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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

We will not go back.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

This really is a full service blog.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Great Quotes (Open Thread)

Great Quotes (Open Thread)

by Betty Cracker|  April 18, 20143:47 pm| 155 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Here’s a great quote:

“…The day shit is worth money, poor people will be born without an asshole.”

— Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch

Here’s another:

“Honey, men are like dogs. You chase them, they’ll run. You run, they’ll chase you.”

— My mom

What are your favorite quotes? Please feel free to discuss that or other topics, such as weekend plans. I’ve gotta get some quiches made tomorrow.

Also, we’re having stormy weather and tornado warnings. Here’s the sky:

ominous_sky

But with rare exceptions, our Florida tornadoes are not nearly as scary as the ones out in Sooner country. More like “tornadettes” or “tornadinis.”

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Reader Interactions

155Comments

  1. 1.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 18, 2014 at 3:49 pm

    “…The day shit is worth money, poor people will be born without an asshole.”

    And dammit, now I’m gonna have to read the guy. Gone my whole life avoiding it, but that right there is truth and genius in one sentence.

  2. 2.

    burnspbesq

    April 18, 2014 at 3:56 pm

    Paraphrasing Churchill, “jaw, jaw is better than build, build.” I’m counting this as a win until somebody gives me a good reason not to.

    Keystone Review Delayed Indefinitely

  3. 3.

    Mustang Bobby

    April 18, 2014 at 3:56 pm

    “All that really matters is that the grass is growing and your dinner’s digested. All the rest is just talk.” — E.B. Wickes III

    “Hope is my greatest weakness.” — Bobby Cramer

    “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

  4. 4.

    J.Ty

    April 18, 2014 at 3:57 pm

    “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem be sure that you are not, in fact, surrounded by assholes.” –somebody William Gibson follows on Twitter

    “Old age has taught me the resignation of being Borges.”
    “The original is unfaithful to the translation.”
    “No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist.”
    –borges (guys you should all read borges)

    “If you handed [character] a glass that was 90% full, he’d tell you that the 10% empty part proved that no one really cared about water.” –AI researcher eliezer yudkowsky, in his epic Harry Potter fanfic

  5. 5.

    kindness

    April 18, 2014 at 3:57 pm

    What mixed drink (adult beverage now) would be good during a Florida storm?

  6. 6.

    Anoniminous

    April 18, 2014 at 3:58 pm

    Denis Diderot:

    We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

    and

    There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge… observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination.

    and why not? It’s Easter Season, after all.

    It is very important not to mistake hemlock for parsley, but to believe or not believe in God is not important at all.

  7. 7.

    donnah

    April 18, 2014 at 3:59 pm

    “If ignorance is bliss, you’d think more people would be happy”

    One of my dad’s favorites.

  8. 8.

    Zifnab25

    April 18, 2014 at 4:01 pm

    Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

    H. L. Mencken

    Michael Scott

  9. 9.

    Amir Khalid

    April 18, 2014 at 4:11 pm

    ” ” – Marcel Marceau

  10. 10.

    cleek

    April 18, 2014 at 4:11 pm

    “I’m the one who’s gonna have to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.” – Jimi

  11. 11.

    MariedeGournay

    April 18, 2014 at 4:12 pm

    From my namesake:

    “But isn’t it beyond belief that those who seek to exalt and strengthen themselves through the weakness of others feel compelled to insist that they can exalt or fortify themselves by means of their own strength?”

  12. 12.

    Roger Moore

    April 18, 2014 at 4:12 pm

    @kindness:

    What mixed drink (adult beverage now) would be good during a Florida storm?

    A Hurricane?

  13. 13.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 4:13 pm

    “Everything old is not necessarily good; everything new is not necessarily better.”

    “Sometimes your house burns up, sometimes your house burns down.”

    (sources murky or unknown)

    “90% of everything is crap.”
      - Theodore Sturgeon

  14. 14.

    Mike E

    April 18, 2014 at 4:15 pm

    I’d rather have this bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.

    eta: all right, for realz…
    “For there is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is misfortune in not loving.” Albert Camus

  15. 15.

    K488

    April 18, 2014 at 4:15 pm

    “‘Shut up,’ he explained.” Ring Lardner

    “Work is the secret of happiness” and “If I had to work I’d quit.” both said by my father, in close conjunction.

  16. 16.

    J.Ty

    April 18, 2014 at 4:15 pm

    @NotMax: I LOVE STURGEON’S LAW!

    “He wondered what had lately become of his former… was friend the word? He seemed more like a succession of extraordinary events than a person. The idea of him actually having friends as such seemed not so much unlikely, more a sort of mismatching of concepts, like the idea of the Suez crisis popping out for a bun.” –douglas adams

  17. 17.

    Egypt Steve

    April 18, 2014 at 4:16 pm

    Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can’t mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus.

    William S. Burroughts

  18. 18.

    cleek

    April 18, 2014 at 4:16 pm

    @kindness:
    dark & stormy, hurricane, greyhound ?

  19. 19.

    schrodinger's cat

    April 18, 2014 at 4:18 pm

    You cannot wake up someone who is just pretending to sleep

    . — my grandma.

  20. 20.

    Yatsuno

    April 18, 2014 at 4:18 pm

    @Roger Moore: Too obvious. But maybe a Dark & Stormy?

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 4:19 pm

    @kindness

    A Tropical Storm?

  22. 22.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    April 18, 2014 at 4:19 pm

    @J.Ty:
    “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”

  23. 23.

    raven

    April 18, 2014 at 4:19 pm

    @Amir Khalid: He spoke the only word in “Silent Movie”, NO!

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    April 18, 2014 at 4:20 pm

    “To love another person is to see the face of God.” – Herbert Kretzmer, Les Misérables.

  25. 25.

    raven

    April 18, 2014 at 4:21 pm

    “Teaching today’s students the way you taught yesterday robs them of tomorrow”

    Dewey

    “I don’t skate to where the puck is I skate to where it will be”

    Wayne Gretzky

  26. 26.

    MomSense

    April 18, 2014 at 4:21 pm

    ” The more I see of people, the better I like dogs.”

    my grandma

  27. 27.

    Belafon

    April 18, 2014 at 4:21 pm

    @J.Ty: I make my kids read the Library of Babel.

  28. 28.

    Calouste

    April 18, 2014 at 4:22 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Did he also write the libretto for “4’33” by John Cage?

  29. 29.

    Shortstop

    April 18, 2014 at 4:22 pm

    Someday I shall live where I can have a banana tree.

  30. 30.

    J.Ty

    April 18, 2014 at 4:22 pm

    @Higgs Boson’s Mate: The Garden of Forking Paths is one of my favorite literary collections ever.

    @Belafon: Nice!

  31. 31.

    JT

    April 18, 2014 at 4:23 pm

    “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.” – George Best

  32. 32.

    raven

    April 18, 2014 at 4:23 pm

    Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it is too dark to read.

    G Marx

  33. 33.

    Seanly

    April 18, 2014 at 4:24 pm

    My last name is Murphy, so I have to go with my law:
    Anything that can go wrong will go wrong

    I recently watched Big Trouble in LIttle China:
    Jack Burton: Okay. You people sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we’re not back by dawn… call the president.

    Yeah, they’re not very profound. Other folks can whip out the Jeebus/Churchill/Einstein quotes & look like they’ve read something…

  34. 34.

    Chat Noir

    April 18, 2014 at 4:24 pm

    “Instant gratification takes too long.”

    Carrie Fisher

  35. 35.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 18, 2014 at 4:25 pm

    @burnspbesq: It’s what I’ve been hoping for, kicking the can down the road at least till after mid-terms.

    one of my favorite quotes, “fuck off and die”, Dickens style:

    ‘You are an old man, and I leave you to the grave. May every recollection of your life cling to your false heart, and cast their darkness on your death-bed.’

    There’s a longer passage in that vein, that I love, does the Spoiler Statute of Limitations reach back to 18-something or other?

  36. 36.

    Turgidson

    April 18, 2014 at 4:25 pm

    Still one of my favorites:

    “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.” -John Rogers

    “I collect spores, molds and fungus.” -Harold Ramis as Egon Spengler

  37. 37.

    Quinerly

    April 18, 2014 at 4:26 pm

    “Everybody talks about my drinking. Nobody talks about my thirst.”

  38. 38.

    Brendan in NC

    April 18, 2014 at 4:26 pm

    “You might as well be happy, young fellow. “Cause no one gives a f@ck if you’re not” William Caunitz One Police Plaza

  39. 39.

    Yatsuno

    April 18, 2014 at 4:26 pm

    @cleek: You stole mine. But I found a slightly more interesting one.

  40. 40.

    sublime33

    April 18, 2014 at 4:27 pm

    “Don’t waste your time arguing with an idiot.” – My father

  41. 41.

    J.Ty

    April 18, 2014 at 4:28 pm

    “I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too.” –Mitch Hedberg

    (Sorry, I just really like sharing quotes.)

  42. 42.

    Cassidy

    April 18, 2014 at 4:28 pm

    “Don’t believe everything you read on twitter.”- Marilyn Monroe

  43. 43.

    Betty Cracker

    April 18, 2014 at 4:28 pm

    @Shortstop: Did you ever get your kitchen fixed up?

  44. 44.

    jl

    April 18, 2014 at 4:29 pm

    Can’t say it’s my favorite quote, but the one that comes to mind often when reading the news. I think from Thucydides:

    The strong do what they want to do, the weak suffer what they must suffer.

    I heard a version from a cynical and foul mouthed great auntie, who I don’t think ever hear of Thucydides:

    The big man steps where he wants to, the little people have to skitter out of the way.

    And my favorite pidgin English saying I learned from pidgin English lesson a fellow grad student (edit: from West Africa) gave some of us:

    Beef for go to dey death house, dey no ken dey whistle.

  45. 45.

    schrodinger's cat

    April 18, 2014 at 4:29 pm

    From Winnie Wonka, the great maker of LOLs on ICHC

    I lost my virginity but still have the box it came in.

  46. 46.

    The Thin Black Duke

    April 18, 2014 at 4:30 pm

    “Tomorrow never happens. It’s all the same fucking day, man.” (Janis Joplin)

  47. 47.

    Belafon

    April 18, 2014 at 4:30 pm

    @Cassidy: I thought that was Abraham Lincoln.

  48. 48.

    Cassidy

    April 18, 2014 at 4:32 pm

    @Belafon: Maybe Thomas Jefferson.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 4:32 pm

    “They say everything is hard the first time. This is the first time I’ve died.”

    My grandfather (Max, age 96), in the hospital not long before the end.

  50. 50.

    Hungry Joe

    April 18, 2014 at 4:33 pm

    From memory, and probably mangled — a father’s advice: “Someday, my son, a man will bet you that he can make the jack of spades jump out of an unopened deck of cards and spit tobacco juice in your ear. But do not take that bet, my son, for if you do you are sure to end up with an ear full of tobacco juice.” — Damon Runyon (I think)

  51. 51.

    Thoughtcrime

    April 18, 2014 at 4:34 pm

    @cleek:

    I’m gonna put a curse on you and all your kids will be born completely naked.

    Jimi

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucj3vTQwKQc

  52. 52.

    Quaker in a Basement

    April 18, 2014 at 4:34 pm

    “I try to be cynical, but it’s so hard to keep up.”– Lily Tomlin

  53. 53.

    srv

    April 18, 2014 at 4:35 pm

    “Life’s a jest and all things show it. I thought so once, and now I know it.” — John Gay

  54. 54.

    Trollhattan

    April 18, 2014 at 4:36 pm

    No one is completely unhappy at the failure of his best friend.

    –Groucho

    In the spirit of Cliven Bundy, who can be rabidly anti-government while taking from the government (a.k.a. “us”) I give you one Ray Nutting–tea party hearthrob, taker of California State grant money and four-time Eldorado County supervisor. That’s some anti-gummint cred, right there.

    http://www.sacbee.com/2014/04/18/6334189/supervisors-trial-has-el-dorado.html

  55. 55.

    MikeJ

    April 18, 2014 at 4:36 pm

    “See everything, overlook a great deal, improve a little.” (John XXIII)

    “Skepticism is the worst form of gullibility.” (John “adamsj” Adams)

  56. 56.

    Elmo

    April 18, 2014 at 4:37 pm

    “He who would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression.”
    Thomas Paine

  57. 57.

    J.Ty

    April 18, 2014 at 4:41 pm

    GP: Is Eris true?
    M2: Everything is true.
    GP: Even false things?
    M2: Even false things are true.
    GP: How can that be?
    M2: I don’t know man, I didn’t do it.

    -Principia Discordia

  58. 58.

    Hungry Joe

    April 18, 2014 at 4:41 pm

    “It is not enough to succeed; others must fail.” — Gore Vidal

    And a variation on my Damon Runyon quote (#50 above): “Never bet on another man’s game.” — Don Pool, my high school physics and trig teacher.

  59. 59.

    Ian

    April 18, 2014 at 4:41 pm

    Confucius say man who stand tall on toilet get high on pot

  60. 60.

    eric

    April 18, 2014 at 4:43 pm

    I believe this to be camus, but cannot confirm it, but it is my favorite aphorism of all time:

    “Ideology, is spiritual imperialism.”

  61. 61.

    MikeJ

    April 18, 2014 at 4:43 pm

    @Hungry Joe: In the movie it was apple cider.

  62. 62.

    RP

    April 18, 2014 at 4:45 pm

    Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they might have been.

  63. 63.

    RP

    April 18, 2014 at 4:45 pm

    Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. — Beckett

  64. 64.

    J.Ty

    April 18, 2014 at 4:46 pm

    @RP: He would say that.

  65. 65.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 4:48 pm

    One more.

    “Whether you can hear it or not, the universe is laughing behind your back.”
      - NatLamp’s Deteriorata

  66. 66.

    Geeno

    April 18, 2014 at 4:48 pm

    “I care not for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.” -Abraham Lincoln

  67. 67.

    dedc79

    April 18, 2014 at 4:49 pm

    “Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.”
    ― Paul Fussell

    “If I didn’t have writing, I’d be running down the street hurling grenades in people’s faces.”
    ― Paul Fussell

  68. 68.

    GregB

    April 18, 2014 at 4:51 pm

    I can resist everything but temptation,

    -Oscar Wilde

    We will either find a way or make one.

    -Hannibal

    You fucked up…..you trusted us.

    -Otter

  69. 69.

    Peter

    April 18, 2014 at 4:52 pm

    “It has been a common saying of physicians in England, that a cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.” – Samuel Johnson

    I actually like cucumbers but that quote brings a smile to my face every time I hear it.

  70. 70.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 18, 2014 at 4:53 pm

    ‘We are as forlorn as children lost in the woods. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours. And if I were to cast myself down before you and weep and tell you, what more would you know about me than you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful? For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell.’

    Franz Kafka

  71. 71.

    jake the snake

    April 18, 2014 at 4:53 pm

    My father had a lot, but my favorite is as follows.

    “…… is alright in his own way, he just don’t weigh much.”

  72. 72.

    Jennifer

    April 18, 2014 at 4:54 pm

    Dr. Johnson, in reference to a man who had been unhappily married who then immediately remarried after his wife’s death: “It was the triumph of hope over experience.”

  73. 73.

    Elly

    April 18, 2014 at 4:54 pm

    My dad always used to quip:

    “Knowledge is power, and I’m a powerful S.O.B.”

    Not his only stock witticism, but the one I remember best.

  74. 74.

    jl

    April 18, 2014 at 4:54 pm

    This is a paraphrase, a generic version distilled from many instances, but more or less goes like

    I’m going to punch you morons in the neck. I hate all of you!: John G Cole.

    Seems like any compilation of important quotes on BJ blog should include it.

  75. 75.

    Hank

    April 18, 2014 at 4:55 pm

    “Too much is never enough.” – A river guide I used to work with, but whose name I have, alas, forgotten.

  76. 76.

    Jennifer

    April 18, 2014 at 4:55 pm

    Dorothy Parker, asked about the Harvard/Yale football game she had attended: “If every girl in attendance were laid end-to-end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 4:56 pm

    Okay, yet another.

    “Try everything once except folk dancing and incest.”
      - Sir Thomas Beecham

  78. 78.

    beth

    April 18, 2014 at 4:57 pm

    A friend who works with troubled kids (I’m sure she got it from someone else) – “If kids are so resilient, why are there so many fucked up adults?”.

  79. 79.

    Mnemosyne

    April 18, 2014 at 4:58 pm

    I was looking for a different P.G. Wodehouse quote, but this one jumped out at me:

    The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.

  80. 80.

    Amir Khalid

    April 18, 2014 at 4:58 pm

    There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

    There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
    – Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

  81. 81.

    metricpenny

    April 18, 2014 at 4:58 pm

    “A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

    May he have been resting in peace since April 4, 1968.

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    Okay, yet another. (First attempt nixed by FYWP, hence trying using extra spaces.)

    “Try everything once except folk dancing and i n c e s t.”
      - Sir Thomas Beecham

  83. 83.

    greenergood

    April 18, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    “Honey, men are like dogs. You chase them, they’ll run. You run, they’ll chase you.” – Betty Cracker’s mom rules!

    also too:
    If you’re squeamish, don’t prod the beach rubble – Sappho

  84. 84.

    Cassidy

    April 18, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    This one homeless guy came up to me the other day, and he was asking me for money. I was about to give it to him, and then I thought, ‘He’s just gonna use it on drugs or alcohol.’ And then I thought, ‘That’s what I’m gonna use it on. Who am I to judge the guy, really?

    Greg Giraldo

    This quite popped to mind the other day. A scruffy looking dude was standing in the off ramp with a cardboard sign that said “just hungry”. Smallest bill I had was a $10 and I have it to him. I won’t lie. If I’m sitting at an off ramp and someone hands me a $10 or better, I might very well say fuck it and buy a dimebag.

  85. 85.

    workworkwork

    April 18, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    “The way to kill a bear is to kill it.”

    “The same heat that melts the grease hardens the egg.”

    – My father, always one for the inexplicable quotes.

  86. 86.

    Mnemosyne

    April 18, 2014 at 5:01 pm

    Here’s the one I was looking for (Bertie Wooster is the character speaking):

    I don’t say I’ve got much of a soul, but, such as it is, I’m perfectly satisfied with the little chap. I don’t want people fooling about with it. ‘Leave it alone,’ I say. ‘Don’t touch it. I like it the way it is.’

  87. 87.

    jl

    April 18, 2014 at 5:03 pm

    @Jennifer:

    OK, now. getting to seriously good quotations with Dorothy Parker. I can’t choose my favorite:

    http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dorothy_Parker

  88. 88.

    scav

    April 18, 2014 at 5:04 pm

    @workworkwork: One of my great aunt’s: “Your teeth are your teeth, my teeth are my teeth.”

  89. 89.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    April 18, 2014 at 5:05 pm

    Punctuality is the virtue of the bored – Evelyn Waugh

    isms, in my opinion, are not good – Ferris Bueller (John Hughes)

  90. 90.

    NotMax

    April 18, 2014 at 5:07 pm

    One other sprang to what’s left of the mind. Cannot recall accurately who said it, but it may have been Jomo Kenyatta. Sure it was a prominent African politician, at any rate.

    “The only way to play the harp is to play the harp.”

  91. 91.

    Lurking Buffoon

    April 18, 2014 at 5:08 pm

    “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”
    – Voltaire

    “You know Nixon’s coming back, right? They didn’t put a stake in his heart when they buried him.”
    – My father

  92. 92.

    les

    April 18, 2014 at 5:13 pm

    The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
    –Albert Einstein

  93. 93.

    les

    April 18, 2014 at 5:14 pm

    Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. 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”

  94. 94.

    Shortstop

    April 18, 2014 at 5:14 pm

    @Betty Cracker: yes! It looks fantastic and was worth all the work. Very sleek and minimalist, as I’ve always wanted. We did it!

  95. 95.

    les

    April 18, 2014 at 5:16 pm

    Food has replaced sex in my life. Now I can’t even get into my own pants.–Anonymous

  96. 96.

    Betty Cracker

    April 18, 2014 at 5:22 pm

    @Shortstop: Yay! I knew you could do it!

  97. 97.

    Josie

    April 18, 2014 at 5:28 pm

    When you call me that, Smile. — Owen Wister

  98. 98.

    Higgs Boson's Mate

    April 18, 2014 at 5:28 pm

    We must make the good out of the bad because there isn’t anything else to make it out of. – Robert Penn Warren

  99. 99.

    danielx

    April 18, 2014 at 5:31 pm

    The trouble with our Texas Baptists is that we do not hold them under water long enough.

    – William Cowper Brann (b 1/4/1855, d 4/1/1898) – American journalist. Mortally wounded from being shot in the back by an irate Baptist, but managed to draw his own pistol and fatally wound his assailant, hitting him multiple times.

  100. 100.

    danielx

    April 18, 2014 at 5:34 pm

    If ignorance ever goes to forty dollars a barrel, I want drillin’ rights on that man’s head.

    – Jim Hightower regarding Dollar Bill Clements, former Texas governor and a man born with a burr up his butt.

  101. 101.

    Suzan

    April 18, 2014 at 5:36 pm

    I am an old man and have known a great many troubles but most of them never happened. Mark Twain.

  102. 102.

    danielx

    April 18, 2014 at 5:38 pm

    @Jennifer:

    Dorothy Parker regarding Lillian Hellman – Every word she says is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.

  103. 103.

    burnspbesq

    April 18, 2014 at 5:44 pm

    “Ladies, if you don’t want the State of Texas to regulate how you use your vagina, incorporate it.”

    Me, doing my best Molly Ivins impression.

  104. 104.

    Anoniminous

    April 18, 2014 at 5:44 pm

    He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits:
    This formula for drawing comic rabbits paid.
    Till in the end he could not change the tragic habits
    This formula for drawing comic rabbits made.

    — Robert Graves

  105. 105.

    jl

    April 18, 2014 at 5:49 pm

    @burnspbesq: I think Mary McCarthy (sp?) author of snooty books about snooty college women, said that.

  106. 106.

    Baud

    April 18, 2014 at 5:49 pm

    skull fuck a kitten

    — John Cole

  107. 107.

    jl

    April 18, 2014 at 5:50 pm

    @Baud: Too many Cole quotes will render this post unsuitable for this wholesome family oriented blog.

  108. 108.

    Hungry Joe

    April 18, 2014 at 5:52 pm

    @danielx: Nope — that was Mary McCarthy. I think Hellman sued her, or was in the process of suing her when she (Hellman) croaked.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    April 18, 2014 at 5:55 pm

    @jl:

    Die in a Fire

    — John Cole

  110. 110.

    Origuy

    April 18, 2014 at 5:55 pm

    We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
    H. L. Mencken

  111. 111.

    VFX Lurker

    April 18, 2014 at 5:58 pm

    “Bluntly put, there’s no chance that your doctor, dentist, or attorney is a high-school dropout. Your stockbroker, however, just might be.” — William Bernstein, “An Open Letter to Joe Nocera“

  112. 112.

    SenyorDave

    April 18, 2014 at 6:06 pm

    Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son. – Dean Wormer, from Animal House

  113. 113.

    WaterGirl

    April 18, 2014 at 6:06 pm

    If you don’t understand the question, the answer is always “no”.

    – my mom

  114. 114.

    JSinLA

    April 18, 2014 at 6:08 pm

    He was born a quart low and he’s been burning oil ever sense. – James Carville talking about a Republican senate candidate.

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    April 18, 2014 at 6:09 pm

    One of my two favorites:

    “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

    – Eleanor Roosevelt

  116. 116.

    sempronia

    April 18, 2014 at 6:15 pm

    “HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN!!”

    – e e cummings

  117. 117.

    Chris

    April 18, 2014 at 6:16 pm

    A few translated ones:

    “I was terrified that the wild boar might be attacking my father, and so I prayed to God – if he existed – to protect him and to direct the boar against my uncle instead, who believed in heaven, and therefore was more willing to die.”
    – Marcel Pagnol, describing a hunting trip from his childhood

    “Just because thirty million people made the same fuckup doesn’t mean it’s not still a fuckup.”
    – Jean Paul Belmondo, on the outcome of certain elections

    “I am not bad, thank you. But don’t worry, one of these days I shall certainly die.”
    – Charles De Gaulle disconfirming rumors of his deathly illness

  118. 118.

    C.S.

    April 18, 2014 at 6:31 pm

    Only rich people can afford to buy cheap crap.

    — My mom, unwittingly distilling the Vimes ‘Boots’ Theory of Socioeconomic Injustice.

  119. 119.

    Bob In Portland

    April 18, 2014 at 6:33 pm

    Here’s my post at the NY Times. It was an editor’s pick. What have I done wrong?

    The obvious political solution is for the creation of a loose federation so that Ukraine exists in name, but the east’s relationship with Russia remains intact. Like the US (and Russia, for that matter), Ukraine needs to ratchet back the power of the oligarchs and provide more for the average citizen to create a stable society.

    As far as economics are concerned, Ukraine can and should work deals that ensure Soviet gas and western investment in order to move it from the brink of bankruptcy.

    The problem is that Europe’s needs are different than the US’s. Soon the cracks between the US and the EU will become more visible. The Cold War no longer works for Germany.

    You can look at the last twenty years of US intervention in the Middle East as an attempt by the permanent government to use the remnants of the Cold War to gain control of Mideastern-Asian oil and gas. It’s been a failed exercise. Iran will eventually shed the artificial bindings of the American-imposed sanctions and begin selling oil and gas to Europe, either through its own pipeline through Syria and Iraq or through Russian lines. Russia will diversify its customers, adding China as a major customer along with Europe.

    The coup in Ukraine was manufactured by the US. Creating a hot spot there may provide some pleasure for the Cold Warrior cult in Foggy Bottom, but it doesn’t serve European interests. When interests diverge, so do alliances.

  120. 120.

    gogol's wife

    April 18, 2014 at 6:34 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Every Wodehouse novel is a tissue of great quotations.

  121. 121.

    Ernest Pikeman

    April 18, 2014 at 6:35 pm

    Life is hard. Everything changes. Don’t take it personally. — Buddha, paraphrased by Wes Nisker (I think).

  122. 122.

    moderateindy

    April 18, 2014 at 6:36 pm

    Time is not money, you usually have plenty to lend, and you can’t keep what you don’t spend. So be wise in your spending, and kind in your lending.

    Regarding women……

    One is too many, but there’s never enough

  123. 123.

    Emma

    April 18, 2014 at 6:36 pm

    “Some prices are just too high, no matter how much you may want the prize. The one thing you can’t trade for your heart’s desire is your heart.”

    “When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. When you desire a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.”

    Lois McMaster Bujold

  124. 124.

    gogol's wife

    April 18, 2014 at 6:41 pm

    “I only wanted to say that all ideas that have huge consequences are always simple. My whole idea is that if vicious people are bound together with each other and constitute a force, then honorable people have only to do the very same thing. It’s as simple as that.”

    Pierre Bezukhov in War and Peace

  125. 125.

    Groucho48

    April 18, 2014 at 6:41 pm

    A long quote but it is one I enjoy hitting my libertarian adversaries with from time to time:

    Personal property is the effect of Society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally. Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist, the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation therefore of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes, on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came. This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely, it will be found, that the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labour that produced it; the consequence of which is, that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence. It is perhaps impossible to proportion exactly the price of labour to the profits it produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for injustice, that were a workman to receive an increase of wages daily, he would not save it against old age nor be much the better for it in the interim. Make then Society the treasurer to guard it for him in a common fund, for it is no reason that because he might not make a good use of it for himself that another shall take it.
    Thomas Paine, “Agrarian Justice” 1797

  126. 126.

    Bobby Thomson

    April 18, 2014 at 6:46 pm

    Friendly fire isn’t.

  127. 127.

    Jennifer

    April 18, 2014 at 6:49 pm

    “The sleep of reason begets monsters.” – Goya

  128. 128.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 18, 2014 at 6:53 pm

    @NotMax:

    My grandfather (Max, age 96)

    You must be not named after him.

  129. 129.

    Matt

    April 18, 2014 at 6:53 pm

    “Procrastination is like masturbation, you’re only fucking yourself in the end…”

  130. 130.

    jl

    April 18, 2014 at 7:03 pm

    @Bob In Portland: I heard on the news that Putin blurted out at the Geneva talks that he took Crimea because that was only protection against relentless march of NATO towards Russia’s borders, against what he asserted were promises to the contrary made when old Soviet Union broke up.

    I heard some hack on a Sunday Talky show (forget whether it was McCain or some Obama admin hack, hard to tell them apart except wrt bashing Obama) that Putin’s playbook on eastern part of Ukraine was ‘exactly the same’ as for Crimea. That is bunk. If it were ‘exactly the same’, Russia would have invaded eastern Ukraine by now.

    I think Russia is playing a ‘what good for the goose is good for the gander’ game in eastern Ukraine, except with goal of keeping that part of Ukraine unstable and intervened in, and internationally monitored for as long as possible. I could be wrong though and Russia might invade, but I think that would be a GW Bush level blunder and crime. Anyway, that smoldering destabilization game would delay or prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, which seems to me Putin admitted is the issue with him and Russian government.

  131. 131.

    redbeardjim

    April 18, 2014 at 7:10 pm

    “Beware he who would deny you access to information; for in his heart he dreams himself your master.”
    — Commissioner Pravin Lal, U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri

  132. 132.

    Renie

    April 18, 2014 at 7:15 pm

    Laugh before breakfast cry before dinner.

    my mother, and it is the oddest thing i have heard (and i heard it many times)

  133. 133.

    Ruckus

    April 18, 2014 at 7:21 pm

    Always put brain in gear before opening mouth.

    Sign on dad’s toolbox.

    My time isn’t worth much, but it’s worth more than that.

    Me.

  134. 134.

    Hal

    April 18, 2014 at 7:44 pm

    “My father had taught me to be nice first, because you can always be mean later, but once you’ve been mean to someone, they won’t believe the nice anymore. So be nice, be nice, until it’s time to stop being nice, then destroy them.”
    ― Laurell K. Hamilton, A Stroke of Midnight

  135. 135.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 18, 2014 at 7:48 pm

    “This is a big fucking deal.” — VP Joe Biden

    Applicable to so many situations.

  136. 136.

    James E. Powell

    April 18, 2014 at 8:39 pm

    Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead. ― Charles Bukowski

  137. 137.

    dngnmstr

    April 18, 2014 at 8:40 pm

    The one thing you can’t trade for your heart’s desire is your heart.
    – Miles Vorkosigan – Memory

  138. 138.

    A Humble Lurker

    April 18, 2014 at 8:41 pm

    @Bob In Portland: @Chris:

    “Just because thirty million people made the same fuckup doesn’t mean it’s not still a fuckup.”
    – Jean Paul Belmondo, on the outcome of certain elections

    @jl: Uh…Russia’s already kind of invaded man. Those pro-Russia Ukrainian’s who didn’t even know where the capital building was? The dudes who had anti-tank guns?

  139. 139.

    PhilbertDesanex

    April 18, 2014 at 8:52 pm

    “If you like the Post Office and the Department of Motor Vehicles and you think they’re run well, just wait till you see Medicare, Medicaid and health care done by the government” – Arthur Laffer

  140. 140.

    AnotherBruce

    April 18, 2014 at 8:52 pm

    “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
    – Billy Blake (drink!)

  141. 141.

    jl

    April 18, 2014 at 9:52 pm

    @A Humble Lurker:

    Seems like you do not understand the difference between “Russia’s already kind of invaded” and “Russia’s invaded”. There is a difference. Maybe you should stick to Fox News.

  142. 142.

    Bob In Portland

    April 18, 2014 at 10:19 pm

    @jl: The only thing that Putin has to do to destabilize Ukraine is to wait.

  143. 143.

    sylvainsylvain

    April 18, 2014 at 10:26 pm

    “I feel sorry for people who don’t drink – when they wake up in the morning, that’s as good as their gonna feel all day”

    Frank Sinatra, as told to me by a friend as I was suffering an epic hangover…

  144. 144.

    Chris

    April 19, 2014 at 12:55 am

    @A Humble Lurker:

    … why the hell are you talking to me?

  145. 145.

    bago

    April 19, 2014 at 3:51 am

    Ehm… Seattle center.

  146. 146.

    Fort Geek

    April 19, 2014 at 4:13 am

    One favorite, by Carl Schurz:

    QUOTATION:
    The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, “My country, right or wrong.” In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

    ATTRIBUTION:
    Senator CARL SCHURZ, remarks in the Senate, February 29, 1872, The Congressional Globe, vol. 45, p. 1287. The Globe merely notes “[Manifestations of applause in the galleries]” but according to Schurz’s biographer, “The applause in the gallery was deafening.” This is “one of Schurz’s most frequently quoted replies.”—Hans L. Trefousse, Carl Schurz: A Biography, chapter 11, p. 180 (1982).

  147. 147.

    WaterGirl

    April 19, 2014 at 6:03 am

    @Ruckus:

    My time isn’t worth much, but it’s worth more than that.

    I love that!

  148. 148.

    Mothra

    April 19, 2014 at 10:15 am

    “We find a later echo of this call in the famous quote made by Dom Hélder Pessoa Câmara who was Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, Brazil that goes: “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-raushenbush/pope-francis-unfettered-capitalism_b_4449643.html

  149. 149.

    M.C. Simon Milligan

    April 19, 2014 at 11:07 am

    “Why do the gentle ones always pay the price for others’ ambitions?” – Scorpius commenting on The Three Stooges

    “There is no governor anywhere.” – Zhuangzi

  150. 150.

    Barry Rosenman

    April 19, 2014 at 12:34 pm

    Two from Anatole France:

    If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

    The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

  151. 151.

    Jebediah, RBG

    April 19, 2014 at 1:13 pm

    “My only regret is that I have boneitis.” -Steve Castle, AKA That Guy.

  152. 152.

    Jebediah, RBG

    April 19, 2014 at 3:19 pm

    @raven:

    Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it is too dark to read.

    G Marx

    One of my all-time favorites.

  153. 153.

    Radio One

    April 20, 2014 at 12:02 am

    “On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.” -Charles Babbage

  154. 154.

    Howard Beale IV

    April 20, 2014 at 12:16 am

    Live every day like it’s your last. Someday, you’ll be right.

    –Benny Hill

  155. 155.

    narya

    April 20, 2014 at 8:23 am

    My dad, when asked why we celebrate Christmas since we don’t believe in Christ (because we’re a big ol bunch of atheists):

    We celebrate Halloween and we don’t believe in ghosts; why give up a perfectly good holiday?

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