Monday, August 24, 2020

Conscience

 

"The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience." -Harper Lee

"A buried conscience is the worst ghost of all."  - Janice Law (slightly edited)

"An attorney must have either a guilty conscience or no conscience at all." -David Mamet 

"People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well and is cheaper, and more easily obtained." - Jerome K. Jerome


Racism and Diversity


“Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance.” -Verna Meyers

"If people were given a choice between democracy and whiteness, how many would choose whiteness?" -Taylor Branch

"Ever been left-handed and used dangerous power tools like chainsaws and weed whackers, only to have a mouthful of sawdust or a rock to the groin violently inform you that everything on those tools— from the safety mechanisms to the trigger placement to the ergonomic sweep of the handles — are designed for right-handed people? That’s what racism is like, except the chainsaw was designed by a guy who didn’t want left-handed people cutting firewood, trimming weeds, or sleeping with his daughter." – Chris Newman

"Racism depends on the presence of those it hates."  - Elisabeth Anne Leonard   


“The Sicilians are vivid in imagination, affable, and benevolent, but excitable, superstitious, and revengeful.” - Congressional Serial Set, v 5867, Senate Document 662

Monday, August 17, 2020

Advice

 

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."  - Samuel Beckett

"I don't know whether this is the best of times or the worst of times, but I assure you it's the only time you've got. You can either sit on your expletive deleted or pick a daisy."-- Art Buchwald

"Don't kill the messenger. In fact, don't kill anyone." - Andy Zaltzman

"If you catch all your flights you're getting to the airport too early." - Jon Lovett

"When life gives you harlequins, make harlequinade." - Falsetry

 "'Write about what you know' gets a bad rap.  If you don't know do the research and then you know." - Barb Goffman

"If you were thinking of assassinating a politician my main advice would be don't bother - they keep spares." - Mat Coward

 “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.” - Henry James

“Write like everyone you know is dead." - Joe Lansdale

 "Unless a reviewer has the courage to give you unqualified praise, I say ignore the bastard." - John Steinbeck

"You can get excited about the future. The past won't mind." - Hillary DePiano

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.” - Octavia Butler

"When I have a hard time identifying what desperately needs my attention, it's usually sleep." - Mike Bray

 
"A word of advice: Don't Google nun's underwear." - Catriona McPherson


"Trust the wolves, but do not tell them where you are going." -Neil Gaiiman

"Experience is a thing of extraordinary value and often exorbitant price.  And yet, when you try to give it away, to hand it over to someone else free of charge, they frequently refuse it."  - Leonard Pitts.

"Don't try to win.  Try to learn." - Lisa Scottoline.

"Do, oh do remember that when stern duty, daughter of the voice of God, is at the other end of a telephone the only thing to do is to ring off." - Dorothea Rowe

"Don't bring a pizza cutter to a knife fight." - Lorrie B. Potters

“Teach the Gospel at all times; if necessary use words." -Francis of Assisi

"The world is changed by your example, not your opinion." - Tom Hodge

"The only way to move forward creatively is to allow yourself to be judged." - Amy Hohn

"You can't help someone cross the street if they just don't want to go." - Steve Goodman

"Don't play God.  He always wins." - Terry Pratchett

"If you want to be whole, be a part." - Lorrie B. Potters

"There is no healing without humor." - Jess Lourey

"You can look back, babe, but it's best not to stare." - Tom Petty

"When you have a broken neck, it is almost impossible to throw a kumquat with the speed and accuracy necessary to hit a living squirrel." - Stephen Tobolowsky

"In terms of advice for writers I have two words: butt glue." -Janie Chang

"Mountains are highly susceptible to flattery."  - Jim Malcolm

"No crying on the yacht." - Catriona McPherson

"Talking is how they distract us from doing, and never mistake a Post or Submit button for someone’s genuine interest or actual action in the world." - Will Ludwigsen

"When smashing monuments, save the pedestals. They always come in handy." - Stanislaw Lem
 

"No man can serve two bastards." -Jim Britell

"If I've learned one thing from reading Dante, it's that if you find yourself in hell, take notes." - Neil Steinberg

"Don't steal the reader's crayons."- Chantelle Aimee Osman.

"You can't mend an omelet without unbreaking a few eggs."  - Neil Gaiman

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge,  dig two graves." -Confucius

“Those memories ain't gonna make themselves.” – Brian Thornton

"Don't kill your darlings. Just lock them in the basement." - Jon McGoran

“There is ecstasy in paying attention.” - Annie Dillard

“The only difference between a groove and a grave is the depth.” - Michael Z. Lewin

“Water towers on fire take care of themselves.” -Chris Otepka

“To really succeed neatness-wise you need a messy best friend.” -James Powell

“Let us look less to the sky to see what might fall; rather, let us look to each other…and rise.” -Judge Michael McShane

“Sometimes you have to be forced into your luck.” -William DeAndrea

"Only a damned fool puts the fight above what he fights for.” -Michael Collins

“What Would Sam Spade Do?” -William Francis Condon

“Wearing belt and suspenders doesn’t help if you forget your pants.” -Lorrie B. Potters

"Never argue with a nerd - you both get bogged down in details, but the nerd enjoys it." - Emily Keene

"The worst situations in the world always start with the words, 'trust me.'" -Kristine Kathryn Rusch

"Be obscure clearly.” - E.B. White

“What is to give light must endure burning.” - Viktor Frankl

"Be sure to leave your underpants with someone you can trust." -Ian Andersen.

"The earliest Christians get the hungriest lions." John M. Floyd

"Never swear at a parrot." Kevin McLoughlin

"It is impossible to wrap ones arms around a whale, a fleeing fox or a sunken ship" Judge Kevin M. McCarthy, Popov v. Hayashi

"If you hear any sinister background music, run like hell." -Carol Cail

"Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry." -Spanish Proverb

"Forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them more." -Oscar Wilde

"Beware of barking at underdogs; don't fight with people who have nothing to lose." -Dory Previn

"Rather than easy answers, search for clearer contradictions." -Lorrie B. Potters

"If all the people of the world would just join hands, three quarters of them would drown." -attributed to Pete Seeger

America

"America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights created America." -- Jimmy Carter

"America is always changing, but America never changes."  - James Baldwin

“There is in American history a specie of ignorance, absurdity, and imbecility unknown to the annals of any other nation.” -James Callender, who drowned in a mud puddle

"Americans worship at the Church of the Second Chance." - Mara Liasson

"Questioning generals is what Americans do." - Neil Steinberg

"I am an American from the tip of my wallet to the bottom of my bank account."   - Charles Salzberg

"When you've got immigrants who are coming here legally, we've never in the history of this country passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion."  - Governor Nikki Haley, R-SC. 1/13/2016

“When you don't like it where you are you always go west.” -Robert Penn Warren.

“The American dream is not a sprint, or even a marathon, but a relay.” - Julian Castro

"Marketing is what made America great. " -Jeffrey Dronkin, NPR Ombudsman

"America has left the building." -Chris Chandler

"I'd like to leave America for someplace where they would not know a word of English and I might be understood." -Dan Bern

"The reason American cities are prosperous is that there is no place to sit down." -Albert J. Tally, 1924

"The number of drug addicts in the United States is variously estimated...at from 1,000,000 to 4,000,000." -L.F. Kebler, 1910 (A1.9:393) 

Animals

  "No one walks slower than an entitled goose."  -Anjili Ferris Babbar "Possums often fake their own deaths in hopes of collecting the insurance money." - Sandra Murphy

 "There are so many legends about wolves, although mostly they are legends about the way men think about wolves." - Terry Pratchett

"I want to be intimately involved with a black rhino. If I go over there and shoot it or not shoot it, it's beyond the point." -Corey Knowlton, who paid $350,000 for the right to hunt and kill a rhinoceros.

"The squirrels don't hate you. They talk about everyone." -Kim Barlow

"If a frog had side pockets, he'd carry a handgun." -Dan Rather

"If a chicken had grammar, it wouldn't have anything interesting to say." -David Premack

"Rats are gifted with charm, imagination, and generosity." -U.S. National Highway Traffic SafetyAdministration, TD 8.31:Z7/ENG./CHINESE

"The dog who bites you may have his reasons." -James E. Ricketson

"Consider the mouse before he considers you." -Herb Sargent

"The fact that monkeys have hands should give us pause." -R.D. Malloy

"No bleakness is complete without a crow."  - J.B. Toner

Art and Aesthetics

"A poor sculptor blames his chainsaw." - Zeke Hoskin

"Culture – it’s supposed to be borin’." - Roddy Doyle

  "Kids and art have the same purpose: finding out what it means to be a person." - Mac Barnett

"Anywhere a ferry pulls into looks good.” Marissa Piesman

"Promises are made to be broken...Otherwise there wouldn't be half as much art or beauty in the world." -Laura Anne Gilman

"I can sleep through anything but beauty." -Flip Breskin

"Some paintings would be easier to appreciate if the artists were hung next to them." -Lorrie B. Potters

Attitude

 

"I did my worst and I did it well." -Judy Goodenough 

"I don't light up a room by walking in.  I'm a human dimmer switch." - Dan Savage

“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.”― Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do." - Edward Everett Hale

"That was the PROPER nostalgia.  Not the nostalgia you get these days." - Terry Pratchett

 "In spite of really intense competition for the job, I'm still my own worst enemy." - Tom Holt
 

"The world is built to eat you alive, but before you go down the gullet the bastards can't stop you from looking around." - Jess Walter

"Sometimes I feel like my shadow's casting me." - Warren Zevon

" I'm changing the world, one trite catchphrase at a time." - Peter Rozovsky

"Everybody who sees the world through rose-colored glasses is a realist.  That's why they put the rose-colored glasses on." - Max Allan Collins.

"Everyone wants to feel special, but nobody wants to feel different." -Richard Osman

 "It is not strictly true that absolutely no one likes a pedant." - Andy Zaltzman

"I don’t ask for a lot. It saves time." –  Marina Hyde  

 "I have a five part answer to that.  The first part has sixteen parts. " -John Scalzi

I’ve spent a lot of years learning that ‘No’ is a complete sentence,' but I think I’ve finally got it.” -Elizabeth Zelvin

"Overreacting in advance saves time later." - Catriona McPherson

"You never know when your bad luck is going to run out." - Dan Savage

"A good sulk is a commitment."  - Sarah Kellington

"Hell is really empty & all its devils are here telling me to exercise." -Maui Smith

"I swear I’m not trying to pick a fight with you but you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny." -Garron Allman

"Nobody else could be me.  They'd crack like a ripe melon." - Paula Poundstone

"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right." -Arthur Schopenhauer

"I will be conquered.  I will not capitulate."  - Samuel Johnson

"The worst thing in the world is to be deliberately, flamboyantly shocking and depraved and have no one pay attention."  -Eve Fisher 

"Who among us has not wanted to be a pregnant horse?" - John Scalzi

"Nostalgia was arthritis of the brain." -John Harvey

"Impulse does not appreciate being questioned."  - Matthew Iden

"Half aloof is better than none." - Terri Weiner

"I am not a recluse but I play one in real life"  - O'Neil De Noux 

"Sometimes I even surprise myself. it comes in handy when I have the hiccups." - Charles Salzberg

"When I said I was going to become a comedian, they all laughed. Well, they're not laughing now, are they? " - Bob Monkhouse

"I live by the question mark and I'll die by the exclamation point." - Laird Long

"One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious." - Chateaubriand

"You don't choose your obsessions. They choose you." -Jodi Compton

"I don’t have so many friends I can afford to drop one just because he tried to kill me.” - Loren D. Estleman

“ARE YOU CALLING ME EASILY OFFENDED?!?” - Ophelia Benson

“I don’t care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy.” - Lee Child.

“This isn’t a relationship. It’s a hostage situation.” –Dan Savage

“Imperfection is sustainable.” –Libby Chenault

“I’m hardly ever on the winning side, but that don’t mean I ain’t been right.” -Michael Smith

“There are no happy endings… there are only happy people.” - Dorothy Gilman

"I’m ready for anything. That’s probably why it never happens.” -Kinky Friedman

"I'd go away, if it wasn't so far." - Corey Ford

"I don't burn bridges behind me, I nuke them." -Jacqueline Bartha

"I will place my paper hat on my concussion and dance." -Leonard Cohen

"Some days I don't know if I should laugh or call the police." -Cecil Adams

"Hate-on-the-highway is an institution occupying a high place in our modern civilization....The godawful glares that drivers exchange as they pass each other, the mutual hatred between motorist and pedestrian, these manifestations seem to constitute the ultimate in righteous wrath." -H. Allen Smith, 1947

"It's probably too late to do anything about it now, but the next best thing is to complain about it, which is what we're good at." -David Williams, Citizens Against Government Waste

"Sometimes joy slips in." -Richard Matoon

"I couldn't feel so I learned to touch." - Leonard Cohen

"Yes, I am insane. Thanks for asking." -Harlan Coben

"Dylan Thomas, asked what he thought of Welsh Nationalism, replied in three words, two of which were 'Welsh Nationalism.'" -Avram Davidson

"They can't break you if you don't have a spine." -Scott Adams

"The last freedom is choosing your attitude." -Victor Frankel

"If that indifference was originally a defense, it had consumed what it had once defended." -Ursula K. Le Guin

"They say that these are not the best of times, but they're the only times I've ever known." -Billy Joel

"We all wanted to be existentialists. None of us knew what the hell it meant." -Michael Smith

"Whoever thought the sixties would be called the good old days?" -Si Kahn

"heaven protect us from all the things / to which we can become accustomed" -Gloria McElroy

"A man is what he does with his attention and mine is not for sale." -John Ciardi

"Of course, this is only my personal opinion and I may be old-fashioned, but I would rather be old-fashioned than terribly, terribly ill with fever and have to wear ice-packs for weeks on end." -Robert Benchley

"Good manners are a sign of strength." -Dick Francis 

"A Spaniard will seek to persuade you that the bull-ring is an institution got up chiefly for the benefit of the bull." -Jerome K. Jerome

"Five years ago I was a four stone apology. Today I am two separate gorillas." -Vivian Stanshall

"The expression 'dead serious' is a self-fulfilling prophesy." -C.W. Metcalf

"Most people would rather stand on hot coals than stand corrected." -Lorrie B. Potters

Cats

 


"If you fed a stray cat tuna fish you have a cat." -T.K. Thorne

"What goes on three legs in the morning, four legs at the vet's office, and three legs in the afternoon?" - Sarah Kellington

"If cats can solve mysteries, why can’t they raise the dead?” - David Corbett

"Your home is where your cat lives." -Nevada Supreme Court, 2002.

"Cats have no handles." -Bud Herron

"Before you imitate a mouse, find out about cats." -Lorrie B. Potters

"Never try to outstubborn a cat." -Robert A. Heinlein

Censorship

 

"Where they burn books, they will too in the end burn people."  Heinrich Heine

"We may take pride in observing that there is not a single film showing in London today which deals with any of the burning questions of the day."  - Lord William Tyrell, British Board of Film Censors, 1937

"The first word we should hear after the statement 'free speech is important’ is therefore.’ It is not ‘but.’”-Charlie Klendjian

“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running around with lit matches.” - Ray Bradbury.

"What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature?" -Rex Stout

Communication



"If couples would listen to each other more and talk less they will eventually be able to stop talking to each other altogether."  - Tom Bodett

"I have no idea what she's talking about and I can still tell that she's wrong." - Laura Hefferman 

"Grapevines say a lot of things but it's mostly the wine talking." - Mick Herron

"Your words convince that you have uttered what you said." - O. Henry

 "You know you're a New Yorker when you think you're multilingual because you can curse in five languages." - Steven Wishnia

 "There's nothing like a mask to reveal one's true nature." -Stuart Turton

“People who are brutally honest generally enjoy the brutality more than the honesty."  - Richard Needham

"I do not talk well enough to be incomprehensible." -Jane Austen

"We celebrate both our commonalities and differences, because if we had nothing in common we could not communicate, and if we had everything in common, we would have nothing to say." - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

"The person who insists on the last word doesn't show much faith in their arguments." - Lorrie B. Potters

"I agree with everything you say, but I would attack to the death your right to say it." -Tom Stoppard

"A lot of the world's problems are caused by confusing four letter words, like 'love' and 'lust,' or 'want' and 'need.'" - Lorrie B. Potters

"A statute is written to entrap meaning, a poem to escape it." - Hilary Mantel

"Have you noticed how the word “ubiquitous” is popping up everywhere these days?" -Zay N. Smith 

"Whatever you lack in Skill and Ability can be easily masked with Volume and Poor Attitude."- Marvin Johnson

"It is a sure sign of troubled minds, the habit of quotation." - Hilary Mantel

"If your voice goes up at the end that doesn't necessarily make it a question." - Ginjer Buchanan

"Gentlemen never quote accurately." - Des MacHale

"I found out the hard way that 'kreplach' is NOT Klingon." -Kory Tideman

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." - Martin Luther king, Jr.

"When I was in college, there were certain words you could not say in front of  a girl...  Now you can say them, but you can't say 'girl.'"  - Tom Lehrer

“What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.” -Logan Pearsall Smith

"The saddest five words in the English language are, 'You knew what I meant!'" -James Lincoln Warren

"Bullshit still works as fertilizer."  - Chuck Wendig

“I like digressions when I'm the one doing the digressions.” – Bill Crider.

"I can't say hello in less than five thousand words." -Mark J. Ferrari

"What relationships need is less communication, not more." -Connie Willis.

"A mouth in motion tends to stay in motion."  - Stephen Pastis

"Panelists, do you have any questions for the audience?" - Kevin B. Smith

“Ideas are easy. Execution is hard.” – David Edgerley Gates

“Anyone using the words ‘activation’ or ‘implementation’ will be shot.” - Maury Maverick, President of Smaller War Plants Corporation, 1944.

“You’re not eight. Punctuate.” - Nat Budin

“There has been tragedy enough without splitting infinitives.” - Herbert Adams

"Couples must conspire to hide things from one another; it's too difficult for either party to do alone." -Lawrence Shames

"He was so far out of the loop, he hadn't even known there was a loop." -Margaret Coel

"The squeaky wheel gets put on the oil committee." -Lorrie B. Potters

"Or perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts?" -Amy Weiss, Senior Vice President for Communications, RIAA

"Where there's smoke, there's bound to be mirrors." -Garry Trudeau

"When a man's grief makes him so incoherent as that, we must at least give him credit for sincerity." -J.P. Dunn

"Unfortunately, he was not very skillful at expressing himself in Russian (although he knew no other language)." -Feodor Dostoevsky

"What people really need is a good listening to." -Mary Lou Casey

"It doesn't matter that everything has been said, because no one was listening." -A. Gide

"If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all, creep." -Calvin Trillin

"This sentence no verb." -D. Hofstader

"If you don't know how to pronounce a word, say it loud." -Will Strunk

Silence

 

"Now is the time to show off my hard-won shutting-up skills." -Neil Steinberg

"May my silences become more accurate." -Theodore Roethke

"I have the right to remain silent."  - R.T. Lawton

"Silence is sometimes the most costly of commodities." - Alan Bradley

"Silence is the art of keeping three monkeys in your heart." -Michael Smith

Conservatism and Liberalism

 

"The first half-step of love is thinking that the people you care about are exceptions who deserve more than they’re getting.  The second step is realizing that they’re not exceptions." -Will Ludwigsen

“I’ve become less conservative since the Republican Party started becoming goofy,” -Judge Richard Posner

"A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel." -  Robert Frost

"Liberalism is often a sexually-transmitted illness." - Dan Savage

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Cosmology


"There are a lot worse things to believe in than God." -Suzanne M. Wolfe

"I think there probably is humor in heaven, or earth wouldn't look like this." - Ovidia Yu

"Some times I feel like God's favorite sitcom." - Marie-Helene Bertino

 "There is no single, univocal way of not existing."  -Boaventura de Sousa Santos

"You don't need to go looking for Oz, because you already live there."  - Donna Barr

"It is not down in any map; true places never are." Herman Melville

“Psychologists will tell you that when somebody says something is not, it clearly is.” Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA)

“Only one thing is impossible for God: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet” – Mark Twain

"The abstract doesn't exist, so to speak, in the abstract." - Christine Kenneally

"A true holy book could fit on an index card, but most of the words on it haven't been invented yet." - Will Ludwigsen

"The second law of thermodynamics, simply put, is as follows: left to themselves, things tend to go to hell in a handbasket." -Cecil Adams

"In eternity, there will be no underground beatnik intellectual dive cafe's hashing phony, ambiguous 'word art' for you to lounge in and laugh it up with your cheap wine coolers and funky sexually-vague groupies." - An anonymous correspondent of the Kook's Museum.

"The universe is all farms." -U.S. Census Bureau, C3.2:T224

"Our universe is simply one of those things which happen from time to time." -Edward Tryon, physicist

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Crime

"If being a crook were a crime we'd all be in jail." - Colson Whitehead

 "There was no greater narcissist than the newly arrested." -Wendall Thomas

"Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it." - G.K. Chesterton

 "I would revolutionize the robbery industry by targeting people who had money." - Adam Smyer

"Everyone but the sheriff loves a Robin Hood." - Leigh Lundin

"It’s all too easy for people who’ve been stabbed to self-righteously judge people who haven’t." - Jon Schwartz

"There are no small crimes, only small criminals." - Max Wellton

 "Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections." - Mitt Romney

"If my murderer sees this he'll kill me!" - Hugh Laurie

"The victimization survey cannot measure murder because of the inability to question the victim."  - U.S. Census Bureau

"Give a person a gun, and he can rob a bank. Give a person a bank, and he can rob everyone." -Jannie Waite

"Lawyers who go to jail don't go in broke."  - John M. Floyd.

"Nobody files 1099s on hitmen." - Peter Hochstein

"When I read violence and it doesn't hurt that makes me angry. Because that's the only violence that's dangerous." -Josh Stallings.

“A bank robber is less likely to hit a branch where all the tellers know him by name.” - Amy Aiken

"“The best minds of my generation can’t make bail.” - Ani DiFranco

“I didn’t steal this, It was ‘differently acquired.’”– Sara Cytron

“Whenever he saw a dollar in another man’s hands he took it as a personal grudge, if he couldn’t take it any other way.” O. Henry

“The Star-Spangled Banner is about a shootout with the police.” - Ice-T.

"You get a client with 8 to 12 bodies buried in the backyard and there’s an immediate rush to judgment that he may have done something wrong.” – Mickey Sherman, esq.

"There's nothing wrong with stealing. It's a great way to get stuff."" - Lewis Ledford

"If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel I should, though not a fighting man, do my best to protect it. If, on the other hand, he should assert his intention of trying to obtain it by means of an action in any court of law, I should take it out of my pocket and hand it to him, and think I had got off cheaply." -Jerome K. Jerome

"How dare you stand there with every evidence of a criminal nature showing in your attitude and demeanor and conceal from the authorities the reason for your arrest?" -Don Marquis

Dreams

 


"Dogs chase cars, and men chase dreams. The dog is the more practical it seems." - Steve Forbert

 "Everyone knows at the end of the dream there's a hell of a chance that you'll finally awaken." -Andrew Ratshin

"There's the nightmare kind where you fall and fall, and you wake and find you haven't been dreaming at all." -Malvina Reynolds

Education and Knowledge

 


"Let all schools be closed at once." - D.H. Lawrence

"I think I still don't know what I didn't know then." - Scott Von Doviak

"Most of this year's liberal arts graduates aren't for for much besides bagging groceries and running for public office." - John H. Dirckx 

"What you don't know is exactly what can hurt you." - Zeke Hoskin 

"It's important for children to read widely, not just the good stuff.  Quantity is important at that age." - Mick Herron

"I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned." - Richard Feynman

"It’s never too late to teach an old dog new tricks. But the dog can’t be deaf." -James Ziskin 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” -Voltaire

 "I don't fully understand something unless I fail at it." - Kameron Hurley

"An education can’t divorce you."   -Gina Barreca 

"The university is a teaching hospital." - Sabah Randhawa

"Are the investments in our children expensive?  Compared to what?" -William S. Woodside

"I have a PhD in spelling."  - Tom Magliozzi

“This is hard for you because you think of the students as cuddly bunnies, but you can’t. You just have to drown the bunnies … put a Glock to their heads.” - Simon Newman, president of Mount St. Mary's University

"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows." -Sydney J. Harris

"Hard would it be for one mortal to tell all the names of these [rivers], but everyone knows the river he happens to live by." - Hesiod, ca. 700 B.C.

“There’s more to superficiality than meets the eye.” - Margaret Maron

"There are known unknowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

"Everybody knows more than anybody." -Lorrie B. Potters

"Somewhere in the classroom is maybe one person who will learn this stuff if it kills him, and if it kills him enough he'll become a professor." -Joe Adamson

"My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating." -Ashley Brilliant

"Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to be valuable." -Larry Wall

"Where fraternities are not allowed, communism flourishes." -Senator Barry Goldwater

"Education that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding." -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

"The proper goal of education is to get one confused about more interesting things." -Lorrie B. Potters

"Information appears to stew out of me naturally, like the precious ottar of roses out of the otter." -Mark Twain

"I thought I had all the answers. It's a good thing I was writing in pencil." -Geof Morgan

Faith and Trust

 

"So often these days eating Indian food passes for spirituality." - Dan Bern

"If it were proven that there is a God, there would be no religion." - Ursula K. LeGuin

"Unfortunately, my disbelief is very heavy, and the suspension cable snaps."  -Roger Ebert

"Fear prophets and those prepared to die for the truth, for as a rule they make many others die with them, often before them, at times instead of them." -Umberto Eco

"Trust everyone, but cut the cards." -Anonymous

"Whenever I see a 'Question Authority' bumpersticker, I think, 'says who?'" -Roy Zimmerman

"Unrecorded verbal agreements have a half-life of three months." -Jim Britell

"'She believes things' he said, 'that a mud turtle would blush to believe.'" -H. Allen Smith 

"A lying man produces more plausible excuses." -Dave Gordon

Fame

 

"Some of us have definitely earned our humility._ -Jeanene Pratt

 “It’s a shame that they don’t give prizes for humility.”  - Mick Herron

"What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity." - P.J. O'Rourke


"Everybody's got the runs for glory." -Paul Simon

"We all shine a little brighter from a few rows back." - Doug Allyn

"I tried selling out but nobody bought." - Grace Petrie

"The fact that you've received the most threats does not make you the most popular." - Amy Stewart

 "If I could eat my reviews, I'd retire."  - Steve Goodman
 
 "Paul McCartney told me to never drop names." - Vince Gill
 
“The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance” – Mark Twain

“There is something about a closet that makes a skeleton terribly restless.” -Wilson Mizner

"The head of my fan club lives under the Hollywood freeway in a cardboard box" - John Carpenter

"Don't make faces at the crowd when you're being hung." -Dave Gordon

"I persuaded myself that I owed it to my vanity to be interviewed." -John Diamond

"The public yawned in amazement." -James (The Amazing) Randi"

Family

"I come from a long line of stereotypes." - Phil Wang

"There is one listener in every family." - Richard Van Camp

"Families: you can't really kill them.  Usually." - S. A. Cosby

"Jewish grandmothers, Black grandmothers, Italian grandmothers, all sing the same song." - Cheryl M. Head

"Weddings: Amateur theatricals organized by the temporarily insane." - Ellen Formanek Tepper 

"I'm not raising children. I'm raising adults." - Marian Robinson

"My mother was a car and we lost her in a terrible space rotary accident." - Suzanne Palmer
 
 "For a groovy parent trains a groovy child, and the groovy child must be father of a groovy man." - The Saturday Review, January 9, 1864.

"The right bridal boots are the most important part of any marriage. I learned this too late and am pretty sure that's why I'm divorced." -Lia Matera

"Parents never grow up." - Lorrie B. Potters

"It has occurred to me that being the first person ever to have had a child, I have a certain duty to report, from time time, on what that unique circumstance involves." -John Diamond, slightly revised

They didn't have to be funny — they were father jokes.” ― Terry Pratchett,

"There are no conflict-free engagement rings." - Terri Weiner

"The handy gene is brutally recessive."  - Mike Rowe

"It's not that you can't go home again.  It's that most people know better." - Daniel Pinkwater

“Parents own the children.” - Rand Paul

“Some people are born where they belong, and some have to find their way there. There’s no difference after that.” - Thomas Perry

"Relationships with parents are best run on a need-to-know basis." - Dan Savage

"This is fakery. If they care at all about their children or grandchildren, and sometimes I doubt that -- I think, you know, grandchildren now don't write a thank-you for the Christmas presents, they're walking on their pants with the cap on backwards listening to the enema man and Snoopy Snoopy Poop
Dogg, and they don't like them!” -Former Republican Senator Alan Simpson, March 7, 2011

“A dungeon in every castle.”-Susan Weiner and Nat Budin
 
“Of course your parents know which buttons to push.They installed them.”-Mitch Gallaher.

"In a family argument, if it turns out you are right - apologize at once." -Robert A. Heinlein

"The best thing I can say about my generation is that at least it isn't burdening its children with a tough act to follow." -Andrew Ward

"I was raised by a pack of wild corn dogs." -Toni Price 

"'Shut up,' Daddy Explained." -Ring Lardner

"Parents once taught their children to talk; today children teach their parents to be quiet." -Talmud

Fate

 


"Sometimes we make decisons and other times decisions make us." - Stephen Tobolowsky

"Everyone, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences."  - Robert Louis Stevenson

"Somewhere there's a tropical fruit with your name on it."  - Shel Silverstein

"Fate likes to tease paranoids.'" -Mark Kurlansky

"Fate prefers the unexpected." -Frederick Waterman

“Not every star is crossed.” -Andrew Calhoun.

"Fate takes its cut." -Lord Buckley

“The only time I get anything right there’s always nobody there.” - Ric Keating.


Feminism and Women

 

"Modern equal opportunity laws state that when you apply for a job these days  you no longer have to reveal your gender.  Which must get very confusing because how do they know how much to pay people?" - Alfie Moore

"She failed to make herself heard over the roaring testosterone." - Liza Cody, slightly revised

"It is a fact universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of an opinion must be in want of a correction." -Rebecca Solnit

“The woman wage-earner is under one aspect an object of charity, under another an economic pervert, under another a social menace."  - Flora McDonald Thompson, 1904.

"What has taken so long about recognizing that women are people?” -Senator Jacob Javits (R-NY) 1976.

"Naked women are the hardest women to arrest." - Sandra Webster

"Boys will be boys -- If you teach them that's what a boy is." - Thomas Pluck

"As a woman, I was better suited to a career in something more traditionally feminine, like becoming a prostitute or dying in childbirth." - Allie Rubin

“No self-respecting businessman with a brain would ever employ a lady of child-bearing age” -Godfrey Bloom, Member of the European Parliament's Committee for Women's Rights and Gender Equality, 2004.

“I think hipster misogynists need to start getting messages that hipster misogyny isn’t a marketable skill” - Ophelia Benson

“I am a feminist because I love men, and I believe that they are capable and strong and wise. I am a feminist because I love women, and I believe that they too are capable and strong and wise.” -Kelly Barnhill

Fish

 


"It is our position the benefits to fish from dams may outweigh potential negative aspects. Natural rivers have always presented certain hazards." -The Whatcom County (Washington) Council

"You won't find one fish in a million that has enough sense to come in when it rains." -Robert Benchley

"The books all say that barracuda rarely eat people, but very few barracuda can read." -Dave Barry

"There was good fishing in the bars, all winter." -Stephen Leacock

Food

 

"You can put whatever you want in a burrito.  This is a free country." - John Scalzi

"A closed cookbook gathers no stains." - Lorrie B. Potters

"People who have tried it, tell me that a clear conscience makes you very happy and contented; but a full stomach does the business quite as well and is cheaper, and more easily obtained." - Jerome K. Jerome

"I wonder whether there is not some connection between great spiritual yearning and the inability to digest food."  - Tamar Yellin

"I am happy to drink English breakfast, but not to eat it."  - Lorrie B. Potters

"Nothing can make water better.”  - Ursula K. Leguin.

"Three times I have been mistaken for a prohibition agent, but never had any trouble clearing myself.” Dashiell Hammett

“Eat at places that offer a variety of salads, soups and vegetables to help maintain your best health.” - McDonald’s advice to its employees.

“If you ask me for an apple and I give you an orange you would say, that’s not an orange. And I say, that’s a banana. And that’s not an apple either. Or a peach, that’s not an apple, either. It doesn’t mean that I’m equating the banana and the orange and the peach” - Dr. Ben Carson

"I've never seen turkey being sold as imitation tofu." -Lorrie B. Potters

"It is not immediately obvious that comets are good to eat." -Carl Sagan

"Worst of all from this point of view are those more uncivilized forms of eating, like licking an ice cream cone... This doglike feeding, if one must engage in it, ought to be kept from public view, where, even if WE feel no shame, others are compelled to witness our shameful behavior." --Leon Kass, advisor to George W. Bush on bioethics

"The biggest enemy is tap water." -Robert S. Morrison, Vice Chairman, Pepsi-Co

"The sandwich includes a lower bread portion, an upper bread portion, an upper filling and a lower filling between the lower and upper bread portions, a center filling sealed between the upper and lower fillings, and a crimped edge along an outer perimeter of the bread portions for sealing the fillings therebetween. The upper and lower fillings are preferably comprised of peanut butter and the center filling is comprised of at least jelly..." -from U.S. Patent 6,004,596, for a crustless peanut butter and jelly sandwich

"Airline food has probably done more than Leo Tolstoy to persuade our neighbors to pass up meat." -Steven G. Kellman

"Always store beer in a dark place." -Robert A. Heinlein

"Whatever this stuff was, it sure is sauerkraut by now." -Peter and Lou Berryman

Foolishness and Wisdom



"I doubt, therefore I think." - Hollis Seamon

"Like most men who think they understand men... this man only understands fools."  -David Mamet

 "When I cop to being wrong, it's almost like revealing a superpower, because so few can do it." - Neil Steinberg

"I have always figured I can bluff my way into wisdom."  -Michael Cunningham

"I have learned from my mistakes and I am sure I could repeat them exactly."  - Peter Cook

"I have given you an argument, sir, I am not also obligated to give you an understanding." – Samuel Johnson

“Butter can be clarified; stupid can't.” -Michael Mallory

“It's human nature to want to know things, and also human nature to think they're not very interesting when you find out."- Cecil Adams

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” – Charles Darwin

“With hindsight, we’d all be heroes.” - Marilyn Todd

“The spirit of curiosity generates confusion.” Pope Francis

“Good sense has a nasty aftertaste.” - Andrei Rubanov

“Four out of five reviewers agree that one out of five doesn’t know anything.” –Andrew Ratshin.

“Digression is the soul of wit.” - Ray Bradbury

“Where there’s an idiot there’s a way.” -Paul Bishop

"Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." -Clay Shirky

"There's doubt for those with evidence and faith for those with none." -Michael Smith

"In an era of circuses, the one with the most clowns wins." -Richard Kadrey

"There is probably no more gullible group in the world than the scientists of today, according to the scientists of tomorrow." -Robert Benchley

"I have long known that it is part of God's plan for me to spend a little time with each of the most stupid people on earth." -Bill Bryson

"When  in doubt, doubt." -John R. Henderson

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

"My problems start where the smarter bears and the dumber visitors intersect" -Steve Thompson, Yosemite Park official

"He's got muscles in his head he's never even used." -John Prine

"Let me think about that. Ouch!" -Susan Weiner

"Here I was, swimming in paperwork with my hands tied, and out on the street were jerks on parade: unassuming, pleasant, perfectly normal people except that they had an extra bone in their head and less moral sense than God gave badgers." -Garrison Keiller

"You can't fix stupid." -saying of the St. Louis Fire Department

"So many people know the answers before they know the questions." -Judge Thomas Burke, "the man who built Seattle."

"Puddingheads should never grant premises." -Herman Melville

"While the heritability of intelligence is a matter of scientific controversy, stupidity comes down in an unbroken line." -William DeAndrea

"The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas." -A.W. Griswold

"Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late." -Justice Felix Frankfurter

"Any man can learn to learn from the wise, once he can find them, but learn to learn from a fool and the whole world's your faculty. -John Ciardi

"Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." -Bob Seger



Future

 

“The future has arrived — it’s just not evenly distributed yet.” - William Gibson

"It is well not to know the future. If one did, often one wouldn't go." -Harvey Manning

"In retrospect, Mr Feingold's vote was largely predictable." -Frank Bruno, New York Times

"I'm not trying to PREDICT the future. I'm just trying to PREVENT it." -Ray Bradbury 

Good and Evil

 

Illustration: The Good and Evil Angels, William Blake.

"Even if the rats are jumping from a sinking ship, they are still rats." - Ilene Schneider

"I can really sell integrity." - Adam Stempel

"You hear about someone who does bad things and it turns out they had a bad childhood.  So what?" - David Gerrold

"If not us, who?  If not together, how?" - Suzanne Palmer

"People say that in the past racism was acceptable.  It never was. It was just acceptable to some White people." - Catriona McPherson

"All his life he thought  scruples were the little dangly bits at the back of the throat.  And they were removed when he was six." - Marilyn Todd

 "Nobody cries like a bully." - Neil Steinberg.

 "What doesn't kill you makes you tired and resentful." - Flip Breskin

"Forgetting is what nationalists do." -Neil Steinberg

“Just because you sold your soul doesn’t mean that you drove a hard bargain”—Timothy Snyder."We’re never at the end of the fight for justice, we’re always, over and over,  just entering the arena." -Elizabeth Nelson

"The way you do anything is the way you do everything." -Bob Iger

“There’s no sport in hunting an animal that has already shot itself in the foot.- Monica Hesse

"For the world to function smoothly, everyone needs to act a lot better than I do." - Stephen Pastis

"Luckily for you, we all have exactly six active slots available in our brains for grudges…and your egregious replacement just logged in." - Will Ludwigsen

"Ineptness is a kind of conspiracy." -Nora Ephron

"Savage is a convertible term." -Peter Oliver

“I’ve never seen hatred like this.  To me, they’re not even people." - Eric Trump

"The worst thing the enemy can do is make us more like them." -George F. Kennan

"The ethics of an imitative orangutan cannot be an issue for serious debate." -J.K. Van Dover

"I would never cheat anyone unless it was absolutely convenient." - Doc Dixon

"That's the thing about unkindness—it's impatient, it wants to leap, it feeds on itself, and encourages others to join in without really thinking either." -Neil Steinberg

"They don't make thuggish apparatchiks like they used to." - Charles P. Pierce

"Doing the right thing because people are watching you isn't the best reason, but it will do." - Neil Steinberg

"I am always true to my word, which happens to be 'dishonest.'" - Lorrie B. Potters

"The lesser of two evils is better than the worse of two evils."  - Darrin Bell

"When you're a nail, everything looks like a hammer." - Shelley Posen

“We always rise heroically to the challenges we never face, in our own minds.” – Neil Steinberg

"The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience." -Harper Lee

"Even evil magicians get up in the night and look for cookies, sometimes." - Mercedes Lackey

"Children are driven by a sense of injustice."  -Neil Gaiman

"A buried conscience is the worst ghost of all."  - Janice Law (slightly edited)

"Courage is the most important of all virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently.” -Maya Angelou

“It's paramount to blame those responsible for any faults I may possess."  - David Dean

"You cannot wake a person who pretends to be sleeping.”  - Navaho proverb

“Murder is easy. Comedy is hard.” - Scott Simon

“Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but has not solved one yet.” ~ Maya Angelou

“Homophobia is misogyny's little brother" - Dan Savage

“Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay.” –Ann Coulter

"Power corrupts but lack of power corrupts absolutely." —Orson Welles

“If you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the scheme.” - Tony Bird

“He respected her principles and loved the way she could bypass them.” - Roddy Doyle

“I must confess a weakness for the villain, but my hopes are never realized.” – Walter B. Gibson, creator of the shadow.

“Into each life some jerk must fall.” -Doc Finch

“The spanker may forget but never the spankee.” - F.D.R. Ferguson

"There is no emissary for an evil deed." -David Twersky

"Every sinner has a future...Every saint has a past." -Kinky Friedman

"There's too many strong to do nothing wrong and not enough strong to do right." -Dave Gordon

"To our friends, the good guys. And to our enemies, the bad guys. And to the hope that someday we'll be able to tell which are which." -Keith Laumer (slightly edited)

"If the bad guys don't get you, baby, then the good guys will." -Buffe Saint-Marie