1,000,001 Things I Wish I Had Said First
Funny Quotes
TANSTAAFL--There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.
Robert Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological
criminal.
Albert Einstein
Television--a medium. So called because it is neither rare nor
well-done.
Ernie Kovacs
Tell the truth and run.
Yugoslav proverb
Tenses, Gender, and Number: For the purpose of the rules and regulations
contained in this chapter, the present tense includes the past and future
tenses, and the future, the present; the masculine gender includes the
feminine, and the feminine, the masculine, and the singular includes the
plural, and the plural the singular.
revised (1973) state code for the Department of Consumer Affairs, California
Texas Federal has established a policy to consider a robbery of an ATM to
be an authorized transaction.
Texas Federal Savings bank
That is, because of, because of our, that is, we are attempting, the
position is to withhold information and to cover up--that is totally
true--you could say it is totally untrue.
President Richard Nixon, from 1973 White House transcripts,
discussing whether or not to hide evidence concerning the
Watergate break-in
That's twice now he has got between himself and the goal.
Brian Marwood
The ability to quote is a servicable substitute for wit.
Maugham
The art of acting consists of keeping people from coughing.
Sir Ralph Richardson
The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the
disease.
Voltaire
The ballparks have gotten too crowded. That's why nobody goes to see the
game anymore.
Yogi Berra
The Baltimore Colts are a bright young team. It seems as if they have their
future ahead of them.
Curt Gowdy
The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.
attributed to S. I. Hayakawa
The best way to pass a cow on the road when cycling is to keep behind
it.
R.J. Mecredy
The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in
the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.
Robert Frost
The cap, which is patented by the Rubik's Cube company, cannot be removed
unless you line an invisible arrow up with an invisible dot while rotating
the cap counterclockwise and simultaneously pushing down and pulling
up.
Dave Barry
The church is near, but the way is icy. The tavern is far, but I will
walk carefully.
Ukranian proverb
The cup of our trouble is running over, but, alas, is not yet
full.
Sir Boyle Roche
The [deleted] is a key element of the Worldwide Military Command and Control
System (WWMCCS) warning network.... [Deleted] currently consists of [deleted]
satellite; two [deleted] satellites; an [deleted] for [deleted] and the
[deleted] satellite; and a [deleted] which provides [deleted] for the
[deleted].... Using these data, [deleted] can be inferred.
arms control impact statement from the Pentagon
The Difficult is that which can be done immediately; the Impossible is that
which takes a little longer.
George Santayana
The doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing.
Dizzy Dean
The dogs bark, but the caravan passes.
Near East proverb
The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they're going to be
when you kill them.
William Clayton
The evening will conclude with a toast to the incoming president in champagne
kindly supplied by the outgoing president, drunk as usual at
midnight.
brochure for a club's annual dinner
The fact that my father was President and Chief Justice of the United States
was a tremendous help and inspiration in my public career.
Robert Taft
The female teachers were instructed in cooking. They had, in fact, to go
through the process of cooking themselves in turn.
Annual report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland
The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion.
Arnold H. Glascow
The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy
of women who love me.
George Bernard Shaw
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
Abbie Hoffman
The first food was canned in 1812.
The first can opener was invented in 1885.
Life Magazine, Fall '97, 100 significant things this millennium, #43.
The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its
absurdity.
Proust
The flush toilet is the basis of western civilization.
Alan Coult
The future, according to some scientists, will be exactly like the past, only
more expensive.
John Sladek
The good Lord made us with two ends--one to sit on and one to think
with. How well you succeed in life depends on which one you
use.
Isaac Dworetsky
The good Lord set definite limits on man's wisdom, but set no limits on his
stupidity--and that's just not fair!
Konrad Adenauer
The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong
at once.
Andrew B. Sweger
. . . the health of Mr. Parnell has lately taken a very serious turn, and
fears of his recovery are entertained by his friends.
from a Dublin newspaper, 1890
The infiltration group was composed of 1/3 males, 1/3 females, and 1/3 party
officials.
American military intelligence document
The Internet is a great way to get on the net.
Bob Dole
The ladder of life is full of splinters, but they always prick hardest when
you're sliding down.
William Brownell
The loss of life will be irreplaceable.
Dan Quayle
The man who has nothing to boast of but his ancestry is like a potato. The
only good belonging to him is underground.
Sir Thomas Overbury
The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights.
J. Paul Getty
The middle class is always a firm champion of equality when it concerns a
class above it; but it is its inveterate foe when it concerns elevating a
class below it.
Orestes A. Brownson
The Minutemen are not tall in terms of height.
Dan Bonner
The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television is tremendously
important, both in photography, television and film.
Sir Richard Attenborough
The Net--a pretty okay substitute for a life.
unknown
The New York Rangers and their snide little coach, Colin Campbell, say they
have discovered that Eric Lindros is a mean player. Well, yes, and perhaps
any day now they will also discover that water is wet, fire burns, and the
sun has a curious habit of rising in the east.
Bill Lyon, Philadelphia Inquirer
The next time I send a dope, I'll go myself.
Michael Curtiz
The Observer wishes to apologize for a typesetting error in our Tots and
Toddlers advertising feature last week which led to Binswood Nursery
School being described as serving "children casserole" instead of chicken
casserole.
the Lexington Spa Observer
The odds that we won't win a game this season are 999 out of a
hundred.
high school football coach
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings
wisdom.
H. L. Mencken
The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.
traditional
The only luxury is freedom, freedom of the mind. They can chop off my head
and take everything else as long as they leave me that.
Dieter Meier
The only place you find free cheese is in a mousetrap.
Russian proverb
The only things we can't weld are the crack of dawn and a broken heart.
door of a Navy ship's welding shop
The other night, I was lying in bed, looking up at the stars, and I wondered,
"Where the hell is my roof!"
anonymous
The people here [in Nicaragua] are amazingly friendly, when you figure we're
here to overthrow their government.
Richard Melton
The Pledge of Allegiance says Liberty and Justice for All. Which part of
"All" don't you understand?
Pat Schroeder
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those
who have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw
The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting
otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.
Theodore Rubin
The reason people blame things on previous generations is that there is only
one other choice.
Doug Larson
The right honorable gentleman has gone to the top of the tree and caught a
very big fish.
Sir W. Hart Dyke
The road to wisdom?--Well it's plain and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
Piet Hein, "The Road to Wisdom," Grooks (1966)
The shortest distance between two points is under
construction.
Noelie Altito
The show-off is always shown up in a showdown.
Fortune cookie
The spontaneous rally will begin at 1:45.
Mike Murphy
The sun and the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago . . . had
they happened to be within the reach of predatory human
hands.
Havelock Ellis
The surest way to make a monkey out of a man is to quote
him.
Robert Benchly
The telephone company is urging people to please not use the telephone unless
it is absolutely necessary in order to keep the lines open for emergency
personnel. We'll be right back after this break to give away a pair of
Phil Collins concert tickets to caller number ninety-five.
Los Angeles radio DJ
The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger
pain the second time around.
Herb Caen
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to
be.
Paul Valéry
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a
rat.
Lily Tomlin
The two most important tools an architect has are the eraser in the drawing
room and the sledge hammer on the construction site.
Frank Lloyd Wright
The United States has much to offer the third world war.
Ronald Reagan, who repeated this error nine times
The United States Navy will not be caught napping.
some admiral
[The U.S. Navy urgently] needs modern musicians.
Michael Dukakis
The video-game phenomenon called Doom has given us sore wrists, shattered
careers, and more hours of video violence than a thousand John Woo films.
Noah Green, Premier Magazine
[The waiter] brings around these dead animals and shows them to you, which
one do you want? And how do you want it further desecrated by fire?
Andy Jacobs
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
The world holds two classes of men--intelligent men without religion, and
religious men without intelligence.
Abu'l-Ala-Al-Ma'arri
The world is a very strange place, and the dice are always rolling.
Can o'Beans
Then you add two forkfuls of cooking oil . . .
directions given on The French Chef
There are also a lot of nice buildings in Haiphong. What their
contributions are to the war effort I don't know, but the desire to
bomb a virgin building is terrific.
Commander Henry Urban, Jr.
There are four kinds of homocide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and
praiseworthy.
Ambrose Bierce
There are instances where it is in the best interests of the nation not to
vote the will of the people.
Thomas O'Neill, Jr.
There are thirty-thousand words in the English language. We can beat around
the bush all day.
Steve Sorkin
There are two dilemmas that rattle the human skull: How do you hang on
to someone who won't stay? And how do you get ride of someone who won't
go?
Danny DeVito, The War of the Roses
There are two major products to come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We
don't believe this to be a coincidence.
Anonymous
There are two types of people--those who come into a room and say, "Well,
here I am!" and those who come in and say, "Ah, there you are."
Frederick L. Collins
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to
doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.
Alfred Korzybski
There has been no exclusion. We have simply excluded all the
women.
Nicolas Romanoff
There have been a plethora of guys to hit it up there, but that was the
plethorest.
Chuck Pool
There is a First Amendment right to speak in an encrypted way . . . The
right to speak P.G.P. is like the right to speak Navajo. The
Government has no particular right to prevent you from speaking in a
technical manner even if it is inconvenient for them to understand.
Eben Moglen
There is no difference between someone who eats too little and sees Heaven and
someone who drinks too much and sees snakes.
Bertrand Russell
There is nothing scarier than a mediocre man with a mission.
Joel Achenbach, The Post
There is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is
"You never know."
Joaquin Andujar
There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not
mad.
Salvador Dali
There will be a procession next Sunday afternoon in the grounds of the
Monastery; but if it rains in the afternoon, the procession will take
place in the morning.
statement read to a church congregation
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will
be the beginning.
Louis L'Amour
There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this
line.
Oscar Levant
There's nothing to match curling up with a good book when there's a repair job
to be done around the house.
Joe Ryan
There's plenty more fish in the sea. There's also markedly more sea than
fish.
unknown
These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others.
Groucho Marx
They all looked back on their grammar-school days with as much disdain as
university students on their high school days.
Herman Hesse
They always bite the hand that lays the golden egg.
Samuel Goldwyn
They brought me up to the Brooklyn Dodgers, which at that time was in
Brooklyn.
Casey Stengel
They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--
John Sedgwick
They do not normally make coffee from this [radioactive] water, but yesterday
one of the employees felt perhaps demineralized water makes better coffee than
tap water. That's how it got utilized.
Donald C. Cook
They drink with impunity, or anyone who invites them.
Artemus Ward
They were singing without accompaniment. You
know--acapulco.
Gregory Ratoff
They've managed to keep their unemployment low although their overall
unemployment is high.
Bill Clinton
Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.
Dwight Eisenhower
Things happen more frequently in the future than they do in the past.
Booth Gardner
Thirty-five is a very attractive age. London's society is full of women who
have of their free choice remained thirty-five for years.
Oscar Wilde
This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around.
David Byrne
This document did not concern you. Please erase your initials and initial
your erasure.
U.S. Army personnel department, Fort Baker
This evening is a very different evening from the morning we had this
morning.
David Coleman
This extraordinary man left no children behind him, except his brother, who
was killed at the same time.
Biography of Robespierre
This guy is really superstitious. He doesn't even like to light cigars when
he's close to a gas station.
Radar, Brazilian soccer star
This is a delightful surprise to the extent that it is a surprise and it is
only a surprise to the extent that we anticipated.
James Baker
This is a perfect scenario. It is the first time in my life that I've seen a
perfect scenario. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I want you to have
a hundred copies made so I can distribute them to all the other writers so that
everybody should see a really perfect script. And hurry, before I start
rewriting it.
Samuel Goldwyn
This is no time to pull the rug out in the middle of the
stream.
Silvio Conte
This is the best biography by me I have ever read.
Lawrence Welk
This is the greatest country in America.
Bill Peterson
This is the worst disaster in California since I was
elected.
Pat Brown
This is unparalyzed in the state's history.
Gib Lewis
This strategy represents our policy for all time. Until it's changed.
Marlin Fitzwater
This time next year we'll be tanned muscle-bound aikido-master genius stud
philosophers.
A.M. Heublein
This unit had an estimated strength of about 2,000 men, of which 300 were
women.
Vietnam War military intelligence document
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Benjamin Franklin
Throw a lucky man in the sea, and he will come up with a fish in his
mouth.
Arab proverb
Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.
Groucho Marx
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its
pupils.
Hector Berlioz
Time is money--steal some today!
Levine & Young, Unix For Dummies
Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los
Angeles.
Frank Lloyd Wright
To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a
computer.
anonymous
To generalize is to be an idiot.
William Blake
To hell with the public! I'm here to represent the people!
New Jersey state senator
To speak to a guest in another room: Please follow these instructions: 1st
Floor--add 250 to the room number and dial, on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th
Floors--dial the number required. 5th Floor--subtract 250 from the room
number and dial, e.g. to contact Room 510 dial 260 EXCEPT for Room 542
whose number is 294.
Telephone instructions posted in the Zimbabwe Sun Hotel
Today is Father's Day, so everyone out there: Happy birthday!
Ralph Kiner
Toes with butter and jam
Balinese restaurant menu item
Too far East is West.
English proverb
Too many textbooks and discussions leave students free to make up their
minds about things.
Mel Gabler
Too much of a good thing is wonderful.
Mae West
Trapped, like a trap in a trap.
Dorothy Parker
Truth has a way of shifting under pressure.
Curtis Bok
Twelve for 23 . . . It doesn't take a genius to see that's under 50
percent.
Dick Vitale
Two and two continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for
three, or the cry of the critic for five.
Jame McNeil Whistler