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to become comfortable?-- Mia (Pulp Fiction)
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?
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.-- Albert Einstein
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.
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.
"Finding out what goes on in the C.I.A. is like performing acupuncture on a rock."-- New York Times
Law of Cat Landing:
A cat will always land in the softest place possible; often the mid-section of an unsuspecting, reclining human.
Men are all alike in their promises. It is only in their deeds that they differ.-- Moliere
"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
If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?-- Lily Tomlin
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
Reason, v.i: To weight probabilities in the scales of desire.-- Ambrose Bierce
Sniglet, n: Any word that doesn't appear in the dictionary, but should.-- Rich Hall ("Sniglets")
"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
As I get older and older, I find little grounds to believe in the real existence of a personal God who cares about me. But if there is such a God for me to meet when I die, I still think that I will have the same defense - I tried to do what is good, and apologise when I make mistakes. If that is not enough, then I was scorched before I was ten.-- Laura Creighton
"I find imperfection the most interesting thing about a person"-- Jodi Foster
All esoteric teachings seek to apprehend the unseen happenings in the psyche, and all claim supreme authority for themselves.-- Carl Jung
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
Hang in there, retirement is only thirty years away!
I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.-- E. B. White
I don't know much about morality but I know what I shouldn't like.-- Tim Minchin
Everyone has their first date... and the object is to hide your flaws. And then you're in a relationship and it's all about hiding your disappointment. Then once you're married it's about hiding your sins. (Dollhouse)
"We all live in the protection of certain cowardices which we call our principles."-- Mark Twain
You're about as accurate as an archer in a centrifuge.
Join the army: meet interesting people, then kill them.
"Being a graduate student is like becoming all of the Seven Dwarves. In the beginning you're Dopey and Bashful. In the middle, you are usually sick (Sneezy), tired (Sleepy), and irritable (Grumpy). But at the end, they call you Doc, and then you're Happy."
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.-- Calvin (Calvin & Hobbes)
The two most common elements in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity.-- Harlan Ellison
Some women get excited about nothing, and then marry him.
Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff.-- Peter de Vries
"In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or exist in extreme boredom...Make no mistake; all intellectuals are deviants in the U.S."-- William Burroughs
"If you weren't Cindy Crawford, you didn`t get to ride in the little cart. I saw them take her off on a little cart, and I thought, 'I'm in the wrong profession!'"-- Tori Amos (Chicago Tribune, October 8, 1992)
"We all suffer from the preoccupation that there exists ... in the loved one, perfection."-- Sidney Poitier
There's old proverbs to suit about anything you want to do.
When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot in the universe- So what the hell, leap.
"The most merciful thing in the world...is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."-- H.P. Lovecraft
There has been opposition to every innovation in the history of man, with the possible exception of the sword.-- Benjamin Dana
"If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?"
"Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area."
"I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?"-- Jean Kerr
In a church bulletin: This evening at 7 P.M. there will be a hymn sing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
"I think all the boys that write the screaming stuff would write the best love songs... because they have the most to hide. The guys that are in the most pain are usually the ones with the biggest hearts."-- Tori Amos
"Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they're in the game."-- Paul Rodriguez
...problems continue in the South African black townships. Four people were killed in violent clashes yesterday. A black spokesman said - this situation is a tragedy for our people; we get no help from the government; blacks are dying and all the whites can do is talk about cricket. [very brief pause] last night at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the South African cricket team defeated Australia in the day-night match... (A(ustralian)BC-FM news)