If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried. ------- Never criticize a person until you've walked a mile in their shoes. Then, if they don't like it, you're a mile away, and you have their shoes. ------- Frisbeetarianism, n.: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. ------- Think Globally & Act Locally: hate the world and get pissed at the local pub. ------- Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. ------- Just another extreme right-wing leftist extremist ------- Save the whales, collect the whole set. ------- If the enemy is in range, so are you. ------- "Push to test." "Release to detonate." -------- "Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly." [Batman Costume warning label] ------- "We are aware of the wide use of this slang term on the Internet. While we do not agree with the negative comments expressed, it is a well-known fact that Spam luncheon meat has gained world- wide popularity as a pre-eminent consumer brand despite nearly six decades of tongue-in-cheek, good-natured witticisms." [The Hormel Company, makers of Spam[tm], on "spamming"] ------- "When you see the crowd going one way, run like hell in the other direction." [Charles Bukowski] ------- "Being right too soon is socially unacceptible." [Robert A. Heinlein] ------- "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." [Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949] ------- "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." [Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943] ------- "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." [The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957] ------- "But what ... is it good for?" Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip] ------- "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." [Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977] ------- "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." [Western Union internal memo, 1876] ------- "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" [David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s] ------- "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." [Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.] ------- "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" [H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927] ------- "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." [Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind."] ------- "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." [Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies] ------- "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." [Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962] ------- "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." [Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895] ------- "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." [Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads] ------- "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" [Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer] ------- "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." [1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work] ------- "You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." [Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus] ------- "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." [Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859] ------- "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." [Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University,1929] ------- "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." [Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre] ------- "Everything that can be invented has been invented." [Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899] ------- "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". [Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872] ------- "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". [Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873] ------- "640K ought to be enough for anybody." [Bill Gates, 1981] ------- "This ain't the goddamn Barney show, I'm not a goddamn purple dinosaur, and I don't give a flying fuck about your *feelings.* I don't love you, I don't want to be your friend, and as far as I'm concerned, caring means not setting your house on fire." [Phil Birmingham] ------- "There are many things in the world that are both highly offensive and absolutely true, and people get into the most amusing struggles when they confuse truth with emotional appeal and try to reconcile it. That's one of the reasons that sexuality is so screwed up; part of the brain wants etherial pure love and another part wants to get laid, and people think that they have to pick one and suppress the other, which is wrong." [Erik Pepke] ------- Homer: What are you selling? Apu: I am selling only the concept of karmic realignment. Homer: You can't sell that -- karma can only be doled out by the comos. Apu: He's got me there. ------- "Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph." [from "The Worst Analogies in High School Term Papers"] ------- "Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that but not with all those flies and death and stuff." [Mariah Carey] ------- 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] ------- "Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana...The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can't remember what they are." [Matt Lauer on NBC's Today show, August 22, 1996] ------- "I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law." [David Dinkins, New York City Mayor, answering accusations that he failed to pay his taxes] ------- "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." [Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for a federal anti-smoking campaign] ------- "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body." [Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward] ------- "Beginning in February 1976 your assistance benefits will be discontinued... Reason: it has been reported to our office that you expired on January 1, 1976." [Letter from the Illinois Department of Public Aid] ------- "The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history... this century's history...We all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century." [Dan Quayle, then Indiana senator and Republican vice-presidential candidate during a news conference in which he was asked his opinion of the Holocaust] ------- "Rotarians, be patriotic! Learn to shoot yourself." [Chicago Rotary Club journal, "Gyrator"] ------- "The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people who make them unsafe." [Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and mayor of Philadelphia] ------- "I've always thought that underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted." [Lawrence Summers, chief economist of the World Bank, explaining why we should export toxic wastes to Third World countries] ------- "After finding no qualified candidates for the position of principal, the school board is extremely pleased to announce the appointment of David Steele to the post." [Philip Streifer, Superintendent of Schools, Barrington, Rhode Island] ------- "The doctors X-rayed my head and found nothing." [Dizzy Dean, explaining how he felt after being hit on the head by a ball in the 1934 World Series] ------- "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." [Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle"] ------- "If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside." [Robert Cringely/InfoWorld] ------- "Knee-jerk liberals and all the certified saints of sanctified humanism are quick to condemn this great and much-maligned Transylvanian statesman." [William F. Buckley, Jr. "The Wit and Wisdom of Vlad the Impaler"] ------- "Once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." [Thomas De Quincey] ------- "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] ------- "...one can imagine the government's problem. This is all pretty magical stuff to them. If I were trying to terminate the operations of a witch coven, I'd probably seize everything in sight. How would I tell the ordinary household brooms from the getaway vehicles?" [John Perry Barlow] ------- "Aischbedellazouchecastleabbe" [title of song (Ash forest by the bridge next to the Castle Abbe)] ------- "Artiformologicalintactitudinarianisminist" [one who studies 4-5 letter latin prefixes and suffixes] ------- "Humuhumunukunukuapua'a" [state fish of Hawaii (Reef Trigger Fish)] ------- "Kardivilliwarrakurrakurrieapparlandoo" [name of a lake in Northern Australia] ------- "If your attack is going really well, you've walked into an ambush." [Hannibal] ------- "Incoming fire has the right of way." [Purple heart recipient] ------- "Remember children - Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend." [B. Merkley] ------- "Those who cherish freedom do not need to flame those who don't; We can though, through our questions and logic, help them to self-immolate." [Chris Bolton] ------- "No one has ever been satisfied with existing. Whenever you see people just existing you see the rear of an advancing army." [Gerard Foster] ------- The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. ------- "It's not so much the Apocalypse, it's the humidity" [MST3K] ------- "We are half asleep waiting on the doorstep of the 21st century Take a look at the ones who lead this nation They are the champions of mediocrity." [Rumors of the Big Wave] ------- "Curious, but in no way indecipherable" [The Fearless Vampire Killers] ------- "There's a fine line between eccentrics and geniuses. If you're a little ahead of your time, you're an eccentric, and if you're a little too late, you're a failure, but if you hit it right on the head, you're a genius. So I have never worried much about eccentricity." [Tom Watson Jr., IBM] ------- "To those who have defended it, Freedom has a flavor the Protected will never enjoy." [Richard A. De Castro] ------- "If anyone disagrees with anything I say, I am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also to deny under oath that I ever said it." [Tom Lehrer] ------- Lord, grant me the serenity to accept that I cannot change, the courage to change what I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those I had to kill because they pissed me off. ------- "What happens if a big asteroid hits the Earth? Judging from realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad." [Dave Barry] ------- "There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." [Jeremy S. Anderson] ------- "On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points." [Virginia Woolf] ------- "Ideas are more dangerous than guns. We wouldn't let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?" [Stalin] ------- "I'm here to kick ass and chew gum, and I'm all out of gum." [Roddy Piper, "They Live" movie, 1988] ------- "I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons." [Will Rogers] ------- "However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead." [Richard Dawkins, "The Blind Watchmaker"] ------- "I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of people waiting to abuse me." [Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters"] ------- "Transported to a surreal land, a young girl kills the first woman she meets and then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again." [Summary of "The Wizard of Oz"] ------- "A true lady takes off her dignity with her clothes and does her whorish best." [Lazarus Long] ------- "So, they have the internet on computers these days?" [Homer Simpson] ------- "If you ever teach a yodeling class, probably the hardest thing is to keep the students from just trying to yodel right off. You see, we build to that." [Jack Handey, "Deep Thoughts"] ------- "You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." [Marcus to Franklin, "A Late Delivery From Avalon", Babylon 5] ------- "Honesty means never having to say "Please don't flush me down the toilet!" [Bob the Dinosaur] ------- "When the ratings go up, it's like the whole world is made of donuts." [Brak] ------- "I read somewhere that 77 per cent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the 23 per cent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves." [Emo Philips] ------- "When the authorities warn you of the dangers of having sex, there is an important lesson to be learned. Do not have sex with the authorities." [Matt Groening] ------- "Boy, I've never seen an issue so divisive. It's like a civil war, isn't it? Even amongst my friends, who are all very intelligent people, they are totally divided on abortion. Some of my friends, for instance, think these pro-life people are annoying idiots. Others of my friends think these pro-life people are evil fucks. How are we going to come to a consensus? You want to hear the arguments around my house. "They're annoying!" "They're idiots!" "They're evil!" "They're fucks!" Brothers, sisters come together! Can't we once just join hands and think of them as evil annoying idiot fucks?" [the late great Bill Hicks] ------- "Psst, hey Guido. It's all so clear to me now. I'm the Keeper of the Cheese...and you're the Lemon Merchant. And he KNOWS. That's why he's going to KILL us. And we have to get away before he sets loose the marmosets upon us. DON'T WORRY LITTLE MISSY!! I'LL SAVE YOU!! [Ren Hoek, "Space Madness"] ------- When cryptography is outlawed, only bjayl gynjf jvyyr uniro cevin. ------- Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. ------- "The moon landing are all fakes. They were filmed in a studio on Mars." [Graham Kendall] ------- "Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers." [Socrates] ------- "All of life comes from some strange lagoon. It rises up, it bucks up to it`s full height from a boggy swamp on a foggy night. It creeps into your house. It`s life! It's life! It`s fear. I turn around again, and it`s love. Nobody knows me. Nobody knows my name. Deep in the heart of darkest America. Home of the brave." [Laurie Anderson, "Sharkey's Day" from the _Mister Heartbreak_ album] ------- "Look into any man's heart you please and you will always find, in every one, at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed." [Henrik Ibsen] ------- "Kittens give Morbo gas." [Futurama] ------- "Aside from the coffee shop girls, Canada is nothing but one big nest of vampires." [Christopher Bek] -------