General Wisdom

Hail to the sun god He sure is a fun god Ra! Ra! Ra!

Hain't we got all the fools in town on our side? And hain't that a big enough majority in any town?

— Mark Twain, "Huckleberry Finn"

Half Moon tonight. (At least it's better than no Moon at all.)

Half-done: This is the best way to eat a kosher dill -- when it's still crunchy, light green, yet full of garlic flavor. The difference between this and the typical soggy dark green cucumber corpse is like the difference between life and death. You may find it difficult to find a good half-done kosher dill there in Seattle, so what you should do is take a cab out to the airport, fly to New York, take the JFK Express to Jay Street-Borough Hall, transfer to an uptown F, get off at East Broadway, walk north on Essex (along the park), make your first left onto Hester Street, walk about fifteen steps, turn ninety degrees left, and stop. Say to the man, "Let me have a nice half-done." Worth the trouble, wasn't it?

— Arthur Naiman, "Every Goy's Guide to Yiddish"

Hall's Laws of Politics: (1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending. (2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something fixed. (3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend military spending, and conservatives social spending in their own districts).

Hand, n.: A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Hanson's Treatment of Time: There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days before Saturday.

Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.

— Ogden Nash

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

— Oscar Levant

Happiness, n.: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Hard work may not kill you, but why take chances?

Hardware, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked.

Hark ye, Clinker, you are a most notorious offender. You stand convicted of sickness, hunger, wretchedness, and want.

— Tobias Smollet

Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark The Duke is fond of kittens He likes to take their insides out And use them for his mittens From "The Thirteen Clocks"

Hark, the Herald Tribune sings, Advertising wondrous things.

— Tom Lehrer

Harris's Lament: All the good ones are taken.

Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.

Harry is heavily into camping, and every year in the late fall, he makes us all go to Assateague, which is an island on the Atlantic Ocean famous for its wild horses. I realize that the concept of wild horses probably stirs romantic notions in many of you, but this is because you have never met any wild horses in person. In person, they are like enormous hooved rats. They amble up to your camp site, and their attitude is: "We're wild horses. We're going to eat your food, knock down your tent and poop on your shoes. We're protected by federal law, just like Richard Nixon."

— Dave Barry, "Tenting Grandpa Bob"

Hartley's First Law: You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've got something.

Hartley's Second Law: Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself.

Harvard Law: Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

"Has anyone had problems with the computer accounts?" "Yes, I don't have one." "Okay, you can send mail to one of the tutors ..."

— E. D'Azevedo, Computer Science 372

Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears.

Has your family tried 'em? POWDERMILK BISCUITS Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious! They're made from whole wheat, to give shy persons the strength to get up and do what needs to be done. POWDERMILK BISCUITS Buy them ready-made in the big blue box with the picture of the biscuit on the front, or in the brown bag with the dark stains that indicate freshness.

Hatred, n.: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Have an adequate day.

Have an adequate day.

Have people realized that the purpose of the fortune cookie program is to defuse project tensions? When did you ever see a cheerful cookie, a non-cynical, or even an informative cookie? Perhaps inadvertently, we have a channel for our aggressions. This still begs the question of whether the cookie releases the pressure or only serves to blunt the warning signs. Long live the revolution! Have a nice day.

Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell you, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the time for play?

Have you ever wondered what makes Californians so calm? Besides drugs, I mean. The answer is hot tubs. A hot tub is a redwood container filled with water that you sit in naked with members of the opposite sex, none of whom is necessarily your spouse. After a few hours in their hot tubs, Californians don't give a damn about earthquakes or mass murderers. They don't give a damn about anything , which is why they are able to produce "Laverne and Shirley" week after week.

— Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

"Have you lived here all your life?" "Oh, twice that long."

Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk?

Have you noticed the way people's intelligence capabilities decline sharply the minute they start waving guns around?

— Dr. Who

Have you reconsidered a computer career?

"He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental effort, he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable perversion."

— Mick Farren, "When Gravity Fails"

"He flung himself on his horse and rode madly off in all directions"

He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation perfectly delightful.

— Sydney Smith

He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving "normally."

— Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72"

He hadn't a single redeeming vice.

— Oscar Wilde

"He is now rising from affluence to poverty."

— Mark Twain

He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered.

He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace.

— John Mason Brown, drama critic

He thought he saw an albatross That fluttered 'round the lamp. He looked again and saw it was A penny postage stamp. "You'd best be getting home," he said, "The nights are rather damp."

He was a fiddler, and consequently a rogue.

— Jonathon Swift

"He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him insufferable."

"He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes ..."

He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry attacks democracy itself.

— William S. Paley, chairman of CBS

He who Laughs, Lasts.

"He's just a politician trying to save both his faces ..."

He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter.

"He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ..."

Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

— Redd Foxx

Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.

— Redd Foxx

Heaven, n.: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Heavy, adj.: Seduced by the chocolate side of the force.

"Heisenberg may have slept here"

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.

— Milton Friedman

Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists. Johnson's Corollary: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization.

"Hello," he lied.

— Don Carpenter quoting a Hollywood agent

Help a swallow land at Capistrano.

Help fight continental drift.

Help me, I'm a prisoner in a Fortune cookie file!

Help stamp out and abolish redundancy.

Help! I'm trapped in a PDP 11/70!

HELP! MY TYPEWRITER IS BROKEN!

— E. E. CUMMINGS

"Here at the Phone Company, we serve all kinds of people; from Presidents and Kings to the scum of the earth ..."

Here I sit, broken-hearted, All logged in, but work unstarted. First net.this and net.that, And a hot buttered bun for net.fat. The boss comes by, and I play the game, Then I turn back to net.flame. Is there a cure (I need your views), For someone trapped in net.news? I need your help, I say 'tween sobs, 'Cause I'll soon be listed in net.jobs.

Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: On a cool, dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This teaches us that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important electrical lesson. It also teaches us how an electrical circuit works. When you scuffed your feet, you picked up batches of "electrons", which are very small objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpets so they will attract dirt. The electrons travel through your bloodstream and collect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your friend's filling, then travels down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the circuit. Amazing Electronic Fact: If you scuffed your feet long enough without touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you have carpeting.

— Dave Barry, "What is Electricity?"

Here is the fact of the week, maybe even the fact of the month. According to probably reliable sources, the Coca-Cola people are experiencing severe marketing anxiety in China. The words "Coca-Cola" translate into Chinese as either (depending on the inflection) "wax-fattened mare" or "bite the wax tadpole". Bite the wax tadpole. There is a sort of rough justice, is there not? The trouble with this fact, as lovely as it is, is that it's hard to get a whole column out of it. I'd like to teach the world to bite a wax tadpole. Coke -- it's the real wax-fattened mare. Not bad, but broad satiric vistas do not open up.

— John Carrol, San Francisco Chronicle

"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like `Psychic Wins Lottery'?"

— Jay Leno

Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, then they'd be algorithms.

"Hey! Who took the cork off my lunch??!"

— W. C. Fields

Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes, nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home.

"Hi, I'm Preston A. Mantis, president of Consumers Retail Law Outlet. As you can see by my suit and the fact that I have all these books of equal height on the shelves behind me, I am a trained legal attorney. Do you have a car or a job? Do you ever walk around? If so, you probably have the makings of an excellent legal case. Although of course every case is different, I would definitely say that based on my experience and training, there's no reason why you shouldn't come out of this thing with at least a cabin cruiser. "Remember, at the Preston A. Mantis Consumers Retail Law Outlet, our motto is: 'It is very difficult to disprove certain kinds of pain.'"

— Dave Barry, "Pain and Suffering"

Hier liegt ein Mann ganz obnegleich; Im Leibe dick, an Suden reich. Wir haben ihn in das Grab gesteckt, Here lies a man with sundry flaws Weil es uns dunkt er sei verreckt. And numerous Sins upon his head; We buried him today because As far as we can tell, he's dead.

— PDQ Bach's epitaph, as requested by his cousin Betty Sue Bach and written by the local doggerel catcher; "The Definitive

Hindsight is an exact science.

Hippogriff, n.: An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises.

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Hire the morally handicapped.

"His great aim was to escape from civilization, and, as soon as he had money, he went to Southern California."

"His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice"

— Foghorn Leghorn

"His super power is to turn into a scotch terrier."

History is curious stuff You'd think by now we had enough Yet the fact remains I fear They make more of it every year.

History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history.

History, n.: Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view.

— Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"

Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.

Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it.

— Rex Reed

Home centers are designed for the do-it-yourselfer who's willing to pay higher prices for the convenience of being able to shop for lumber, hardware, and toasters all in one location. Notice I say "shop for", as opposed to "obtain". This is the major drawback of home centers: they are always out of everything except artificial Christmas trees. The home center employees have no time to reorder merchandise because they are too busy applying little price stickers to every object -- every board, washer, nail and screw -- in the entire store ... Let's say a piece in your toilet tank breaks, so you remove the broken part, take it to the home center, and ask an employee if he has a replacement. The employee, who has never is his life even seen the inside of a toilet tank, will peer at the broken part in very much the same way that a member of a primitive Amazon jungle tribe would look at an electronic calculator, and then say, "We're expecting a shipment of these sometime around the middle of next week".

— Dave Barry, "The Taming of the Screw"

Home of Doberman Propulsion Laboratories: The ultimate in watchdog weaponry.

— Chris Shaw

"Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense"

Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people.

— F. M. Hubbard

Honk if you hate bumper stickers that say "Honk if ..."

Honk if you love peace and quiet.

Honorable, adj.: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur."

— Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

Horngren's Observation: Among economists, the real world is often a special case.

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

— W. C. Fields

Horses are forbidden to eat fire hydrants in Marshalltown, Iowa.

"Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed."

— Neil Armstrong

How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all?

How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers?

How come wrong numbers are never busy?

"How do I love thee? My accumulator overflows."

How do you explain school to a higher intelligence?

— Elliot, "E.T."

How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spreads his claws, And welcomes little fishes in, With gently smiling jaws!

— Lewis Carrol, "Alice in Wonderland"

How doth the VAX's C compiler Improve its object code. And even as we speak does it Increase the system load. How patiently it seems to run And spit out error flags, While users, with frustration, all Tear their clothes to rags.

How doth the VAX's C-compiler Improve its object code. And even as we speak does it Increase the system load. How patiently it seems to run And spit out error flags, While users, with frustration, all Tear all their clothes to rags.

How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you're on.

How many hardware engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "We'll fix it in software." How many software engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "We'll document it in the manual." How many tech writers does it take to change a lightbulb? None: "The user can work it out."

"How many hors d'oeuvres you are allowed to take off a tray being carried by a waiter at a nice party?" Two, but there are ways around it, depending on the style of the hors d'oeuvre. If they're those little pastry things where you can't tell what's inside, you take one, bite off about two-thirds of it, then say: "This is cheese! I hate cheese!" Then you put the rest of it back on the tray and bite another one and go, "Darn it! Another cheese!" and so on.

— Dave Barry, "The Stuff of Etiquette"

How many seconds are there in a year? If I tell you there are 3.155 x 10^7, you won't even try to remember it. On the other hand, who could forget that, to within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury.

— Tom Duff, Bell Labs

How much does it cost to entice a dope-smoking UNIX system guru to Dayton?

— Brian Boyle, UNIX/WORLD's First Annual Salary Survey

How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.

How wonderful opera would be if there were no singers.

HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #1040 Your income tax refund cheque bounces.

HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #15 Your pet rock snaps at you.

HOW YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S GOING TO BE A ROTTEN DAY: #32: You call your answering service and they've never heard of you.

Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work.

However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional manner ... sulking and nausea.

— Tom K. Ryan

HR 3128. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation, Fiscal 1986. Martin, R-Ill., motion that the House recede from its disagreement to the Senate amendment making changes in the bill to reduce fiscal 1986 deficits. The Senate amendment was an amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the bill. The original Senate amendment was the conference agreement on the bill. Agreed to.

— Albuquerque Journal

Hug O' War I will not play at tug o' war. I'd rather play at hug o' war, Where everyone hugs Instead of tugs, Where everyone giggles And rolls on the rug, Where everyone kisses, And everyone grins, And everyone cuddles, And everyone wins.

— Shel Silverstein

Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill.

Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating table to prevent his interference, he placed a uretheral catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Hummingbirds never remember the words to songs.

"Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse."

— William Gilbert

Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to ..... to ........ uh ..............

"I am convinced that the manufacturers of carpet odor removing powder have included encapsulated time released cat urine in their products. This technology must be what prevented its distribution during my mom's reign. My carpet smells like piss, and I don't have a cat. Better go by some more."

— timw

I am more bored than you could ever possibly be. Go back to work.

"I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!"

— Paul McCracken

"I am not now, and never have been, a girlfriend of Henry Kissinger."

— Gloria Steinem

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the demigodic party.

— Dennis Ritchie

"I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it."

— English Professor

"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."

— Winston Churchill

"I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top."

— English Professor, Ohio University

I am so optimistic about beef prices that I've just leased a pot roast with an option to buy.

"I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater."

"I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering."

— Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado", Gilbert & Sullivan

"I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of the sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for you are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway."

— Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy, University of Tennessee at Knoxville

"I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me."

— Dave Barry

'I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean."

— G. K. Chesterton

"I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat."

— Will Rogers

"I bet the human brain is a kludge."

— Marvin Minsky

I brake for chezlogs!

I call them as I see them. If I can't see them, I make them up.

— Biff Barf

I can feel for her because, although I have never been an Alaskan prostitute dancing on the bar in a spangled dress, I still get very bored with washing and ironing and dishwashing and cooking day after relentless day.

— Betty MacDonald

I can read your mind, and you should be ashamed of yourself.

"I can remember when a good politician had to be 75 percent ability and 25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be true."

— Harry Truman

"I can resist anything but temptation."

"I can't complain, but sometimes I still do."

— Joe Walsh

"I can't decide whether to commit suicide or go bowling."

— Florence Henderson

I can't understand it. I can't even understand the people who can understand it.

— Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.

I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

— Fred Allen

"I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."

— Lillian Hellman

I cannot conceive that anybody will require multiplications at the rate of 40,000 or even 4,000 per hour ...

— F. H. Wales (1936)

I cannot overemphasize the importance of good grammar. What a crock. I could easily overemphasize the importance of good grammar. For example, I could say: "Bad grammar is the leading cause of slow, painful death in North America," or "Without good grammar, the United States would have lost World War II."

— Dave Barry, "An Utterly Absurd Look at Grammar"

"I cannot read the fiery letters," said Frito Bugger in a quavering voice. "No," said GoodGulf, "but I can. The letters are Elvish, of course, of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor, which I will not utter here. They are lines of a verse long known in Elven-lore: "This Ring, no other, is made by the elves, Who'd pawn their own mother to grab it themselves. Ruler of creeper, mortal, and scallop, This is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop. The Power almighty rests in this Lone Ring. The Power, alrighty, for doing your Own Thing. If broken or busted, it cannot be remade. If found, send to Sorhed (with postage prepaid)."

— Harvard Lampoon, "Bored of the Rings"

" I changed my headlights the other day. I put in strobe lights instead! Now when I drive at night, it looks like everyone else is standing still ..."

— Steven Wright

I could dance till the cows come home. On second thought, I'd rather dance with the cows till you come home.

— Groucho Marx

"I couldn't remember when I had been so disappointed. Except perhaps the time I found out that M&Ms really *do* melt in your hand ..."

— Peter Oakley

"I didn't know it was impossible when I did it."

I didn't like the play, but I saw it under adverse conditions. The curtain was up.

I do hate sums. There is no greater mistake than to call arithmetic an exact science. There are permutations and aberrations discernible to minds entirely noble like mine; subtle variations which ordinary accountants fail to discover; hidden laws of number which it requires a mind like mine to perceive. For instance, if you add a sum from the bottom up, and then again from the top down, the result is always different.

— Mrs. La Touche (19th cent.)

"I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them."

— Isaac Asimov

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use."

— Galileo Galilei

"I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should."

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"I don't believe in astrology. But then I'm an Aquarius, and Aquarians don't believe in astrology."

— James R. F. Quirk

I don't care for the Sugar Smacks commercial. I don't like the idea of a frog jumping on my Breakfast.

— Lowell, Chicago Reader 10/15/82

"I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating"

— Boss Tweed

"I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem."

— Ashleigh Brilliant

"I don't have to take this abuse from you -- I've got hundreds of people waiting to abuse me."

— Bill Murray, "Ghostbusters"

I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.

— Elvis Presley

"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."

— Elvis Presley

"I don't know what you mean by `glory,'" Alice said Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant `there's a nice knock-down argument for you!'" "But glory doesn't mean `a nice knock-down argument,'" Alice objected. "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master-- that's all."

— Lewis Carrol, "Through the Looking Glass"

"I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it."

— Clarence Darrow

"I don't mind going nowhere as long as it's an interesting path."

— Ronald Mabbitt

I don't mind what Congress does, as long as they don't do it in the streets and frighten the horses.

— Victor Hugo

"I don't object to sex before marriage, but two minutes before?!?"

"I don't think they could put him in a mental hospital. On the other hand, if he were already in, I don't think they'd let him out."

I don't want to alarm anybody, but there is an excellent chance that the Earth will be destroyed in the next several days. Congress is thinking about eliminating a federal program under which scientists broadcast signals to alien beings. This would be a large mistake. Alien beings have nuclear blaster death cannons. You cannot cut off their federal programs as if they were merely poor people ...

— Davy Barry, "THE ALIENS ARE COMING, THE ALIENS ARE COMING!"

I doubt, therefore I might be.

"I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind."

— George Bernard Shaw

"I drink to make other people interesting."

— George Jean Nathan

I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on, so I woke up from sheer boredom.

I for one cannot protest the recent M.T.A. fare hike and the accompanying promises that this would in no way improve service. For the transit system, as it now operates, has hidden advantages that can't be measured in monetary terms. Personally, I feel that it is well worth 75 cents or even $1 to have that unimpeachable excuse whenever I am late to anything: "I came by subway." Those four words have such magic in them that if Godot should someday show up and mumble them, any audience would instantly understand his long delay.

"I found out why my car was humming. It had forgotten the words."

"I gained nothing at all from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that very reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment."

— Gotama Buddha

'I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."

— Mae West

I get up each morning, gather my wits. Pick up the paper, read the obits. If I'm not there I know I'm not dead. So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.

I get up each morning, gather my wits. Pick up the paper, read the obits. If I'm not there I know I'm not dead. So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed. Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent? My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went. But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin, And think of the places my get-up has been.

— Pete Seeger

"I had to censor everything my sons watched ... even on the Mary Tyler Moore show I heard the word 'damn'!"

— Mary Lou Bax

"I hate it when my foot falls asleep during the day cause that means it's going to be up all night."

— Steven Wright

"I hate quotations."

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches.

— A. R. Longworth

"I have a very firm grasp on reality! I can reach out and strangle it any time!"

"I have come up with a sure-fire concept for a hit television show, which would be called `A Live Celebrity Gets Eaten by a Shark'."

— Dave Barry, "The Wonders of Sharks on TV"

I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth and they never believe me.

— Camillo Di Cavour

I have great faith in fools -- self confidence my friends call it.

— Edgar Allan Poe

"I have just read your lousy review buried in the back pages. You sound like a frustrated old man who never made a success, an eight-ulcer man on a four-ulcer job, and all four ulcers working. I have never met you, but if I do you'll need a new nose and plenty of beefsteak and perhaps a supporter below. Westbrook Pegler, a guttersnipe, is a gentleman compared to you. You can take that as more of an insult than as a reflection on your ancestry."

— President Harry S Truman

I have learned To spell hors d'oeuvres Which still grates on Some people's n'oeuvres.

— Warren Knox